Express your opinion of the following : India is a State.
(In the context of ch.1 The State)
Answers
Explanation:
According to Article 1 of Constitution, India, i.e., Bharat shall be a Union of States, which shall consist of Indian states and a powerful central government at the helm. The states shall have their own constitutional obligations to discharge and under the constitution these have much less powers, as compared with the Centre.
India being a Union of States no agreement was signed between the central government and the federating states, for the creation of federation. Constitution makers themselves decided about the powers to be given to the States and those which should be kept in the Central and in the Concurrent list.
Indian states have their own history. Before independence the whole of India was divided into Indian provinces, where national movement was quite wide spread than what it was in Indian princely states. Each state, big or small, was governed by a feudal prince, who was autocrat and it all depended on him to which extent he cared for the sentiments of the people. Some of these states were big while others were small.
After independence Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel persuaded these about 600 princely states to become an integral part of newly born free India. Except Hyderabad, where police action had to be taken and Junagarh where a referendum was held before it joined Indian federation, every other state agreed to this. Subsequently whole of India was temporarily divided into four types of States.
Part ‘A’ States consisted of British Indian provinces. Some of the States which were quite big and administratively viable were allowed to retain their identity, whereas in some cases two or more adjoining states were combined together to form one administrative unit.
These were called Part ‘B’ States. Then there were some states which centre decided to administer itself, because it was not possible to either merge these with any province or with any group of states or otherwise it was expedient to keep these under central control. These states were called part ‘C’ States. Andaman Nicobar Islands were placed under the category of part ‘D’ State.
In fact, the whole process of integration was very quick and a very remarkable one. Perhaps there is 110 other parallel in the history of world where princes in such a large number, occupying such vast territories and enjoying autonomy and powers voluntarily agreed to given up their sovereign rights.
Credit undoubtedly goes to the iron man of India, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, who did the marvellous job of bringing Indian States in the folds of free India.