Class 12 Political Science Book 2 Chapter 7 Regional Aspirations Short Notes

A fast revision cut of Class 12 Political Science, Politics in India Since Independence,
Chapter 7, Regional Aspirations. Every definition, every date and every named fact the paper
asks for, with nothing in between. Read the full notes first; read this the morning of the exam.

1 All the Definitions

2 Region and the Nation: the Indian Approach

• The 1980s are the decade of rising regional aspirations for autonomy, often outside
  the framework of the Indian Union. The challenge came to the fore as the Janata experiment
  ended and there was some political stability at the centre.
• These movements frequently involved armed assertions by the people, repression by
  the government, and a collapse of the political and electoral processes. Most were long
  drawn and concluded in negotiated settlements or accords reached within the constitutional
  framework, though the journey to the accord was always tumultuous and often violent.
• The basic principle of the Indian approach: the nation shall not deny the rights of different
  regions and linguistic groups to retain their own culture. Indian nationalism sought to balance
  unity and diversity, so that the nation would not mean the negation of the region.
• The contrast to remember: many European countries saw cultural diversity as a threat
  to the nation. India instead adopted a democratic approach, and democracy allows the political
  expression of regional aspirations and does not look upon them as anti-national.
• Tensions run both ways: sometimes concern for national unity overshadows regional needs;
  at other times concern for the region alone blinds us to the larger needs of the nation.

3 Areas of Tension: the Early Picture

• Immediately after Independence: Partition, displacement, integration of Princely States,
  reorganisation of states. Many observers, in India and abroad, predicted that India as one
  unified country cannot last long.
• Jammu and Kashmir was not only an India-Pakistan conflict; more than that, it was a
  question of the political aspirations of the people of the Kashmir valley.
• In the north-east, Nagaland and then Mizoram saw strong movements demanding
  separation from India. In the south, some groups from the Dravid movement briefly toyed with
  the idea of a separate country.
• Mass agitations for linguistic States affected the regions that are today Andhra Pradesh,
  Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Anti-Hindi protests in southern India, particularly Tamil
  Nadu; pro-Hindi agitations in the north.
• From the late 1950s, Punjabi speakers agitated for a separate State: Punjab and Haryana were
  created in 1966. Later came Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand. The challenge of
  diversity was met by redrawing the internal boundaries of the country.

4 Jammu and Kashmir: the Three Regions

Region	Land	People, as the chapter describes them
Jammu	A mix of foothills and plains	Predominantly Hindus; Muslims, Sikhs and people of other denominations also reside
Kashmir	Mainly comprises the Kashmir valley	Mostly Kashmiri Muslims, the remaining being Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and others
Ladakh	Mainly mountainous	Very little population, almost equally divided between Buddhists and Muslims

The chapter’s own opening for this section: Jammu and Kashmir had a special status
under Article 370, and in spite of it the State experienced violence, cross border terrorism and
political instability with internal and external ramifications. This resulted in the loss of many
lives including innocent civilians, security personnel and militants, and there was also a
large scale displacement of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley.

5 Roots of the Problem, 1947 to 1948

• Before 1947 J&K was a Princely State. Its ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, wanted
  neither India nor Pakistan but an independent status for his state.
• Pakistani leaders thought Kashmir ‘belonged’ to Pakistan because the majority
  population was Muslim. The people of the state did not see it that way: they thought of themselves
  as Kashmiris above all, which is Kashmiriyat.
• The popular movement was led by Sheikh Abdullah of the National Conference, which wanted
  to get rid of the Maharaja but was against joining Pakistan. The NC was a secular
  organisation with a long association with the Congress, and Sheikh Abdullah was a
  personal friend of leading nationalist leaders including Nehru.
• October 1947: Pakistan sent tribal infiltrators to capture Kashmir. This forced the
  Maharaja to ask for Indian military help. India drove them back from the valley, but only after
  the Maharaja had signed the ‘Instrument of Accession’.
• Pakistan continued to control a sizeable part of the state, so the issue went to the United
  Nations Organisation.

In the meanwhile, in March 1948, Sheikh Abdullah took over as Prime Minister of the
State of J&K, while India agreed to grant it provisional autonomy under Article 370. The
head of the government in the State was then called Prime Minister.

6 The Two Opposite Reactions to the Special Status

Who	What they believed
A section of people outside J&K	That the special status conferred by Article 370 did not allow full integration of the State with India, and that Article 370 be revoked and J&K treated like any other state of India
Another section, mostly Kashmiris	That the autonomy conferred by Article 370 was not enough. They had at least three major grievances

Externally: Pakistan has always claimed that the Kashmir valley should be part of Pakistan;
it sponsored the tribal invasion of 1947, as a consequence of which one part of the State came under
Pakistani control, which the chapter calls POJK. Ever since 1947 Kashmir has remained a major
issue of conflict between India and Pakistan.

7 Jammu and Kashmir: the Full Timeline

Year	What happened
March 1948	Sheikh Abdullah becomes Prime Minister of the State; provisional autonomy under Article 370
1953	Sheikh Abdullah dismissed and kept in detention for a number of years, after a growing difference with the central government over Kashmir’s status; he had begun major land reforms
1953-1974	The Congress exercises influence on State politics; a truncated National Conference, minus Sheikh Abdullah, later merges with the Congress. Serious allegations of malpractices and rigging in various elections
1965	The Constitution of J&K changed: the Prime Minister of the state is designated Chief Minister. Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq of the INC becomes the first Chief Minister
1974	Indira Gandhi reaches an agreement with Sheikh Abdullah; he becomes Chief Minister and revives the National Conference
1977	The revived National Conference is elected with a majority in the assembly elections
1982	Sheikh Abdullah dies; leadership passes to his son Farooq Abdullah, who becomes Chief Minister but is soon dismissed by the Governor; a breakaway NC faction rules briefly
1986	The National Conference agrees to an electoral alliance with the Congress, strengthening the feeling that the Centre was intervening in the State’s politics
1987	Assembly election. Official results show a massive victory for the NC-Congress alliance and Farooq Abdullah returns as CM, but it is widely believed the entire election process was rigged
By 1989	The State is in the grip of a militant movement mobilised around the cause of a separate Kashmiri nation; insurgents get moral, material and military support from Pakistan
From 1990	President’s rule for a number of years, effectively under the control of the armed forces; extraordinary violence at the hands of the insurgents and through army action
1996	Assembly elections held; the NC under Farooq Abdullah comes to power with a demand for regional autonomy for J&K
2002	The NC fails to win a majority; a coalition of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Congress takes over
2002-2008	Mufti Mohammed heads the government for the first three years, succeeded by Ghulam Nabi Azad of the INC, who cannot complete the term: President’s rule, July 2008
Nov-Dec 2008	Election held; an NC-INC coalition headed by Omar Abdullah comes to power in 2009. Disturbances continue, led by the Hurriyat Conference
2014	Election records the highest voters’ turnout in 25 years; a coalition led by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed of the PDP comes to power with the BJP as partner
April 2016	After Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s death, his daughter Mahbooba Mufti becomes the first woman Chief Minister of the state. Major acts of terrorism and mounting external and internal tensions during her tenure
June 2018	President’s rule imposed after the BJP withdraws support to the Mufti government
5 August 2019	Article 370 abolished by the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019; the state constituted into two Union Territories, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh

The chapter closes the section by calling J&K and Ladakh living examples of plural society in
India: not only are there diversities of all kind, religious, cultural, linguistic, ethnic and
tribal, but there are also divergent political and developmental aspirations, which have
been sought to be achieved by the latest Act.

8 The Dravidian Movement (the box, and it is examinable)

• The slogan: ‘Vadakku Vaazhgiradhu; Therkku Thaeikiradhu’, translated in the
  box as the north thrives even as the south decays.
• One of the first regional movements in Indian politics, and one of India’s most
  effective. Though some sections had ambitions of creating a Dravida nation, the movement
  did not take to arms: it used democratic means like public debates and the electoral
  platform, and the strategy paid off.
• Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) was formed under E.V. Ramasami ‘Periyar’. It
  strongly opposed the Brahmins’ dominance and affirmed regional pride against the
  political, economic and cultural domination of the North.
• The movement initially spoke for the whole of south India; lack of support from other States
  limited it to Tamil Nadu.
• The DK split, and the political legacy passed to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

• 1967: sustained political agitations bring the DMK to power in the Assembly elections.
  Dravidian parties have dominated Tamil Nadu politics since.
• After the death of C. Annadurai the DMK split, and the influence of Dravidian parties
  actually increased. Two parties claimed the Dravidian legacy: the DMK and the All
  India Anna DMK (AIADMK), which have dominated Tamil Nadu politics for the last four decades.
  Since 1996, one of them has been part of the ruling coalition at the Centre.
• Parties that emerged in the 1990s: MDMK (Marumalarchchi Dravida Munnetra
  Kazhagam), PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi), DMDK (Desiya Murpokku Dravidar Kazhagam). All
  have kept alive the issue of regional pride.
• The conclusion to quote: regional politics in Tamil Nadu, initially seen as a threat to
  Indian nationalism, is a good example of the compatibility of regionalism and nationalism.

9 Punjab: from the Punjabi Suba to the Accord

• Punjab’s social composition changed first with Partition and later with the carving
  out of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
• While the rest of the country was reorganised on linguistic lines in the 1950s, Punjab had to
  wait till 1966. The Akali Dal, formed in 1920 as the political wing of the Sikhs, had led
  the movement for a ‘Punjabi suba’. The Sikhs were now a majority in the truncated
  State.
• The Akalis came to power in 1967 and again in 1977, both times in coalition
  governments.

• After the Akali government was dismissed in 1980, the Akali Dal launched a movement on the
  distribution of water between Punjab and its neighbouring States, and a section of religious
  leaders raised the question of autonomous Sikh identity.
• Cycle of violence: leadership passed from the moderate Akalis to extremist
  elements and took the form of armed insurgency. Militants made their headquarters inside
  the Golden Temple in Amritsar and turned it into an armed fortress.
• June 1984, Operation Blue Star: the government could successfully flush out the
  militants, but it also damaged the historic temple and deeply hurt the sentiments of
  the Sikhs. A large proportion of Sikhs in India and abroad saw it as an attack on their
  faith, and this gave further impetus to militant and extremist groups.
• 31 October 1984: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated outside her
  residence by her bodyguards. Both assassins were Sikhs and wanted to take revenge for Operation
  Blue Star.
• Violence broke out against the Sikh community in Delhi and many parts of northern India
  and continued for almost a week. More than two thousand Sikhs were killed in the
  national capital, the worst affected area; hundreds were killed elsewhere, especially in
  places like Kanpur, Bokaro and Chas. Many Sikh families lost their male members and suffered
  great emotional and heavy financial loss.
• What hurt the Sikhs most, in the chapter’s own words: that the government took a
  long time in restoring normalcy and that the perpetrators were not effectively
  punished.
• 2005: twenty years later, speaking in Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
  expressed regret over these killings and apologised to the nation for the anti-Sikh
  violence.

• Peace did not come easily or immediately. The cycle of violence continued nearly for a
  decade; militancy and counter insurgency violence led to excesses by the police and violations
  of human rights; politically it led to the fragmentation of the Akali Dal;
  President’s rule was imposed and the normal electoral and political process was
  suspended.
• 1992 elections: only 24 per cent of the electors turned out to vote.
• Militancy was eventually eradicated by the security forces, but the losses to the people
  of Punjab, Sikhs and Hindus alike, were enormous. Peace returned by the middle of the
  1990s.
• 1997: the alliance of Akali Dal (Badal) and the BJP scored a major victory in the
  first normal elections in the post-militancy era. The State is once again preoccupied with
  economic development and social change, and though religious identities continue to be important,
  politics has gradually moved back along secular lines.

10 The North-East: the Facts and the Three Issues

• The region now consists of eight States. The “seven sisters” are
  Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram and Meghalaya. Sikkim,
  added to the list, is referred to as the ‘Brother’ to those seven states.
• Only 4 per cent of the country’s population, but about twice as much share of
  its area. A small corridor of about 22 kilometers connects the region to the rest of the
  country; otherwise it borders China, Myanmar and Bangladesh and serves as India’s
  gateway to South East Asia.
• Tripura, Manipur and the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya were erstwhile Princely States
  which merged with India after Independence.
• Creation dates: Nagaland 1963; Manipur, Tripura and Meghalaya 1972; Mizoram
  and Arunachal Pradesh 1987. (On Mizoram, see the note at the top of this page.)
• The Partition of 1947 reduced the North-East to a land locked region and affected
  its economy; cut off from the rest of India it suffered neglect in developmental terms and
  its politics too remained insulated. Most States underwent major demographic changes
  due to the influx of migrants from neighbouring States and countries.
• Three issues dominate the politics of the North-East: demands for autonomy,
  movements for secession, and opposition to ‘outsiders’. Major initiatives
  on the first in the 1970s set the stage for dramatic developments on the second and third in
  the 1980s.

11 Secession: Mizoram and Nagaland Compared

	Mizoram	Nagaland
Start	Mizo Hills made an autonomous district within Assam after independence; some Mizos believed they were never a part of British India	Started much earlier: a section of the Nagas declared independence in 1951
Leader	Laldenga, Mizo National Front (MNF)	Angami Zapu Phizo, Naga National Council
Trigger	The Assam government’s failure to respond adequately to the great famine of 1959 in the Mizo hills	Not given as a single event; a principled position on sovereignty
Armed phase	1966 onward: a two decade battle; guerilla war, support from the Pakistani government, shelter in the then East Pakistan; repressive measures of which the common people were the victims, and at one point even Air Force was used	A period of violent insurgency; Phizo turned down many offers of negotiated settlement
Outcome	1986 peace agreement between Rajiv Gandhi and Laldenga: Mizoram granted full-fledged statehood with special powers, the MNF gave up the secessionist struggle, Laldenga became Chief Minister. Mizoram is today one of the most peaceful places in the region, with big strides in literacy and development	A section of the Nagas signed an agreement with the government of India, but this was not acceptable to other rebels. The problem still awaits a final resolution

12 Movements Against ‘Outsiders’: the Assam Movement

• Large scale migration pitted ‘local’ communities against people seen as
  ‘outsiders’ or migrants. These latecomers, either from India or abroad,
  are seen as encroachers on scarce resources like land and potential competitors to
  employment opportunities and political power.
• The Assam Movement, 1979 to 1985, is the best example. The Assamese suspected there were
  huge numbers of illegal Bengali Muslim settlers from Bangladesh, and felt that unless these
  foreign nationals were detected and deported they would reduce the indigenous Assamese
  into a minority.
• The economic half: widespread poverty and unemployment in Assam despite natural
  resources like oil, tea and coal, which it was felt were drained out of the State without any
  commensurate benefit to the people.
• 1979: the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), a students’ group not
  affiliated to any party, led an anti-foreigner movement, against illegal migrations,
  against the domination of Bengalis and other outsiders, and against a faulty voters’
  register that included the names of lakhs of immigrants. It demanded that all outsiders
  who had entered the State after 1951 be sent back.
• The agitation followed many novel methods and mobilised all sections of Assamese
  people, but also involved tragic and violent incidents with loss of property and human
  lives, and tried to blockade the movement of trains and the supply of oil from Assam to
  refineries in Bihar.
• The Assam accord, 1985. After six years of turmoil, the Rajiv Gandhi-led government
  negotiated with the AASU leaders. Those foreigners who migrated into Assam during and after the
  Bangladesh war and since were to be identified and deported.
• The AASU and the Asom Gana Sangram Parishad then organised themselves as a regional
  political party, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which came to power in 1985 promising to
  resolve the foreign national problem and to build a ‘Golden Assam’.
• The line that carries the marks: the accord brought peace and changed the face of
  politics in Assam, but it did not solve the problem of immigration. The issue is particularly
  acute in Tripura, where the original inhabitants have been reduced to being a minority in
  their own land, and the same feeling informs hostility to Chakma refugees in Mizoram and
  Arunachal Pradesh.

13 Sikkim’s Merger and Goa’s Liberation

14 Accommodation and National Integration: the Five Lessons

Even after 75 years of independence, some issues of national integration are not fully
resolved. Regional aspirations ranging from demands of statehood and economic development to
autonomy and separation keep coming up, and the period since 1980 accentuated these tensions and
tested the capacity of democratic politics to accommodate them.

	Lesson	The examples your book gives
1	Regional aspirations are very much a part of democratic politics; their expression is not an aberration or an abnormal phenomenon. Nation building is an ongoing process	United Kingdom: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. Spain: the Basques. Sri Lanka: the Tamils
2	The best way to respond is through democratic negotiations rather than suppression	The eighties: militancy in Punjab, problems in the North-East, students agitating in Assam, the Kashmir valley on the boil. Not treated as simple law and order problems. Mizoram shows how political settlement resolves separatism effectively
3	The significance of power sharing. A formal democratic structure is not sufficient	Regional groups and parties need a share in power at the State level, and the regions must share in deciding the destiny of the nation; otherwise injustice and alienation can spread
4	Regional imbalance in economic development contributes to the feeling of regional discrimination	Regional imbalance is a fact of India’s development experience; if some states remain poor and others develop rapidly it leads to regional imbalances and inter-regional migrations
5	The farsightedness of the makers of our Constitution; the federal system is a flexible arrangement	Most states have equal powers, but there are special provisions for states like J&K and those in the North-East, though Article 370 was abrogated in August 2019. The Sixth Schedule allows tribes complete autonomy over practices and customary laws

The closing sentence to learn: what distinguishes India is that its constitutional framework
is much more flexible and accommodative, so regional aspirations are not encouraged to
espouse separatism, and politics in India has succeeded in accepting regionalism as part and
parcel of democratic politics.

15 The Profile Boxes, in One Place

Person	What your book says
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (1905-1982)	Leader of J&K; proponent of autonomy and secularism; led the popular struggle against princely rule; opposed to Pakistan due to its non-secular character; leader of the National Conference; Prime Minister of J&K immediately after its accession in 1947; dismissed and jailed 1953 to 1964 and again 1965 to 1968; became Chief Minister after an agreement with Indira Gandhi in 1974
E.V. Ramasami Naicker (1879-1973)	Known as Periyar, the respected; strong supporter of atheism; famous for his anti-caste struggle and rediscovery of Dravidian identity; initially a worker of the Congress party; started the self-respect movement (1925); led the anti-Brahmin movement; worked for the Justice party and later founded Dravidar Kazhagam; opposed to Hindi and domination of north India; propounded the thesis that north Indians and Brahmins are Aryans
Master Tara Singh (1885-1967)	Prominent Sikh religious and political leader; one of the early leaders of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC); leader of the Akali movement; supporter of the freedom movement but opposed to Congress’ policy of negotiating only with the Muslims; after Independence the senior most advocate of the formation of a separate Punjab State
Sant Harchand Singh Longowal (1932-1985)	Sikh political and religious leader; began his political career in the mid-sixties as an Akali leader; became president of Akali Dal in 1980; reached an agreement with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on key demands of the Akalis; assassinated by unidentified Sikh youth
Laldenga (1937-1990)	Founder and leader of the Mizo National Front; turned into a rebel after the experience of the famine in 1959; led an armed struggle against India for two decades; reached a settlement and signed an agreement with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1986; became the chief minister of the newly created State of Mizoram
Angami Zapu Phizo (1904-1990)	Leader of the movement for independent Nagaland; president of Naga National Council; began an armed struggle against the Indian state; went ‘underground’, stayed in Pakistan and spent the last three decades of his life in exile in UK
Kazi Lhendup Dorji Khangsarpa (1904)	Leader of the democracy movement in Sikkim; founder of Sikkim Praja Mandal and later leader of the Sikkim State Congress; in 1962 founded the Sikkim National Congress; after an electoral victory he led the movement for integration of Sikkim with India; after integration the Sikkim Congress merged with the Indian National Congress
Rajiv Gandhi (1944-1991)	Prime Minister of India between 1984 and 1989; son of Indira Gandhi; joined active politics after 1980; reached agreements with militants in Punjab, Mizoram and the students’ union in Assam; pressed for a more open economy and computer technology; sent an Indian Army contingent on the request of the Sri Lankan government to sort out the Sinhala-Tamil conflict; assassinated by a suspected LTTE suicide bomber

16 The Film Box and the Margin Questions

17 The Chapter in Fourteen Lines

1. The 1980s saw rising regional aspirations for autonomy, often outside the framework of the
   Indian Union, and mostly ending in negotiated accords.
2. The Indian approach never treated cultural diversity as a threat: democracy allows the political
   expression of regional aspirations and does not call them anti-national.
3. J&K has three regions, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, and therefore many aspirations, not
   one.
4. Hari Singh wanted independence, signed the Instrument of Accession in October 1947, and Article
   370 gave the State provisional autonomy in March 1948.
5. Sheikh Abdullah was Prime Minister from 1948, dismissed in 1953, Chief Minister again after the
   1974 agreement with Indira Gandhi.
6. The special status drew two opposite reactions: revoke it, or that it was never enough, the
   latter with three grievances and the demand for Greater State Autonomy.
7. The 1987 election was widely believed to be rigged; by 1989 the State was in the grip of a
   militant movement supported from Pakistan.
8. On 5 August 2019 Article 370 was abolished by the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019
   and the state became two Union Territories, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
9. The Dravidian movement wanted regional pride, not arms, and became the proof that regionalism
   and nationalism are compatible.
10. Punjab ran from the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of 1973 through Operation Blue Star, the
    assassination of Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh violence of 1984, to the Punjab Accord of July 1985
    and peace by the middle of the 1990s.
11. The North-East has three issues: autonomy, secession, and opposition to outsiders.
12. Mizoram ended in the 1986 accord and statehood; Nagaland, which started in 1951, still awaits a
    final resolution.
13. The Assam Movement of 1979 to 1985 combined cultural pride with economic backwardness; the 1985
    accord brought peace but did not solve immigration.
14. Sikkim joined by popular vote as the 22nd State; Goa was liberated in 1961, chose in 1967 to stay
    out of Maharashtra, and became a State in 1987. India’s flexible constitutional framework is
    what keeps regional aspirations from becoming separatism.