Regional Aspirations and Coalition Politics

India is astonishingly diverse. Many of its regions have at times demanded greater recognition, autonomy or even separation. How India handled these regional aspirations (largely through accommodation rather than force) shaped its democracy. So did the shift from one-party rule to coalitions. Together, these two stories explain much about why Indian democracy has endured. This is a high-yield topic in modern Indian politics.

A diverse country naturally produces regional aspirations: demands by particular regions or communities for autonomy, statehood, or protection of their identity. The major episodes are worth knowing in detail:

• Punjab. Sikh identity politics sharpened with the Akali Dal's Anandpur Sahib Resolution (1973). It demanded greater autonomy for states and a redrawing of centre–state relations. Through the early 1980s, militancy grew. The army's Operation Blue Star (June 1984) removed armed militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. It deeply hurt Sikh sentiment. It was followed by the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (31 October 1984) by her bodyguards, and then by the anti-Sikh riots. Peace was sought through the Rajiv–Longowal Accord (July 1985), signed between PM Rajiv Gandhi and Akali leader Harchand Singh Longowal.
• Jammu and Kashmir. J&K acceded to India in 1947. It was given a special, autonomous status under Article 370, with its own constitution and flag, for decades. Insurgency and a separatist movement gripped the Valley from the late 1980s. (Article 370 was effectively read down and the state reorganised into two Union Territories in 2019.)
• The North-East. Several distinct movements shaped the region:
  • Assam Movement (1979–1985): Led by the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) against "outsiders"/illegal migrants. It was settled by the Assam Accord (1985), which fixed 24 March 1971 as the cut-off date for detecting foreigners.
  • Naga insurgency: A long-running movement for Naga self-determination.
  • Mizo movement: The Mizo National Front under Laldenga fought for secession. The Mizo Accord (1986) made Mizoram a full state and brought the MNF into peaceful politics.
• Tamil Nadu. The Dravidian movement (E.V. Ramasamy "Periyar", later the DMK and AIADMK) championed Tamil identity and social justice. The anti-Hindi agitations of 1965 opposed making Hindi the sole official language. They were pivotal: they pushed the DMK to power in 1967 and entrenched the continued use of English alongside Hindi.

These movements are not signs of failure. In a democracy, expressing and bargaining over such demands is normal.

India's broad approach has been one of accommodation rather than suppression. Instead of crushing regional demands, the Indian state has usually tried to:

• negotiate and reach political settlements (the Punjab, Assam and Mizo accords are the classic examples of settling movements by agreement rather than force),
• grant autonomy or statehood: many new states have been created over time, from the linguistic reorganisation of states in the 1950s–60s to the carving out of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand (2000) and Telangana (2014), and
• work through the federal system, which shares power between the centre and the states, with special arrangements for sensitive regions.

This flexible, federal accommodation let regions express their identity within the Union. It is a key reason India has held together where many other diverse nations have splintered. Force was used in some cases (Punjab, the North-East), but dialogue and political settlement have been the main tools.

The redrawing of the political map began well before the accords of the 1980s. It continued after the linguistic reorganisation of 1956.

• Punjab and Haryana (1966): On the Akali Dal's demand, Punjab was reorganised on linguistic lines. The Hindi-speaking south became the new state of Haryana. Hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh. Chandigarh became a Union Territory and the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana.
• The North-East: Facing insurgencies, the Centre reorganised the region step by step. Nagaland became a state in 1963. Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura became states in 1972. The Mizo Hills became a Union Territory in 1972 after the Mizo insurgency, and Mizoram gained full statehood in 1987 following the Mizo Accord. The North-East Frontier Agency was renamed Arunachal Pradesh.
• Sikkim: Long an Indian protectorate, Sikkim voted in a 1975 referendum to merge with India. It became the 22nd state through the 36th Amendment (1975). It is strategically vital because it borders China.

The coalition era of 1989 had deep roots. After the 1967 elections the Congress lost power in many states. This opened space for regional forces.

• Tamil Nadu and the DMK: The south felt a north–south divide. People feared Hindi imposition and resented what they saw as northern "Brahminism". The anti-Hindi agitation carried the DMK to its 1967 sweep of Madras (later Tamil Nadu) under C.N. Annadurai, the first non-Congress government in the state. Power there has since alternated between the DMK and the AIADMK, the latter formed under M.G. Ramachandran. The south rejected the three-language formula (Hindi, English and a regional language) as unfair.
• Shiv Sena: Founded in Maharashtra in 1966 by Bal Thackeray, it demanded "Bombay for Maharashtrians" and targeted South Indian migrants. It grew into a major force in Mumbai.
• SVD coalitions in the north: Samyukta Vidhayak Dal (SVD) coalitions, multi-party non-Congress fronts, came to power in several northern states. They reflected the rising political consciousness of the middle and lower castes, who had gained from land reform. Defection politics ("Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram") became common.

A radical challenge to the political system also rose from the far left in rural Bengal.

• Naxalbari (1967): In the Naxalbari area of north Bengal, Kanu Sanyal and others mobilised the rural poor around 1967 to seize land from evicting landlords. The protests turned violent.
• CPI(ML), 1969: Rebels who felt the CPI(M) had "betrayed the revolution" formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969 under Charu Mazumdar. They drew inspiration from China and Maoism. The term "Naxalites" came to mean those who use violence against the State in the name of the oppressed.
• Suppression: The movement spread to parts of Bihar, Andhra and elsewhere. The government largely suppressed it, though it continued to influence certain regions for decades.

For decades the Congress dominated, but its grip loosened over time. From 1989, a major change set in: no single party won a majority in Parliament on its own. The 1989 election ended Congress's hold. It brought in the National Front government led by V.P. Singh, supported from outside by both the BJP and the Left. This was the first durable sign of the new pattern.

This began the era of coalition politics, in which governments are formed by alliances of several parties:

• Regional parties (DMK, AIADMK, TDP, Akali Dal, Samajwadi Party, RJD, Trinamool and others) became powerful national players. Their handful of seats could decide who formed the government.
• Governance became more bargaining-based, with shared minimum programmes and constant negotiation among allies.
• The phase produced both instability (short-lived governments in 1989–91 and 1996–98) and, later, durable multi-party alliances such as the NDA and UPA.

The instability of 1996–98 had a name. The 1996 election produced a hung Parliament. A BJP government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee fell within thirteen days. Power then passed to the United Front, a coalition of more than a dozen non-Congress, non-BJP parties. The Congress supported it from outside. It produced two Prime Ministers in quick succession: H.D. Deve Gowda (1996–97) and then I.K. Gujral (1997–98).

Exams test who was inside the Front and who was not:

• Constituents: the Janata Dal led the Front. Regional parties such as the Asom Gana Parishad, the DMK, the TDP, the Samajwadi Party and the Tamil Maanila Congress were among its members, along with the Left.
• Outside the Front: the BSP, the Samata Party and the Haryana Vikas Party were not constituents. The Samata Party was an ally of the BJP, and later part of the NDA.

Coalition politics gave regions a much bigger voice at the centre and made Indian democracy more genuinely federal in practice.

Two further shifts reshaped politics from around 1990:

• The Mandal Commission (formally the Second Backward Classes Commission, chaired by B.P. Mandal, appointed in 1979 and reporting in 1980) recommended 27% reservation in central government jobs and educational institutions for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The V.P. Singh government implemented it in 1990. This brought caste and social justice to the centre of politics and triggered major protests. The Supreme Court upheld the 27% OBC reservation in the Indra Sawhney case (1992). It capped total reservations at 50% and introduced the "creamy layer" exclusion of better-off OBCs.
• New social and identity movements (based on caste, region and community) emerged, and backward-caste-based parties rose with them. Together they changed the political landscape, deepening the representation of previously marginalised groups.

Coalitions, regional parties and identity politics together replaced the old one-party dominance. The result was a more plural, competitive and representative democracy.

Alongside Mandal, the politics of religion moved to the centre of national life. The dispute over the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya, a sixteenth-century mosque which some Hindus believed stood on the birthplace of Ram, became the most explosive issue of the era. The BJP made the demand for a Ram temple at the site its central campaign, and L.K. Advani's rath yatra of 1990 mobilised support across north India. On 6 December 1992, a large crowd of kar sevaks (volunteer activists) demolished the disputed structure at Ayodhya. Communal riots followed in several cities, most severely in Mumbai in December 1992 and January 1993.

The state's standard response to such crises was the judicial inquiry. The government appointed the Liberhan Commission (1992), a one-man commission under Justice M.S. Liberhan, to probe the demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya. It became famous for its delay: it submitted its report only in 2009, seventeen years later. The events also produced a notable insider account: Arun Shourie, the journalist and BJP leader, wrote the book 'Ayodhya: 6 December 1992' on the demolition and its aftermath.

Several inquiry commissions of this period are easily confused, so learn each with its subject:

• Liberhan Commission: demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya (1992).
• Sri Krishna Commission: the riots in Mumbai in 1992–93, headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna.
• Jain Commission: the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi (killed in 1991), probing the conspiracy behind it.
• Wadhwa Commission: the killing of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in Odisha in 1999.

The Ayodhya episode hardened the Mandir-versus-Mandal divide. Religious mobilisation and caste mobilisation together defined the party competition of the 1990s. No single party could turn either wave into a stable majority, which is why the decade closed in the coalition arithmetic described above.