There are certain things in politics that you demand when you are in the opposition, but give a quiet burial once you gain power.
The Henderson Brooks report on the Chinese aggression is one such. The BJP had been taunting successive Congress regimes for keeping it under wraps, even hinting that the Congress had much to hide about the disastrous episode. The BJP has been in power for 10 years now, but has avoided even talking about the report. Understandable! Only when you are in power and become privy to secrets, do you realise the perils of freeing certain genii that your predecessors had kept bottled up for everybody’s good.
Then there are demands that are raised by many, opposed by none, yet never granted. Separate state demands are often— not always—like that. Someone makes a demand and parties lend their voice, but quietly forget it once they are in power. Currently there are close to 50 demands ranging from Ahomland in Assam and Awadh in UP to Vidarbha in Maharashtra and Vindhya Pradesh in MP.
One demand that made news last month was the one for Mithilanchal, a region partly in Bihar that claims to be the land of Sita’s birth and the home of the Madhubani art, the beauty of which was discovered and told to the world by William Archer while administering earthquake relief in 1934. Incidentally, Delhi got the cradle of Indian farm science thanks to this quake—the Pusa Institute came to Delhi after its original home in Pusa, Mithila, collapsed in the quake.
Let’s rise from the ruins of the past to the politics of Mithilanchal’s present. Those demanding separation say they have a culture and language distinct from Bihar’s, and that the Centre and the state have neglected the region, leaving them to suffer regular droughts and floods. Their share of sugar production has fallen from 40 per cent of India’s to just four, and most of their youngsters are away as migrant workers.
Leaders from virtually every party have endorsed the demand, but none has taken it up for action. Rabri Devi of the opposition RJD asked for it in Bihar’s upper house last month, where BJP leaders were extolling Narendra Modi for getting the Constitution rendered in Maithili language. Rabri asked them to get Modi to grant the Maithilis a separate state, but no one asked her why she hadn’t taken it up when she, or her husband, was ruling the state.
Indeed, a CM or a state legislature can’t create a state. A bill to make a new state can be introduced only in Parliament, and only if the president asks the house. But the president should first get the concurrence of the legislature of the state whose territory is to be cut, reshaped, melded or welded. Even if the state legislature concurs, Parliament can still say no.
Tough task on paper, but easy if there is political concurrence. In the case of Mithilanchal, it appears there is. Several of those in the forefront of the Mithilanchal movement have been BJP leaders. The JD(U)’s CM Nitish Kumar and several of his party colleagues have indicated support; so has the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav. Only the Congress hasn’t said a word yet, but they don’t matter much in Bihar politics.
Yet, Mithilanchal remains a mirage. For four reasons. One, no one is sure whether it has resources to sustain itself. Two, no one gives away territory willingly. Three, there is only political concurrence, not political will. Four, Bihar has already been bifurcated once in the last two decades.
Trifurcation of territory ends in tragedy.
Read King Lear.