The passage of three bills by the Indian Parliament, respectively known as the Reorganization of Bihar 2000, Reorganization of Madhya Pradesh 2000 and the reorganization of Uttar Pradesh 2000, and their subsequent accession by the President clears the last major hurdle for the carving out of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Uttaranchal states. 

The Home Ministry has announced that all the legal formalities for the creation will be completed by 1st November, 2000.  Jharkand and Chattisgarh can come into being soon after this date, while Uttaranchal will become a reality once the UP Assembly elections, scheduled within a year, are concluded.

All the three states have in common the fact that although they are extremely rich in natural resources, they comprise the most undeveloped regions and are home to the poorest segments of the population in their former parent states.  As a result, all three regions have had long-standing agitations that sought to redress this.  In the course of the last five decades, these agitations, like similar movements elsewhere in India, had coalesced into demand for separate statehood, with the expectation that with new political powers, the people of the region would then be able to take control of their resources themselves.  It is however a fact that the statehood bills have been passed into law under a completely different context and with very different aims in mind.

The context pertinent to the creation of the new states today is that of the liberalisation and privatisation of the economy.  The main thrust of government policy in this period is to remove all possible barriers to the full exploitation of the country’s land and resources by domestic and foreign capital.  It is this consideration which is behind the creation of the new mineral-rich states.  This is why the very parliamentary parties that had long opposed the carving out of these states, and who had even sanctioned state repression against the statehood agitations are now engaged in bitter internal squabbles for the Chief Ministerships of these new states.  They see the opportunities to enrich themselves and their backers by taking control of the executive branch of the respective state governments and do what states like Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Haryana, West Bengal, Maharashtra and so on are doing through their privatisation programs.

Under the present bills, Jharkhand will contain the Chota Nagpur mineral basin. Chattisgarh will contain the mineral-laden and forest-covered Vindhya Hills along with the Bhilai steel plant.  Uttaranchal will contain the hydroelectric resources of UP and a number of tourist centres such as Derhadun, Nainital and Hardwar.  

Since the reorganisation bills have not made a break with the past practice of ignoring the national aspirations of the people in redrawing boundaries, movements in and around these new states to reworking the boundaries - for example Udham Singh Nagar to U.P., Saraikala and Kharasuan to Orissa and so on - will continue. Also, the creation of these three states has given fresh impetus to the movements for creation of other new states such as Telengana in Andhra Pradesh, Vidarbha in Maharashtra, Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh, Utkal in Orissa among others. 

Most importantly, the reorganisation bills do not provide any mechanisms for the people of these new states to become masters of the land and its resources. The residual power is not transferred to the peoples under these bills and will continue to reside in the hands of the President and the Parliament as before, enabling all power to be exercised from above. In the context of globalisation and privatisation, the creation of smaller states will only facilitate and accelerate the plunder of the land and labour of these regions by the highest bidders without the involvement of the people in such decision-making. 

While the nature of political power and the Indian Union are not going to change as a result of these bills, it will also be an error to conclude that the creation of the new states changes nothing.  Not only will the domestic and multinationals jockey for position and for control of the resources with the new ministries, but the people of these new states will have the opportunity to push for very definite arrangements to be put in place so that they participate in decision-making and governance. The last five decades of resistance struggles in these states has given rise to institutional forms in which people participate in decision-making and the time is now to incorporate them into a system of government. 

The main political parties like the BJP, Congress (I) and so on are bidding for political control of these states, backed by the military might of the central state.  By rewarding and co-opting a few “leaders”, they are all set to marginalise the people on whose backs they are coming to power.  Far from accepting the status-quo that these new states will be run just like the old states, all the people of India have a stake in assisting the people’s organisations in these new states to create afresh the political mechanisms, institutions and processes that are capable of meeting their true aspirations and that have emerged from the history of their struggle.
 
In fact, in Jharkhand, the new slogan of the people heard these days is Naya Pradesh Naya Janadesh (new province, new verdict).  With the achievement of statehood, the immediate aim of the people’s organisations in these new states has transformed to one of becoming the supreme decision-makers, both in word and in deed. The situation provides an opportunity to keep the political parties, who are trying to usurp power for themselves, from digging in and to create a new form to realise the content of vesting sovereignty in the people.