India’s north-south fissures deepen

[BusyBalraju]

 

Quote

 

https://www.ft.com/content/cd5efba4-6d9f-11e8-852d-d8b934ff5ffa

Hyderabad’s transformation reflects the rising prosperity of India’s progressive and dynamic southern states, and their widening socio-economic divergence from the more backward and impoverished north. 

Decades of successful family planning, a focus on education — including for girls — and better governance gave southern states a strong foundation on which to build on opportunities unleashed by India’s economic liberalisation since 1991. 

Today, southern states’ fertility rates are below replacement levels, indicators on health and education are on a par with upper middle-income countries and poverty has fallen sharply. In the north, meanwhile, women still have an average of three or four children, and fare poorly on most gauges of wellbeing. 

Despite the south’s rapid progress, India’s national political agenda still tends to be set by the more populous north — the conservative, Hindi-speaking region often called the “cow belt”.

That is now provoking southern discomfort. “There is a feeling of being disempowered and colonised,” a Hyderabad-based academic told me on a recent visit. “There is a deep feeling of resentment that we are not part of the process.” 

These fissures are being laid bare in a fierce debate over the allocation of public resources to states, in a once-in-every-five years budgeting exercise. They are likely to intensify over the next decade when India redraws its parliamentary map. For decades, New Delhi has allocated funds and parliament seats based on states’ population data from the 1971 census, before the mixed results of its family planning drive sent them on radically different demographic trajectories. 

But Narendra Modi’s government, whose core support lies in the Hindi heartland, has decided the 2011 census should be used as the basis for resource allocation over the next five years. This process and parliamentary redistricting due by 2026 are likely to see affluent southern states lose out financially and politically, due to their diminishing demographic weight after years of promoting small families. Money and parliamentary seats will be diverted to the more populous north. Southerners are up in arms. 

“This is something being done by the northerners for the northerners,” says Krishnamurthy Subramanian, a finance professor at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. “There is a sense of unfairness. Why are we being penalised for doing good things?” He adds: “Northern states will end up benefiting from their profligacy.”

Tension over resource transfers — both within and between nations — are a growing cause of global friction. They have an extra edge in India, where a population as ethnically and linguistically diverse as Europe’s coexists in a single state. 

India’s north undoubtedly faces severe challenges. But if redistribution is not perceived as fair, it may unleash dangerous resentment. And tackling northern India’s problems will take more than money. There are lessons to be learnt from Hyderabad’s success: if you lay a strong foundation, investors and prosperity will come.

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[Android_Halwa]

Silly and stupid...its only in the media but such issues will never become an electoral issue.

[RunRaajaRun123]

Plz divide north n south

ee north battebaz Galla tho maa valla kaadhu.

[gillette]

Just now, RunRaajaRun123 said:

Plz divide north n south

ee north battebaz Galla tho maa valla kaadhu.

[boeing747]

north lo feaceful feeful ekkuva

[sattipandu]

1 hour ago, Android_Halwa said:

Silly and stupid...its only in the media but such issues will never become an electoral issue.

nope i  echo the same feelings

fukk em northies 

 

[precious_smeagol]

1 hour ago, Android_Halwa said:

Silly and stupid...its only in the media but such issues will never become an electoral issue.

matter in 3 mukkallo seppu halwaaa endi TS baadha ?

 

[RunRaajaRun123]

16 minutes ago, precious_smeagol said:

matter in 3 mukkallo seppu halwaaa endi TS baadha ?

 

Halwa gaadiki north okay

migatha chala mandiki north valla ni dobbeyamani

[jpismahatma]

Evado @uttermost gadi flower 

[Rimbolamaster]

Aunu vayya, ee chapati gallu vadde vaddu. Landasur gallu, telivundadu moddundadu kani full dramalu 10gutar. 

Maki chapati vaddu. Maki biryani ae muddu.

 

[Pichekkistha]

Enforcing North's beliefs, language & ideology on East and South will still deepen the differences. Its all time high after 2014. Separate South India is inevitable. Just a matter of time. Same reasons why Separate Telangana gained its momentum

North India is fcked up culturally, socially and economically with cities in North India make economic exception. We are feeding them and in return they enforce the language & policies on us.  

[Idassamed]

Lavadalo North evadiki kavali vaa