New Delhi: Almost immediately after Congress was handed a resounding defeat in three Hindi-heartland states – Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh – by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent Assembly polls, a debate sprang up on a ‘North vs South’ divide in current Indian politics because BJP does not have a government in any of the southern states. The drubbing Congress gave to BJP in the southern state of Telangana, which was the grand old party’s second electoral feat in the south after its victory Karnataka in May, seemed to add both legitimacy and credibility to the debate on a ‘north-south divide’.
It all started with Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram posting just two words on social media platform X soon after the election results came: “The SOUTH”. It was Congress leader Praveen Chakravarty who triggered the debate by saying in a post on X that the North-South boundary lines are getting thicker and clearer. Chakravarty deleted his post after facing flak from different quarters for it. But the ship had sailed by that time, and the issue had started trending on social media with several influencers talking about the so-called national political divide and asserting that Congress and non-BJP parties were governing economically and socially developed states in the south.
DMK MP Senthil Kumar added fuel to the fire on December 5 by saying in Lok Sabha that BJP can win only in “goumutra states” (cow urine states), by which he meant Hindi-heartland states with a strong and palpable leaning towards Hindutva, and not in southern states. As the statement rocked parliament with BJP MPs targeting the INDIA alliance for “breaking the country,” Kumar withdrew his statement and requested that his words be expunged from Lok Sabha’s records.
‘South vs North: India’s Great Divide,’ a book authored by Nilakantan RS, deals in detail with the mammoth difference the two regions have on the parameters of economy, health and education, etc., and the bias that southern states have been suffering due to the centralised policies of the Union government. The south has performed much better on the parameters of health, education and economy than the north. “Kerala, for instance, has an almost eleven-year advantage over Uttar Pradesh in terms of life expectancy at birth,” the book comments. The infant mortality rate of Kerala was 7 in 2018 against 43 in Uttar Pradesh and 48 in Madhya Pradesh. In 2019, while it fell to 6 in Kerala, it was 41 in Uttar Pradesh and 46 in Madhya Pradesh.
On the economic front, all five southern states were among the 10 richest large states of the country in 2018-19. The book commented that despite having a larger share in the contribution of revenue, the southern states have been getting less financial aid from the Centre and that the centralisation of policies is adding to their suffering.
The book referred to National Education Policy (NEP) of 2020, whose goal is to reach 50 per cent enrolment in tertiary education by 2035. “Some states in southern India have already exceeded that goal. Designing a policy whose 15-year goal has already been achieved is another way of condemning the south to the status quo while waiting for the north to catch up,” said the book.
Significantly, the book said the representation of southern states in national politics will reduce following the delimitation exercise. Tamil Nadu would have seven fewer MPs than it currently has after delimitation, and Kerala and Andhra Pradesh will also stand to lose the most, it said.
“The ‘north vs south’ divide exists in almost every realm of life, be it health or education or social attitudes towards religion or economic opportunities. So it is only natural that the divide gets reflected in politics,” said Nilakantan RS on the raging debate. He stressed the need for decentralisation of policy making.
Dr Ajay Gudavarty, associate professor at the centre for political studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), rubbished all talks about a ‘north vs south’ divide that the assembly election results unleashed. “There are multiple ways to look at it. Congress has not been washed out in the north, and BJP was never there in the south. Congress maintained a significant vote share in the three Hindi-heartland states in the latest polls. It is just that BJP’s agenda proves more appealing in the northern states in comparison to the south,” he told Orissa POST. Dr Gudavarty also said it is quite possible that the ‘north vs south’ agenda was being propagated by BJP itself to consolidate votes of north Indians in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Prof Jagdeep S Chhoker, founder-member of Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), said there is no ideological divide between the north and south though the southern states have been doing “much better” on economic and social indicators. “It seems, in a sense, that the southern states are subsidising the northern states. The revenue contribution of southern states is more than that of the northern states. Due to the large population in the north, the number of MPs from there will increase and so will the political power of the northern states. This seems a bit unfair that despite performing well on economic and social indicators, the southern states will have less representation in parliament,” said Prof Chhoker.
“It is too early to talk about repercussions of the delimitation exercise and the economic disparity between the north and the south. The fact remains that southern states are more developed,” said Namita Wahi, senior fellow at Centre for Policy Research (CPR), expressing concern over the increasing ‘centralisation of power’.
The raging ‘North-vs-South’ debate makes the 2024 parliamentary elections a crucial development to watch. Two decades ago, BJP won assembly elections in three Hindi-heartland states just before the Lok Sabha polls while Congress emerged as the largest party in the 2004 general elections and formed the government. Congress and other non-BJP parties had witnessed an increase in their seats in the Hindi belt. Despite the change of scenario now, P Santosh Kumar, a CPI MP from Kerala, says the political divide will be overcome and a result similar to that in 2004 will emerge in the 2024 general elections.
BJP is trying hard to gain seats in southern states and witnessing a rise in vote share. In the recent assembly poll in Telangana, its vote share almost doubled to 14 per cent, and its tally of seats rose to eight from three. After the assembly poll results emerged, Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X that his party has an “unbreakable bond with Telangana.” It is a clear signal that BJP will leave no stone unturned to increase its tally in the southern states in next year’s parliamentary elections.