From India's largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the Times of India podcast. The Women's Reservation Bill may have been passed by parliament, but as multiple opposition parties have pointed out, it's on hold for a while. First, there needs to be a census that hasn't been conducted since 2011. Then there needs to be the
process of delimitation. Doctor Jay Prakash Narayan is a retired IAS official and set up the Foundation for Democratic Reforms, which aims to improve governance in the country. He also set up the Loksatta movement and the Loksatta Party to motivate people to join politics and to educate people about governance. He says that the process to give women reservation in parliament and state assemblies could have
been much easier. We are not still at thousands in knots by having a very complicated model which necessitated waiting for a delimitation again. Which itself was stalled because of the constitutional amendments ever since 1976. So we complicate lives. A simpler model, though, made it much, much better. We could have straight to be implemented. But, you know, let's rejoice, at least after 2530 years of a lot of talk and very little action long last.
No near unanimity is there in Parliament, it appears, in the parliamentary debates. Both the government and opposition, they hinted that they're willing to look at better models. As long as, no, this is ironclad, you cannot go back on this. So let us see if they're willing to look at something better. But it could have been done. It could have been done immediately and in a much more need fashion.
But we're not talking to Dr. Jay Prakash Narayan about the Women's Reservation Bill. We're talking with him about the process of delimitation or the redrawing of parliamentary and state assembly constituencies in India. The delimitation exercise would be carried out on the basis of the census. The process of delimitation is seeing a lot of political debate, despite the fact that it's not going to be done before 2026.
A lot of the southern states in India are worried that the process of delimitation would reduce the number of Mp's the states sent to Parliament. It's also feared it will reduce the funds received by states in the South from the central
government. In today's episode, Doctor Jay Prakash Narayan is in conversation with my colleague Alka Dupkar and me about the process of delimitation and they need to conduct it. He also explains why it hasn't been conducted since 1976 and how it can be done without increasing the political temperature. Now coming to the main subject of delimitation, what is the delimitation exercise and why it is needed?
Every democratic country has the constituencies for the election to legislature based on population. After all, the basic principle is one person, one vote. So equitable vote. Whether and richer core one human being must have roughly the same political power in terms of voice and voting as another human being. And our Constitution also clearly provided for redistribution or delimitation, as we call it, of constituencies
based on population. Every 10 years, the Constitution said A. The number of Lok Sabha seats allocated to a state shall be as closely as possible in proportion to. The population of the state based on the latest census and after every census you must conduct this exercise so that the number of seats are allocated to a state first as far as practicable. The second thing the Constitution said is that once the number is allocated, the seat service redistributed every
10 years. Because not only do you require redistribution because the allocation changes from state to state for the Lok Sabha every 10 years, but within a state. The population changes within the ten years. We know large pockets of the country. Increasingly now the rural population is declining, at least where the birth rates are coming down. Urban population is increasing, therefore delimitation within the state also. And that happened after 1951 census. It happened after 61 census.
After 71 census 3 delimitation commissions worked on this and everything went off very well. Then came the constitutional amendment in 1976. It was in 1976 that it was decided to freeze the Lok Sabha constituencies as they stood at the time. In 2001, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government also decided to keep the constituencies as they were. Doctor Jayaprakash Narayan explains the role he played in that and why the government decided to keep the decision on hold for another 20-5 years.
He admits it's difficult to judge whether the decision to put it on hold in 1976 was a good one or a bad one. But he says as far as he knows, there was number Malified intent. The then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, seem to have genuinely believed that you must not create perverse incentives for population increase to punish states which have been able to contain the population. Growth will be reopened only in 2001, they said they thought 25 is a long time. Then 2001 came Vajpayee.
Government was in office, then some of us particularly late. She has faces of Ramakrishnan. The former Secretary, Government of India in Urban Development and I, we took the initiative because we sensed it that this is coming and unless we handle it well, there will be political challenges. So we appeal to the government to allow status quo to continue. Whether it is a good judgment or not I cannot say. But at that point of time we felt the country was politically
somewhat unstable. If you remember the watch by government did not have very great majority a multi party coalition. And economy was just then. They're trying to recover from the difficulties faced poker and explosion led to sanctions etc. Therefore, economy, we're just not then trying to get back on our feet. And if we reopen this Pandora's box, the fear was that it will consume all our energy. It will hurt the economy and the country and the political stability and that argument they
bought it and therefore. They said the numbers will be frozen for another 25 years. We kick the can down the road. Honestly, I thought 25 years is a long time. We will see what will happen then, little knowing that 25 years passes by very fast. And now we are saddled with that again in 2026. The normal process is that each person in a democracy will have roughly equal weightage in terms of the vote or in terms of representation. Therefore, you cannot really have any strong argument
against. Going back to the redistribution based on the census data, so in. Nutshell, are you suggesting that north-south divide, which will happen based on population, is unavoidable? One day or other, we have to face it when demographic differences are there and they also accompany economic disparities. May take Bihar. Bihar has actually 1/4 of the per capita income of the. Better off states like Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu or Karnataka.
Just to clarify, the per capita income is the income earned by each person in the state. This is calculated by dividing the state's income by the number of people living in it. And Bihar is not a tiny state with a million population, it's a state with, I don't know the current population but probably
about ten floor. And normally what happens in countries where migration is very common within the country, like United States. Many more people tend to migrate within the country than other countries. There's far greater migration than India. So migration addresses the challenges. And also after a certain level of development, population actually is an asset. Therefore, more people migrating into the area actually stimulates economic growth.
We're not there yet. And migration does take place in India. But migration still is relatively not very large in India from state to state, while it is taking place more than hour before. Therefore, that does not automatically address the demographic problem. And without addressing the demographic problem and the political representation, I don't think we can go far. Southern states like Tamil Nadu haven't quite welcomed the delimitation exercise.
They have called it the political conspiracy to lower the political representation of South India, the fear that they have controlled the population and that's why they will be punished, how the fear should be handled. Every state the birth rates are coming down. Some states are ahead of other states, even Bihar, which has the highest birth rate in India. There is an expression called fertility rate that means the number of children a woman based
during her reproductive life. Bihar used to be 4 some 1520 years ago. Now I think Bihar is close to three every state. The birth rates are declining and fertility rates are declining. First, I want us to all understand this panic that my God population is growing out of control. What will happen is not true. It's just that some states because of historical, political and economic reasons.
They have been a little ahead of the cow, but every state is following so and every segment of population. The rich and the poor, the urban and the rural, the Hindu and the Muslim and the Christian and upper caste and the poorer caste. Every segment of the population, the birth rates and fertility rates are declining. The second is it's unfair to say that representation in proportion to population is political conspiracy every country. Worth mentioning of the
democracy as the same principle. We adopted the same principles part of the Constitution. I don't think that Ambedkar and the Constitution makers indulged in a deliberate conspiracy to hurt all of us. Freedom fighters were very learned people. They were fully aware and yet they had the delimitation based on census every 10 years. We cannot call it a conspiracy. Unity of India is paramount in Matthew. Unity is critical for order and
peace and harmony in society. We don't have a record of peacefully coexisting as separate political entities, even a state division, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. There was so much of A strife only now people are trying to forget the what happened even though some people feel very strongly. So we are very volatile. Therefore, unity to me is the most paramount consideration, because without unity and order in society. There cannot be economic growth and they cannot be freedom.
And I think all of us must pause a little bit and stop using the rhetoric. That is a conspiracy. It's not a conspiracy. Yes, a negotiation is necessary. Yes, some kind of adjustment is necessary. In the 1960s, when there were attempts to impose Hindi and the whole country, Tamil Nadu heroically resistant. And I think India's unity was safeguarded because of the wisdom of the political leadership of the country.
By ensuring that while Hindi with the national language, English will continue to the link language of India and the national language as long as people of India want, that is forever. So we require that kind of a negotiation and compromise, keeping in mind the unity of India, rather than use a very explosive rhetoric. So in your opinion, what are the ways or what are the negotiations? That should take place to avoid
the north-south divide. Population control and population representation in today's political culture has become the center stage of the controversy. Some states, if you take the current number of Lok Sabha and if you redistribute that in proportion to the population currently, some states will lose a significant number of representatives. Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Most of all, my ballpark number is Kerala out of 20, may lose about 6:00 or so. Coming out of 39 we lose eight
or nine other states. There will be relatively minor adjustments. States like Maharashtra where they are prosperous and they contain population because of in migration that may not make much of a difference and states like UP and Bihar they will get a few more representatives then they have currently. So one easy ways can we maintain the minimum number whatever the current number and therefore to the doesn't increase the size of Lok Sabha.
So first, there is no sense of actual loss of constituencies and representation. I think that's an easy one. I have a feeling that's already being considered. That's why the new Parliament premises actually provide for larger capacity, keeping in mind or growing population and therefore the increasing numbers of the Lok Sabha. The second thing is finances. Everybody is worried about finances. Now we have to again practical. Bihar, as I said already, is has 1/4 of the per capita income of
the. Better off states. Now you cannot have one part of the country, a large part of the country, suffering from extreme poverty and have prosperity and peace in the rest of the country. Unless we create conditions through federal transfer resources to improve the infrastructure and provide basic communities and services to every part of the country, all of us will suffer. So can we look at the Finance Commission redistribution in a manner that the genuine concerns
of? The poor states are addressed without the better off states feeling that you are rewarding incompetence or profligacy. That means can we have a better management of resources in every state in terms of the transferred money from Union government which actually goes only for the capital investment, educational, healthcare, infrastructure and service delivery improvement. The third is migration. India still is not seeing enough migration for a country of employment for billion people.
I am talking of internal migration. And migrants, even when they exist, we must now give them rights. Of there is some talk about you having ration card everywhere, but I believe if you migrate for work or anything, you are a citizen of India anywhere. Therefore you must have the rights of citizenship, including voting rights including public distribution, including all welfare programs of the government.
If that is done, as more and more migration happens because of economic compulsions, the demographic problems will not appear to be big and Southern states already are realizing. Without this migrant laborers from some of the more popular states, many things in Bengaluru or Mumbai cannot get done today. So instead of getting worked up about the Interstate differences, we recognize we actually need the migrant
workers. Typically migrant workers, once they are dislocated and approved, they work harder, they have dignity of Labor, they don't suffer from prejudices which are very typical in the local community and they are a
tremendous asset in the economy. So I think encouraging economic migration within the country to the all down development of the whole country and finally we can probably have some kind of an adjustment in the upper house if lower house is strictly according to population, can we have some kind of a satisfactory
formula. It's not going to be easy because we extremely tiny states like Sikkim and the Mizoram and we have very large states like UPUP is bigger than every country in the world save 3. So we have to think very innovatively and figure out some way. Of doing something, maybe in the upper house or at the very least finally, we can give an ironclad guarantee, if necessary by a constitutional amendment so that no states rights or state subjects or anything will be affected on account of this
division. Therefore, if right now 2/3 is what is required to amend the Constitution in respect to those subjects, we can say we will go for 4/5 or even more. That should not be a difficult thing. So there are I think, ways there is good will all around we can address these challenges. But the most important question of getting the power, and you have not touched it, but today who is in power is also important and the whole fight is
about that. Also if the MP is in northern part of India are going to increase, that will change the balance. Alka the truth is in India. Northern India always dominated the power structure in terms of numbers. You take the prime ministers. There are a few prime ministers in the South, like for instance Mr. PV Narasimha Rao and Mr. Deva Gowda. But both were prime ministers by accident, not by political strength. In terms of real politic, the northern India will always have dominance.
In terms of the power structure of the Union, there is nothing new. Let's first accept it, if anything. The government successively and all parties have been extraordinarily wise. I know we blame them for many things that are wrong in giving reasonable representation to the whole country in terms of the cabinet formation, etcetera. And 3rd. The real government for the people is the state.
If you look at the elections, for instance of the political behavior of the electorate, most people vote according to their perception of the state government. That means power already has shifted to the states. That ordinary people understand the center of gravity is now in states. The national government is largely notional. It's important, it's critical.
But in terms of political discourse, if you really don't have the English speaking in national media talking all the time about the power struggle in Delhi, people actually are not bothered. The Assembly constituency is the unit of politics in India and the state government is the government that people judge most of the time.
And therefore, strengthening federalism and further localizing government decentralization of government to the third tier, effectively with accountability, will take away the obsession of national power. Will actually make us focus on what matters to our lives in terms of service, delivery, education, healthcare, the park in front of your house, the road or the traffic jams and so on. OK, fair enough. I don't completely agree with you. Should we bifurcate States and
could it help? To keep away the north-south divide. There is no way you can have states the size of 20 crores and 15 crores. Call them provinces. They're too big. I remember making a presentation to the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi as a district magistrate, I told him then. Mr. Prime Minister, district in India is larger than half the nations of the world. At that time there were about 100 and 61170 countries. About 80 countries were smaller than an average district of India.
I don't think the UP chief minister or chief secretary can even suddenly name all the districts or name all the members of parliament in their state or name all the district magistrates in the in the state. So I think there is a case to to have a moderate size, you know, I think you must have a rule that five to seven crores. But we must also make it very
clear to our people, the state. The identity must not be so incredibly polarizing that no many people feel it's a matter of life or death, particularly because of linguistic reorganization. And given that, we must come to some agreement by which there will be 0 difference in terms of our lives and there will be fairly distributed resources. As we have seen in entrepreneurship, big city now goes to one part of the country, one new state.
The other states will feel off and therefore we have to figure out a way. In which those city revenues for a final period, it can be actually shared by all or you can even have a completely different pattern of governance for the big cities in the country. So a lot of political negotiations required.
But I think the short answer is yes, we have many of our states are too big, and therefore smaller states by common consent, without upsetting the constitutional balance in terms of English, city organizations, etcetera, is both necessary and welcome. And it will help the delimitation exercise also in some way. If the problem is beyond language you don't feel culturally otherwise subjugated, then it's easier to have a more rational public discourse and more peaceful resolution of
issues. What would you say in this current scenario where you have, as you said, little room for conciliation between the political parties and there is also a very clear political divide in terms of. Which parties in power and which isn't at the center? So how does that even go forward then? Should maybe it again be kicked down the road for 25 years from purely from don't upset the apple cart point of view down the right to man. Actually by that time I will not
be there. I'm sure 25 years later I will not be answering these questions, So it's a very tempting option. But two things. One, whether you like it or not, when there is a majority stable government at the national level whose political interest probably will be better served by getting political weightage in proportion to the population, because the regions where they seem to have a certain political strength, they are the ones which probably will gain the political clout in terms of
numbers in the parliament. It is somewhat unrealistic to expect that a party in power lat against so self-interest. It is one thing I learnt in life. It is that a reformer must never argue with a political leader to hurt his own interest. We must craft the agenda in such a manner that their own sense of their political interest and our sense of the national interest they both coincide. That is when real results happen.
The second thing is wonder. Rather, we have to grapple with this and luckily, particularly in the last 25 years, in the 30 years in India in particular, but from broadly all over the world, we've learned that while population is a huge challenge, human society, we are coming to terms with that.
In such a changing world, I think we must address this intelligently and calmly unhurried deliberation rather than both sides between apocalyptic you know, one side we talk about democratic rights and defy the another side we talk about subjugation in term because of the minority and punishment because of population control. You can argue either way, but that's not the issue. We have to find an answer we can live with. That's the way I would like to project.
Given the timeline between now and the proposed delimitation. Period is a very. Short one what? Do you expect to see happen? See, a lot depends on the wisdom of the political leaders. It is not the people. People of India are extremely sensible. In my judgment, people of India are extremely conciliatory, accommodation, adjustment, coexistent, survival, compromise. It's part of our blood.
It is politics that polarizes us for their own gains, tribalizes us and that creates, you know, yes or no, black or white situation. So a lot depends on the wisdom of the political leaders, particularly those in governments at the state or national level. If they recognize the interests of their respective states is perfectly legitimate or nationally, they have some point
of perfectly legitimate. But if they do it in a calm manner, based on evidence and logic, and with an intention to resolve the issue rather than to polarize the people, I think we can find a solution. But if they deliberately provoke animosities and make it a very loud and contentious issue, then
all bets are off. Doctor Jay Prakash Narayan says there is a validity to the regional parties fears that they will not be consulted during the delimitation process, especially the Modi government returns to power after the 2024 polls. However, he does have some advice for a BJP government if it does come to power again in 2024.
My advice to the government would be, if anybody cares to listen, look, it's not in your interest to polarize the country in this manner, particularly in issues like this. Any issue of polarization is not in your interest. But issues like this ultimately will be difficult to your own political future. If BJP has stakes in Karnataka, if BJP wants to grow in Telangana, if BJP is now making some efforts, let's say in Tamil Nadu, these are not states where
you can write off, right? So it's not in your interest to permanently marginalize yourself and to you believe, and I believe you believe in the unity of India, your sense of nationalism. While we may disagree on some specifics, but we all want one thing and if BJP is genuinely patriotic, then BJP must want unity of India.
So my advice to them would be in their interest not to make it a polarizing issue and to meet the the concerns of the people who are worried about what might happen halfway and reduce the temperature. Today's episode was produced by Jayaraj Singh and Anuja Singh. For a daily spotlight on people, ideas and stories that matter, subscribe to us. We are available on TOI, Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts and all other platforms of your choice.
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