United States of India

This post is really focused on Indians, though it might be interesting to people from other countries in a similar situation as well ...

We all know that India is a land of immense diversity .. In fact, it's the land of extremes, temperature wise, from the snowy Himalayas to the Thar Desert, culturally, from the most conservative villages in Tamil Nadu to the "happening" pubs in Mumbai and in so may other ways ...

There are so many different religions, so many different languages, so many castes, sub-castes and all, that often I wonder if there is any common strain among all of the one billion people ?

I cant think of any - Other than the fact that both of them are Indian, what ties together a Bhil tribal from Madhya Pradesh and an Iyer from Tamil Nadu ?

However, this brings us to a critical question - Should India remain united ? Should we continue to be nation of 29 (I have lost count) states or should we give each state its own independence ...

Hailing from one of the relatively well-off states in India, Tamil Nadu, I sometimes think (rather uncharitably) that the more prosperous states are being held back by the laggards (such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and the North East) ... Would it be better off for some select groups of states to break away and form a seperate country ?

For example, lets consider three state-groups:

• Southern States (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondy, Karnataka, Andhra & Goa abbreviated as SS)
• National Capital Region states (Delhi, Punjab & Haryana - Abbreviated NCR)
• The pair of Maharastra & Gujarat (MG)
• Backward States (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh & Uttar Pradesh - BS)

Lets look at some statistics .....

GDP (2002)

• SS contributes 27.8% of India's GDP with 22.8% of the population
• NCR contributes 11.2% of India's GDP with 5.7% of the population
• MG contributes 21.9% of India's GDP with 14.1% of the population
• On the other hand, BS contributes 17.9% of India's GDP with 34.8% of the population

Population Growth (1994-97)

• The Annualized Population Growth Rate for India was 2.48%
• SS - 1.88%
• NCR - 2.87%
• MG - 2.1 %
• BS - 2.3%

GDP Per Capita (Indian Rupees - 1997)

• All-India - 16,639
• SS - 20,223
• NCR - 32,718
• MG - 25,754
• BS - 8,540

Literacy % (1991)

• All-India - 51.04%
• SS - 58.88%
• NCR - 61.42%
• MG - 63.66%
• BS - 41.31%

As the statistics prove, some state-groups are doing much better than the National Averages ... And there seem to be advantages in each state group going its own way ... For the ones that are doing well atleast.

But you know what, I dont think we should do that, thats not what our forefathers fought the British for ... They fought for a dream, an amazingly dream - Unity in Diversity. John Kenneth Galbraith once remarked that a nation such as India is improbable on paper, but it still does exist and continues to grow ! India is an amazing experiment, the like of which has never been seen before, and its too valuable to throw away on purely economic reasons. The fortunate ones have to work harder to pull our less fortunate brothers and sisters up ...

And then, obviously, there are advantages in staying together - Defence, Logistics, Collective Power in the UN and other organizations, Resource Sharing etc ...

However, it would be cool to have Chennai as the capital of a country ;-)