THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF INDIA region, biogeography and language

A fossil fuel free society implies smaller size of regions and communities federated with each other. What follows is a discussion on the possible basis of which these areas could be defined or demarcated as societies functioning independent of fossil fuels.

Federalism

In the history of ‘equality amongst people’ as a concept, the political organisation has often been visualized as federal. Federalism means that the constituent units come together to form an organisation based on equality. Each unit itself can be a federation of smaller units such as a village community or an urban locality. Usually the resources of a federal structure are raised through contributions from constituent units. The polity within the unit may be representative or a direct democracy.

The issues of federal concern are generally those that require the collective cooperation of its constituent units, and centralized implementation. Some of these are communication, conflict resolution, trade regulation, vigilance on trade routes for smooth functioning etc. There are tried, tested and very effective mechanisms already in place.   The pressing issues of present times are disarmament and decommissioning of nuclear weapons; nuclear energy plants; nuclear waste; environmental challenges; disasters due to natural phenomenon; sporadic outbursts of highly communicable diseases; food security; disintegration of the social fabric in society etc.

Historically there are several examples of federal efforts. The federation of American Indian tribes has, it is claimed, inspired the US Federation.  Again, the 1924 constitution of USSR (the later version strengthened the centre under Stalin’s leadership) has been considered as a model federal document. On the eve of the independence of India a federal constitution was proposed with limited powers to the centre; but it was not acceptable to the Indian bourgeoisie. They preferred a strong unitary form and opted for the partition of India. Presently there are many “federalists” across the globe espousing a school of thought in the nature of a few thousand small independent states on the planet.

Not very long ago - in the pre-colonial and pre industrial era – there existed functioning tribal or ethnic societies with clear cut traditions of governance. Although these have come under some form of a larger entity- the state; for the purpose of resolving many internal conflicts, they seldom take recourse to laws laid down by the constitution.

All over the world, demand for smaller states or secessionist demands are based on ‘identity politics’. Language often referred to as ‘dialect’ and geographic or ecological criteria form the basis for such demands. Language is not simply a tool for communication but is a central and defining feature of identity as all human thoughts are conceptualised through language and all human values are pronounced and perceived through it. Very often the emphasis on ecological or bio-geographical regions is reflected in the daily practices of the people and their language. In the world today, out of 6912 living languages about 2500 are endangered to varied degrees and 200 have already become extinct. In India, of the 415 living languages, 196 are endangered and 9 have become extinct. Many of these endangered languages belong to the north-east, the tribal belts of West Bengal and Orissa and to Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand.

A Fossil Fuel Free India

A fossil fuel free India would consist of about a hundred or so federated units, so delineated, on the basis of language and biogeography.  To propose such an idea; it is required we evaluate the short comings in the existing situation.

During colonial rule, the political regions emerged as British power expanded. These regions emerged around Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and were known as presidencies. They covered multilingual regions. Thus, the Bombay presidency had Gujarati, Marathi and Kannada speaking regions and the Madras presidency had Tamil, Telugu and Kannada speaking regions. After independence, the demand for coherent linguistic regions gained strength, some contradictory, and at times, completely tangential propositions. On one hand the demand for large Telugu, Kannada and Marathi linguistic states became powerful while some smaller regions showed a preference for smaller states. The Nagas on the extreme North Eastern border wanted to be independent of the Indian state. Even after the formation of states on linguistic basis, peoples’ demand for further delineation based for regional criteria continued; ultimately resulting in the formation of Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhatisgarh. These have further fuelled demands for Bodoland, Gorkhaland, Vidarbh, Telengana etc., which continue to this day.

There is no doubt that these movements will grow. It is entirely possible that more states will be created. However, if these small states are created today, they will go the same way as Jharkhand and Chattisgarh have gone. The mineral rich states of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh are attracting rapacious capitalist sharks. The ruling politicians in these states are not equipped to deal with them and are “selling” the state’s resources cheap. This has led to enormous exploitation of natural and human resources. The environment and the ordinary citizens are bearing the brunt and strife is amply evident. The same will most likely happen if demands for smaller states are given into through creation of more states without due perceptive forethought.

One of the reasons for the present situation in the newly created states is the basis on which such demands were made. The rationale being, larger states like Bihar or Madhya Pradesh were benefiting from the resources of these mineral rich areas; that there was uneven development; and these regions were treated as internal colonies. Essentially it meant the local ruling groups wanted monopoly control over this wealth. Very often the local big business house aided them. For example, the Tatas supported the Jharkhand movement. However, Issues such as language, culture, exploitation of local people and natural resources, receded into the background once the new states were formed.

It may be prudent to note that the basis of these demands ought to be in the interest of people and ecology. The demands for independent administrative identities- such as statehood - are useful only if they are achieved along with socialist or libertarian demands of freedom from exploitation, equality and rational use of resources. Specifically, the demarcation of the boundaries of new regions would be most ideal if based on biogeography and language.

Biogeography

Biogeography deals with the geographical distribution of plants and animals. India has 10 clearly distinguished biogeographical areas. They are:

1. Trans Himalayan Regions 2. Himalayan Region  3. Desert  4. Semiarid  Region 5. Western Ghats 6.  Deccan Plateau. 7. Gangetic Plain 8. North East  India 9. Sea Coasts 10. Islands.

There may be further subdivisions within these areas on the basis of a smaller ecosystem. Thus, Western Ghats has the Konkan strip of Maharashtra, Goa: Karavali in Karnataka; and the Nilgiri Biosphere at the tri-junction of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamilnadu. Again, Deccan plateau which is a huge land mass has been divided into several smaller sub divisions.

A biogeographic region defines its flora, fauna and human society. Thus it also defines a people, a speech community or if you like a common identity. They are unique in the food they grow and consume; houses and architecture; habits; cultural and religious practices; clothing; language.

Language, Standard Language and Biogeography

In the popular terminology, standard language is just called language and other languages are called dialects. Linguists today do not use the term dialect as it connotes hierarchy. For them all 'dialects' are languages. Natural languages have a sharply defined geographic boundary and these also tend to coincide with ecological or biogeographical regions. On the other hand, standard language is a political entity and has an elastic boundary.

The example of Hindi can be used to illustrate this. Hindi represents a set of about 30 languages. These 30 languages are not dialects of Hindi. Standard Hindi is a recent phenomenon dating back to late 19th century only. Whereas, many of the other languages enjoy a much older literary history. Acharya Kishori Das Bajpai referred to Hindi as a term that denotes a commonwealth of languages united by geographic continuity, a common script that is ‘nagari’ and the use of ‘ka’ pratyay (uska, uske liye). Some of these languages are: Maithili, Magahi, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Braj, Khari Boli, Kumaoni, Garhwali, Dogri, Mewati, Mewari, Marwadi, Bundelkhandi, Baghelkhandi, Malwi, Nimari, Chhatisgarhi and so on. These languages have a sharply defined boundary and indeed there are regions which are identified by these names: Mithila, Magadh, Bhojpur, Awadh, Brajbhumi, Kumaoun, Garhwal, Mewat, Mewar, Marwar, Bundlekhand, Baghelkahand, Malwa, Nimar and Chhatisgarh. Examples from other regions would be Santhali, Gondi, and Tulu etc. As mentioned above, these are also biogeographic /ecologically homogeneous regions.

Standard Language

Standard language on the other hand is a historical and political power entity. That is why; it is sometimes called the language with a gun. It can stretch or be imposed on widely different regions. Such is the case of Standard Hindi and English. Children in many 'Hindi' regions fail in their Hindi examination because they make ‘mistakes’ in the use of standard Hindi as used in school. People from many regions are looked down because they cannot speak ‘proper’ Hindi. Sometimes people from these regions themselves say that they do not speak proper Hindi. Standard Hindi has made people second-class citizens in their own land. The irony is that standard Hindi itself came into being as recently as the mid 19th century in Western Uttar Pradesh! Whereas Braj was a link language for religious groups throughout the mediaeval period in North India! Other standard Indian languages are Assamese, Oriya, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, and Punjabi.  A few other languages like Maithili, Chhatisgarhi, Konkani and some languages in the North East can also claim this kind of status.

Link Language

Link language is a language, which spreads over a well defined large biogeographic region due to trade, travel, religious and cultural communication. As opposed to the standard language it spreads on its own democratically and is not imposed from above.

Dakhni can be taken as an example. Dakhni is the lingua franca of the Deccan. The Deccan is roughly the area between the Narmada and Tungabhadra or Krishna. On the east it is bound by the Mahanadi and on the west by the Western Ghats. It is the great Southern Indian plateau. Politically it comprises of Vidarbha, Marathwada and Khandesh regions of Maharashtra, Telangana and Rayalseema regions of Andhra Pradesh, and the Hyderabad Karnataka and Northern Bayaluseeme regions of Karnataka. The Deccan Plateau as a biogeographic region, as such, is a bigger entity. In the present context it is limited by the spread of Dakhni language.

Dakhni is the common lingua franca of all Muslims in the Deccan region, and is the link language of the region and is understood by almost all people and spoken as a bilingual language by most urban dwellers. Dakhni has borrowed vocabulary from Marathi, Kannada and Telugu in varying quantities in the different sub regions. These languages in turn have borrowed phrases and words from Dakhni in the Deccan region.

Another example of a link language is Nagpuria or Sadan spoken in Chhota Nagpur/ Jharkhand region. Although linguistically it is quite different from any of the tribal languages spoken in the region it is understood by all. And like Dakhni there is a mutual exchange of vocabulary in different sub regions of the area. The actual Jharkhand region is much bigger than the present Jharkhand state. In fact the boundary of Jharkhand region can be defined by the extent of the spread of Nagpuria language.

The Federal States

The basis for the federal states will be linguistic and biogeographic. That is, regions like Mithila, Malwa etc. mentioned above. In the fifties, when the idea of linguistic states was being discussed, Rahul Sanskrityayan had suggested 30 states in the Hindi region on the basis of these 30 languages. He called them Janapad.  Here the biogeographic angle is being added to it.

It is estimated that there are about 100 such regions in India. The logic for this number is that there are about 600 districts in India. Now a few of these districts (typically 4-6) form a larger region called a commissionary in the Indian administration. Very often the boundaries of these commissionaries coincide with biogeographic/linguistic regions that are being referred here. Many demands for small states even today have regions as defined above. Officially there is already a demand for 10 such states pending with the central government. They are Telengana, Vidarbh, Gorkhaland, Mithilanchal, Saurashtra, Coorg, Bundelkhand, Bhojpur, Harit Pradesh or Kisan Pradesh (Western U. P.) and Greater Cooch Behar (W. Bengal and Assam).

It is not difficult to identify these 100 odd biogeographic-linguistic regions. Just a while ago, more than 20 of these have been named. Most speakers of these languages know the boundaries of their language, which have existed, more or less unchanged, for a fairly long time. In many cases there is a demand for a separate state justifying this logic. It is ofcourse up to the people to want to have a separate state or be assimilated with neighbouring regions.

Larger regions can be regional federal entities like The Deccan and The Konkan. These would be large biogeographic regions linked by a link language like the Dakhni, Konkani respectively. So, while there can be states like Goa, all the Konkani people, spread over Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kasargod in Kerala in the Western Ghats can also be united under the Federal Republic of Konkan! Similarly specific regions in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh can be united under The Federal Republic of Deccan. However, as has been said above, the logic of a larger local region based on a link language may not hold true for the whole country.

Nor will there necessarily be a demand for them. As of now, only Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh are united by a link language, where different regions of these states have different languages. However only in Chhatisgarh the language Chhatisgarhi has become the official language of the state. In Jharkhand Hindi is still the official language of the state. Ironically a very small part of the urban population can speak this language. It is akin to Pakistan, where practically no one speaks Urdu and yet Urdu is the national language.

The demands for these identities can give good results only if they are achieved along with socialist or libertarian demands of freedom from exploitation, equality and rational use of resources. Thus it is an issue for the future polity of a fossil fuel free society.

The future state will certainly be small; with limited power; and federated with other states. Even this may be a transitory phenomenon. In the final analysis, who needs a state to rule over us? As Marx said, ‘Mankind is moving from a realm of necessity to a realm of freedom.’ Hence, the real long term future is in self managed communities organized on the basis of, what the anarchists call, 'a free association of free people’!

See also

http://t-vijayendra.blogspot.com/2011/04/references-and-resources.html