Modi Govt Should Find A Way To End North Vs South Debates On Key Issues

Apart from the language issue, DMK will obviously make the pending delimitation exercise an election issue. This clearly shows DMK is on a weak political wicket and it needs emotional issues to turn the tide in its favour in the upcoming 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly polls. But such political strategies at fag end are likely to back fire as people will give more weightage to DMK’s performance in the last four years while voting

In India, political parties change their contours, colours and content to suit the situations they are in. When a political party is in power, everything appears hunky-dory. Once out of power, everything looks bad. So, it starts organizing protests, campaigns and what not. This will continue till it regains power.

And the ‘hunky-dory’ part of the political cycle starts, all over again. Many political parties go through this cycle frequently because they don’t analyze their defeats and wins properly; nor is there any soul-searching exercise or retrospection.

I don’t think it’s any different in any other country which has adopted democracy. But in our country, this political transformation is swift. As politicians are an integral part of a political party, they also go through similar transformations. Of course, there is a special class of politicians, which immediately shifts loyalties to the ruling party. This strategy doesn’t work right for many politicians, though.

However, some political parties get into combative mode when they are in power! Of course, that happens on rare occasions, especially closer to the end of the ruling tenure! There may be several reasons for it.

The latest iteration of this ‘rare occasion’ came to the fore in Tamil Nadu where Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the ruling party, transformed itself into an opposition party and started fighting against the BJP-lead central government nearly 13 months before the State is slated to go to Assembly polls. DMK came to power in May 2021 and its president Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin became the Chief Minister. Towards the fag end of his term, he took up the issue of the three-language formula for school education enunciated in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Tamil Nadu still follows the two-language policy in government schools – Tamil and English. But the central government has linked its funds to States for the education sector to the implementation of the three-language formula.

The anti-Hindi political rhetoric apparently started when the Centre refused to release funds to Tamil Nadu for not implementing the three-language formula. Though Hindi has not been made mandatory in the NEP 2020 and States can opt for any other Indian language as the third one, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister alleges that this as an attempt to push Hindi into Tamil Nadu through the backdoor.

His aggressive posture suggests that he wants to make this an election issue. The Tamil Nadu government even removed the rupee symbol from its annual budget documents. Obviously, that was taking the issue too far.

It’s a fact that Tamil people fought against imposition of Hindi on them in the 1930s and 1960s. But it’s questionable whether there is any such animosity towards Hindi in that State now. In the changed dynamics, there should not be much opposition to learning functional Hindi in Tamil Nadu. Furthermore, all private schools have English medium.

The other issue Stalin has taken up is the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies. The delimitation, which was taken up before the 2009 General Elections, is due next year. As of now, there is no clarity yet whether the central government will take up this exercise or further postpone it. However, there is contention that south Indian States will stand to lose MP seats and with it a share in political power if the delimitation is done using the 2011 Census.

In the past few decades, south Indian States implemented family planning schemes effectively to control population growth while those in north India did not do that. As population is the basis for the delimitation exercise, States with higher population growth will stand to gain if the Centre doesn’t put in place adequate safeguards to protect the current representation of States in the parliament. The DMK government is even holding a meeting with political parties and governments from south India next week to strengthen its argument against the delimitation exercise.

Apart from the language issue, DMK will obviously make this pending delimitation exercise an election issue. This clearly shows that DMK is on a sticky political wicket and it needs emotional issues to turn the tide in its favour in the 2026 Assembly elections. But such political strategies at the fag-end are more likely to backfire as people will give more weightage to DMK’s performance in the last four years when they vote.

However, DMK’s attempts to turn focus on language and delimitation issues rekindled the north India versus south India debate.

Telangana Chief Minister Anumula Revanth Reddy, who is supporting DMK’s moves on delimitation, has also alleged that the Opposition-ruled southern States are not getting their due in the distribution of the central government’s revenues. He has frequently alleged that the Modi government has been favouring northern States while allocating the central funds.

Such north versus south discourses obviously put national parties like the Congress in a tricky situation. It is in power in Telangana and Karnataka in the south and only in a small State like Himachal Pradesh in the north. If it gives full freedom to its chief ministers in Telangana and Karnataka against Centre on such issues, it may face backlash in north India, which is crucial for it to come to power at the Centre. It is to be seen how Congress will handle these issues.

For Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too, which is in power at the Centre, these political discourses will be a cause of concern. Furthermore, it’s gaining rapid traction in Telangana and Tamil Nadu. Apparently, DMK took up delimitation and language issues to check BJP’s expansion in Tamil Nadu. Besides, BJP is a part of TDP-led NDA government in Andhra Pradesh and has won its first Lok Sabha seat in Kerala in 2024.

Moreover, letting such controversial political discourses go out of control will not be good for India, its integrity and the economy, thereof. Therefore, the Modi government should find a way to put curtains on the north vs south debates on key issues of languages, delimitation and revenue sharing by bringing in clearly-articulated policy frameworks and making concerted efforts. Let’s hope that happen, sooner than later.