The Ticking Time Bomb: Delimitation of Parliamentary Seats

The Ticking Time Bomb: Delimitation of Parliamentary Seats

Shrikant G. Talageri

  

Every regime which has ruled India has planted time bombs which are timed to explode at certain times in the future, to the detriment of a stupid, ignorant and indifferent Indian public and to cause bitter resentments, chaos and internal wars designed to keep the country weak, vulnerable and divided while the ruling (esp. the political) classes make hay in the electoral arena and eat “malai” and “mewa”.

The British are always accused by “patriotic” Indians of having planted countless such time bombs. But the pseudo-secularist Congress regimes which ruled India for most of the post-Independence period, and the pseudo-Hindutvite BJP regime have been no less irresponsible and guilty in this exercise. It was, and is, and perhaps always will be in the interests of all mercenary ruling regimes to keep the pots of internal injustices, inequalities, fissiparous tendencies and internal hatreds perennially boiling, and to hell with what happens to the country and its people! The country, of course, being an inanimate entity, has no say in whatever is done to it. But, at least in theory, the people should be having the right to have their say and to see that it (their say) is heard and correctly responded to by the mercenary politicians. But that is only in theory: in practice, the Indian public in general, and those members of the Indian public who have influence and control over the rest in particular, are so stupid, ignorant and indifferent – and yes, have their own mercenary interests as well – that expecting them to care and to do something concrete is the purest theory of all.

Which is why the pseudo-secularist politicians (with the assent of the pseudo-Hindutva politicians), and the pseudo-Hindutva politicians in their turn whenever in power, have been nurturing all earlier time bombs and planting new ones, and why the Indian public remains blissfully ignorant of, and indifferent to, everything: whether it is the grossly unequal laws which make Hindus eighth class citizens in their own country to an extent unparalleled in any other “democratic” country, or the caste-based time bombs which are designed to keep the country bitterly divided against itself for all time to come.

 

But now, it is almost time for another, and equally disruptive time bomb (nothing to do with religion or caste, but with regions or states) set off to be detonated in 2026: the time bomb of “statewise delimitation of Lok Sabha seats” is going to set off undying regional hatreds as never before:

And to be very frank and honest, if and when the Dravidianists take up cudgels against the India state after the said exercise – regardless of the extent of extremism to which their reactions may take them − they will be absolutely and utterly in the right and will be having Justice fully on their side!

Even today, Dravidianists and other regional chauvinists, and even perfectly objective people, from the southern states claim that South India is the step-child of the modern Indian state. They claim that the overwhelming domination of the North Indian and particularly the Hindi states in the Lok Sabha in the matter of the number of Lok Sabha seats, leaves them with little control of anything in the country. After this delimitation, it will leave them with absolutely no control of anything in the country.

Let us see why:

DRAVIDIAN SOUTH	Present Seats	Seats after 2026
Tamilnadu + Puducherry	40	50
Kerala	20	20
Andhra + Telangana	42	54
Karnataka	28	41
TOTAL	130	165

 

WEST	Present Seats	Seats after 2026
Maharashtra	48	76
Gujarat	26	43
Goa	2	2
TOTAL	76	121

 

EAST	Present Seats	Seats after 2026
Bengal	42	60
Odisha	21	28
Northeast + Sikkim	25	32
TOTAL	88	120

 

OTHERS	Present Seats	Seats after 2026
Punjab	13	18
Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh	6	9
Andaman + Lakshadweep	2	2
Dadra NH + Daman Diu	2	2
TOTAL	23	31

 

SUMMARY	Present Seats and %	Seats after 2026 and %
HINDI STATES	226 = 41.62%	409 = 48.35%
DRAVIDIAN SOUTH	130 = 23.94%	165 = 19.50%
WEST	76 = 16.21%	121 = 14.18%
EAST	88 = 13.99%	120 = 14.30%
OTHERS	23 = 4.23%	31 = 3.66%
TOTAL	543	846

 

In  a country where Machiavellian trickery is considered something to be admired, Amit Shah makes an announcement which the title of the news item in the Indian Express announces as follows: “Amit Shah’s big announcement on delimitation: whatever increase (in seats) is there, Southern states will get a fair share…not one seat will be reduced”:

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/amit-shah-delimitation-lok-sabha-seats-tamil-nadu-stalin-9857226/ 

Naturally, not one seat will be reduced: Tamilnadu’s share (see the above tables) will not be reduced by a single seat: it will go up from 40 to 50 (or, not counting Puducherry, from 39 to 49), Amit Shah spoke the absolute truth: “aśvatthāma (the elephant)”!!

 

But why did he cleverly put it in that manner? See the full report:

“Addressing BJP workers at the inauguration of party offices in Coimbatore, Tiruvannamalai and Ramanathapuram, Shah said, “Today a meeting will be held to ensure the South does not suffer on account of delimitation. The public in Tamil Nadu is disturbed. This is why the Tamil Nadu CM (Stalin) and his son (Udhayanidhi) are trying to distract the public. Mr Stalin, the Modi government has made it clear in Lok Sabha that after delimitation, on pro rata basis, not a single seat will be reduced in any southern state. And I want to reassure the public of South India that Modi ji has kept your interest in mind to make sure that not even one seat is reduced pro rata. And whatever increase is there, southern states will get a fair share, there is no reason to doubt this.”

A day earlier, Stalin had warned that Tamil Nadu could lose up to eight of its 39 Lok Sabha constituencies due to the delimitation exercise, potentially reducing its seats to 31. He had described the process as a “sword hanging over the head of South India,” raising fears of diminished representation and rights for Tamil Nadu.”

 

Apparently, as per some other estimates of the statewise number of seats after 2026, it was estimated that the total number of seats would be the same (543) but redistributed among the states in new ratios and proportions: i.e. more or less the same ratio or proportion as in the above tables where the total number of seats would be 846! So, yes, “not one seat will be reduced” – but the statewise percentage of seats in the total number of seats would certainly be reduced drastically, especially in relation to that of the Hindi states!

So, will 2026 be the beginning of the end for the emotional unity of India? Given the fact of India’s mercenary politicians and the stupid, ignorant and indifferent (and actually little less mercenary) Indian masses, that is perfectly possible. But again − for who can predict the future – perhaps because of India’s mercenary politicians and the stupid, ignorant and indifferent (and actually little less mercenary) Indian masses, India may still continue limping ahead.

 

But some things can be predicted, and I am predicting them here for the record:

This Parliamentary Delimitation of Lok Sabha seats will go ahead as planned, because no party will want to disappoint or alienate voters from those states whose number of seats are scheduled to rise sharply.

A few years later, after the 2031 National Census of India records the caste of every citizen of India (as per the recent decision by the BJP government to introduce caste census within the National Census from 2031 onwards), there will be redistribution of Lok Sabha seats into reserved categories on the basis of caste.

A few years after that (if not before the 2031 census itself), politicians will realize that Muslim voters are increasing in numbers at even faster rates than the voters from any particular castes. Then there will be a decision to win over the Muslim voters by reserving population-wise numbers of Lok Sabha seats for Muslims.

No one may protest, and no-one may care. All these will be hailed as "masterstrokes". If anyone thinks of protesting or caring, Pakistan will lend its hand by launching attacks in Kashmir or elsewhere on the borders, leading to a massive wave of jingoism in which all other issues will fly out of the minds of the stupid, ignorant and indifferent (and actually little less mercenary) Indian masses. [In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs were never the cause of the woes of the common animals: it was always Mr. Jones or Mr. Pilkington or Mr. Frederick, or, of course, Snowball!]

Any silver lining in the clouds? Yes: I may not be alive till then, to see all this happening.