The States Reorganisation Commission and the 1956 reorganisation

Detail

1. The map before 1956: Part A, B, C and D states

• Part A, B, C and D states were the four classes of states in the original Constitution (1950). Each class came from a different colonial-era unit and had a different kind of government.
• Part A: the former governors' provinces of British India, such as Bombay, Madras and the United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh). Each had an elected legislature and a Governor.
• Part B: the former princely states, and the unions of princely states, headed by a Rajpramukh (usually a former ruler acting as the head of a state union). Jammu and Kashmir was also in Part B. Examples: Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore-Cochin, Saurashtra.
• Part C: the former chief commissioners' provinces and some princely states. These were smaller units run more directly by the Centre. Examples: Delhi, Coorg, Ajmer.

• Part D: only the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

• Why this map caused trouble:

• Its boundaries came from British administrative convenience and the princes' old territories. They did not follow language or culture.
• In 1953 the Telugu-speaking areas were taken out of Madras to form Andhra state. This came after Potti Sriramulu died in December 1952 while on a fast for a separate Andhra state.
• Andhra's creation set off similar demands in other parts of the country, so the Centre had to find one rule for the whole map.

2. The States Reorganisation Commission (SRC), 1953-55

• States Reorganisation Commission: a three-member body set up by the Union government to study how state boundaries should be redrawn.
• Appointed in December 1953.
• Chairman: Justice Fazl Ali. Members: K.M. Panikkar and H.N. Kunzru [5].

• It reported on 30 September 1955 [5].

• Main recommendation: state boundaries should follow the boundaries of the languages people speak. NCERT exercise 8 asks about this point.

• It rejected 'one language, one state'.
• Language was an important basis for a state, but not the only one.

• A language group could be split across two states, and one state could have more than one language, if other factors required it.

• The four factors it weighed:

Factor	What it means in simple words
Unity and security of India	No new boundary should weaken the country or its defence
Linguistic and cultural homogeneity	People in a state should, as far as possible, share a language and culture ("homogeneity" means sameness)
Financial, economic and administrative viability	A state must be able to pay for itself and be run efficiently
Welfare of the people and success of national plans	The new map must help the Five-Year Plans and development

• Other recommendations:
• End the Part A-D classification and keep only two kinds of units: states and centrally run territories.
• Abolish the office of Rajpramukh.

• Give constitutional safeguards to linguistic minorities (smaller language groups living inside a state). The Seventh Amendment later did this through Art. 350A [2].

• Panikkar's dissent: Panikkar disagreed with the others. He wanted the very large Uttar Pradesh split, because its size gave it too much weight in the Union.

• The NCERT cartoon "Coaxing the Genie back" (5 February 1956) shows the SRC trying to push the "genie" of linguism (strong political loyalty to one's own language group) back into its bottle. It asks whether a commission could control demands that Andhra had already set loose.

3. States Reorganisation Act, 1956 (Act No. 37 of 1956)

• States Reorganisation Act 1956: the law Parliament passed to put the SRC plan into effect [7]. It came into force on 1 November 1956.
• Result: 14 states and 6 Union Territories (UTs). A Union Territory is an area governed directly by the Centre.
• Key new or changed states:
• Kerala: Travancore-Cochin plus the Malabar district of Madras.
• Mysore (enlarged): brought together Kannada-speaking areas from Bombay, Hyderabad, Madras and Coorg. It was renamed Karnataka in 1973.
• Andhra Pradesh: Andhra state plus Telangana, the Telugu-speaking part of Hyderabad state.

• Bombay (bilingual): kept Marathi and Gujarati speakers in one state.

  • The Samyukta Maharashtra and Maha Gujarat movements opposed this.
  • In 1960 Bombay was split into Maharashtra and Gujarat.

• Zonal Councils (Part III of the Act): five Zonal Councils were set up [6]. A Zonal Council is an advisory body that brings neighbouring states together.

• Origin: during the 1956 debate on the SRC report, Nehru suggested grouping states into four or five zones, each with an advisory council, "to develop the habit of cooperative working" [6].
• Chairman: the Union Home Minister [6].
• Vice-Chairman: the Chief Ministers of the states in that zone, by rotation, one year at a time (Section 16) [6][7].
• Functions: they discuss, and make recommendations on, economic and social planning, border disputes, linguistic minorities, inter-state transport, and matters arising from the 1956 reorganisation [6].
• Their advice is not binding. They are tools of cooperative federalism, meaning the Centre and the states work together (→ federalism-centre-state).

4. Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1956

• Purpose: to change the Constitution so that it matched the new map [2].
• Main changes:

Change	Effect
Abolished the Part A, B, C (and D) classification	Only two kinds of units remained: States and Union Territories [2]
Rewrote the First Schedule	Listed the new states and UTs
Common Governor	One person can be Governor of two or more states
Common High Court	Parliament can set up one High Court for two or more states (or a state and a UT)
Inserted Art. 350A	Every state and local authority must try to provide teaching in the mother tongue at the primary stage for children of linguistic minority groups. The President may issue directions to a state to secure this [2][3]
Inserted Art. 350B	A Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities, appointed by the President, investigates whether the safeguards for linguistic minorities are working and reports to the President [2][4]

• Why Arts. 350A-350B matter: they came from the SRC's advice to protect minorities left inside the new language-based states [2].

5. How Parliament redraws states: Arts. 2-4 (→ federalism-centre-state)

• Art. 3 lets Parliament, by ordinary law, form a new state, unite states, or change the area, boundaries or name of any state [8].

• Steps (Art. 3 proviso): 1. The bill can be introduced in either House of Parliament only on the President's recommendation [8]. 2. If the bill affects a state's area, boundaries or name, the President refers it to that state's legislature for its views, within a time limit the President fixes or extends [8]. 3. Once that period ends, Parliament can go ahead. The state's views are only views, and Parliament does not have to follow them [8]. 4. Parliament passes the bill by a simple majority, like an ordinary law.

• Why this matters: the Centre can change state boundaries without the state's consent. This is why India is sometimes called "an indestructible Union of destructible states".

6. New states after 1956 (up to 2019)

• 1960: Bombay split into Maharashtra and Gujarat.
• 1963: Nagaland.
• 1966: Punjab reorganised, and Haryana and Himachal Pradesh separated from it. Himachal became a full state in 1971.
• 1972: Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura became full states. Meghalaya had first been carved out of Assam as an autonomous state under the Assam Reorganisation (Meghalaya) Act 1969.
• 1975: Sikkim became a state.
• 1987: Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa became states.
• 2000: Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand (first called Uttaranchal) and Jharkhand were formed. These were based on regional, tribal and development grounds, not language.
• 2014: Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh.
• 2019: Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two UTs, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
• The pattern: after 1956, new states were created more for regional, ethnic and development reasons than for language alone.

7. NCERT's verdict on linguistic reorganisation

• Linguistic reorganisation of states means redrawing state boundaries so that each state mostly contains people who speak one language.
• Fears that proved wrong: national leaders, including Nehru, had feared that language-based states would encourage separatism (the wish of a region to break away from India). That did not happen.
• What it achieved:
• Wider democracy: state politics and administration now worked in the local language. This opened power to people beyond the small English-speaking elite.
• One basis for every state: boundaries became uniform and rational. The colonial and princely patchwork ended.
• Unity, not disintegration: meeting regional demands strengthened national unity instead of weakening it.
• A lesson in democracy: democracy means accepting diversity and even differences that pull in opposite directions.

8. Counterpoints (beyond NCERT)

• 'Sons of the soil' politics: the demand that local people get jobs and benefits before outsiders. Example: Shiv Sena's campaigns in Bombay in the 1960s.
• Linguistic minorities inside states: each new state has its own minorities, such as Kannada speakers in Maharashtra or Telugu speakers in Tamil Nadu. They can face pressure in schooling and jobs. This is why Art. 350B exists [4].
• Border disputes:
• The best-known is Belagavi (Belgaum) between Maharashtra and Karnataka.
• The Mahajan Commission (1966-67) examined it and largely upheld Mysore's claim over Belgaum. Maharashtra rejected the report.

• Zonal Councils discuss such disputes [6].

• River-water disputes: language-based states also became rival claimants over shared rivers, as in the Cauvery and Krishna disputes.

• Ambedkar, Thoughts on Linguistic States (1955):
• He backed 'one state, one language'.
• He warned against very large states, which would dominate the Union.
• He urged that big states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra be split into smaller states.
• This view is close to Panikkar's dissent.

Prelims Hooks

• SRC: appointed in December 1953, reported on 30 September 1955. Chair Fazl Ali; members K.M. Panikkar and H.N. Kunzru. Trap: the JVP Committee (1948-49) was Nehru, Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramayya, and the Dar Commission (1948) came earlier.
• The SRC accepted language as the main basis for state boundaries but rejected 'one language, one state'.
• States Reorganisation Act 1956 came into force on 1 November 1956 and created 14 states + 6 UTs.
• Zonal Councils are statutory bodies (set up by Part III of the SRA 1956), not constitutional bodies. Chairman: Union Home Minister. Vice-Chairman: the zone's Chief Ministers in rotation, one year each [6].
• 7th Amendment, 1956: abolished Part A-D states, allowed a common Governor and a common High Court for two or more states, and inserted Arts. 350A and 350B [2].
• Art. 350A = mother-tongue teaching at the primary stage for linguistic minority children [3]. Art. 350B = Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities, appointed by and reporting to the President [4].
• Art. 3: a bill to change state boundaries needs the President's prior recommendation. The state legislature's views are sought but are not binding [8].
• Mysore was renamed Karnataka in 1973. Bombay was split into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960.
• Mahajan Commission (1966-67) = the Maharashtra-Mysore (Karnataka) border dispute over Belagavi.

Mains Points

• Accommodation as nation-building (GS-I):
• Nehru first feared that language-based states would lead to separatism.
• The 1956 reorganisation showed the opposite: meeting regional demands deepened democracy, brought non-English-speaking groups into power, and strengthened unity.

• India is a case study in managing diversity by recognising it, not suppressing it.

• Federalism trade-off (GS-II):

• Under Art. 3, Parliament can redraw states without their consent [8]. This kept the Union flexible from 1956 to 2019.
• Critics say it weakens state autonomy. This came up in debates on Telangana (2014) and Jammu and Kashmir (2019).

• A balanced answer pairs the Centre's power with consultative bodies such as Zonal Councils [6].

• Unfinished agenda:

• Linguistic minorities, 'sons of the soil' politics, border disputes (Belagavi) and river-water conflicts remain.

• Possible reforms:

  • make the Special Officer under Art. 350B stronger [4];
  • use Zonal Councils actively to settle disputes [6];
  • set up a standing States Reorganisation Commission to judge new demands on clear criteria.

• What should decide the size of a state:

• The SRC used four factors (unity, homogeneity, viability, development), not language alone.
• Ambedkar's 1955 call to split large states, and the creation of states in 2000 and 2014, show that viability and governance now matter as much as language.