The Autonomy is for India

The more I think, it seems to me that further division of states in India is a good idea. In case i am forgetting something, so far there are no two states where the same language other than Hindi is spoken. If that happens, which will happen if a Vidarbah or a Telengana is created, that will be another good step towards devolution of power. That may diminish some lingusitic chauvinism that once in a while (not that often) surfaces.

The linguistic basis for states perhaps was a good idea just after independence. I think other factors should come into play now. Similar to the example of Bhopal having been far from Bilaspur, until recently to go from Bhubaneswar (capital of Orissa) to Rourkela by train one had to go through West Bengal, then Bihar and then back to Orissa.

Besides the movements that are mentioned in the other articles, two others that i have read about are Gorkhland in the north part of the state of West Bengal and Kosala in the western part of the state of Orissa.

cheers

crb

The Autonomy is for India

Eventhough some parties in India do have party elections, I don`t think they go through a process similar to the US in deciding who should be the party candidate from a constituency. (I just want to differentiate between the process of electing party officials and letting them decide the party candiadates for consistuencies and directly electing the party candiadtes.)

They may have some party meetings where these decisions are made, but it is nowhere near as representative or democratic as in the US. In some states in the US, during the primaries almost any citizen (regardless of their party affiliations) can vote. Nor there is (in India) the coverage associated with primaries here in US.

In the US the primaries are very similar to the real final elections; there is publicity, people go and vote and the newspapers publish who won the primaries and by what margin.

I belive having primaries (if some how we can afford it) will take a democracy to the next step. It will decrease the personality cult now associated with many parties in India.

I am sure if one major party started having this the others will follow through. May be it is a worth while cause to contribute towards the first primaries. I think once people and parties get the hang of it a way for funding it would be found.

(Its amazing the impact the primaries have had in Mexico.)

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Tahmed321 #20:

My knowledge of Pakistan is mostly from reading Chowk, Dawn and Jang. I am still in the learning phase. So can`t really comment on the last of your

query.

cheers

crb

The Autonomy is for India

I have some thoughts on a related issue.

I was wondering if it would make sense to hold primaries in the Indian parliamentary system.

For people who may not be familiar with the primary system: In the US before the real election

different parties hold their own election to decide who will be the candidate for that constituency. Thus the persons who contest the final election, are not handpicked or chosen

by the high command (as in India) but are rather chosen by the people in that constituency who

belong to that party. The last condition may vary between states.

I wish some bold parties in India adopt this approach. As it happened in Mexico, this

will give a lot of visibility to that party and perhaps others will follow suit.

In the absence of such a bottom up procedure, currently too much power in a party is with the party bosses. Currently, the election of party leaders (or legislative leaders) in Indian political parties is almost a farce.

It seems to me that if the Congress-I (or most parties for that matter) had

a primary system and the Congress MPs were

chosen as candidates through a primary (instead of being picked by the state/center party bosses)

then they would elect a different opposition leader than the one elected now.

I realize that there is big difference between the parliamentary system in India and the presidential system in the US. Are there other democracies

with a parliamentary system that have primaries?

Also, a big concern would be the cost asociated with holding primaries.

I hope someone from BJP is listening. May be then can be a trend setter and have primaries.

cheers

crb