The delimitation Bill being pushed through by the Modi regime in the ongoing special session of parliament by using the cover of the Bill for reservation of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies hoodwinks the nation and egregiously violates the vision of two stalwarts of modern India, C. Rajagopalachari and B.R. Ambedkar.Ambedkar warned in 1955, at the time of the reorganisation of States, that the way boundaries were being reset by creating huge states in the Hindi belt and the western part of India, and smaller states in the south, would lead to the perpetual domination of north over south.In his book Thoughts on Linguistic States Ambedkar brought out the vast differences between north and south and asserted: “The North is conservative. The South is progressive. The North is superstitious, the South is rational. The South is educationally forward, the North is educationally backward. The culture of the South is modern. The culture of the North is ancient.”Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Having outlined the positive attributes of the south in contrast to the regressive state of affairs of the north, he sharply asked: “How can the rule of the North be tolerated by the South? Already there [are] signs of the South wanting to break away from the North.”Those utterances of Ambedkar’s are being echoed in the resentment of the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana against the delimitation Bill. They charge that the southern states have registered impressive progress in achieving much better human development indices and drastically controlling population growth in sharp contrast to the northern states, and yet are being penalised by reducing their share of Lok Sabha constituencies based on their lower population figures.They persuasively argue that the delimitation Bill proposing to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats from 543 to more than 815 delimiting constituencies based on 2011 census figures would politically put southern states at a hugely disadvantageous position vis-a-vis the northern states.According to The Hindu‘s editorial of April 15,“the Hindi heartland states (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Delhi), which currently hold 207 of 543 seats, would secure 366 – a 77% increase, with their share rising from 38.1% to 43.1%. The southern states (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Puducherry), with 132 seats now, would receive only 176, a 33% increase, while their share would drop from 24.3% to 20.7%. The eastern states would slip from 14.4% to 13.7%; the Northeast from 4.4% to 3.8%.”All these clearly prove that the political domination of northern states, where the BJP is in power, would be further perpetuated over the southern states, with no incentives in sight for them for their noteworthy progress in the diverse fields of health, education, empowerment of women and population control.Stalin’s warningTherefore, Tamil Nadu chief minister Stalin in a video message issued a “final warning” to the Modi regime and sternly stated that if Tamil Nadu would be subjected to an extreme level of unfair treatment on account of the delimitation Bill, “you will witness a Tamil Nadu that you have not seen before” and that “India will once again witness the spirit of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of the 1950s and 1960s”.In his angry outburst, Stalin resonates Ambedkar’s aforementioned anguished remarks: “How can the rule of the North be tolerated by the South? Already there [are] signs of the South wanting to break away from the North.”Ambedkar and Rajagopalachari’s warningsIt is salutary to note that Ambedkar validated his remarks in the book Thoughts on Linguistic States by quoting Rajagopalachari, who while referring to the reorganisation of states had said on November 27, 1955: “It would be utterly wrong to fritter away national energy in [the] dispute over boundaries and divisions conceived in the drawing room and not on the background of conditions that have resulted historically.”Those remarks of Rajaji’s assume greater significance when the boundaries of Lok Sabha constituencies are altered or their numbers increased on a proportionate basis without considering absolute numbers and that too without consulting chief ministers and other stakeholders. So, the imposition of the Modi regime’s decision on delimitation taken in a drawing room and imposed on the southern states is like playing with fire.Ambedkar recalled Rajagopalachari’s warnings regarding the federal framework being proposed in the draft Constitution in the Constituent Assembly. He told Ambedkar:“In such a federation the Prime Minister and President of India will always be from the Hindi-speaking area. You should have two Federations, one Federation of the North and one Federation of the South and a Confederation of the North and the South with three subjects for the Confederation to legislate upon and equal representation for both the federations.”Ambedkar thought that Rajagopalachari’s ideas would lead to India breaking up along a north-south divide and so remarked: “We must do everything to falsify Mr. Rajagopalachari’s prophecy.”That prophecy did not become a reality because successive prime ministers including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in the words of Stalin, “froze delimitation – to preserve balance until the country evolved more evenly”.The Modi regime is attempting to make that dire prophecy, which Ambedkar wanted to falsify in 1955, a reality. While doing so, Ambedkar expressed serious apprehensions that there could be a civil war in India on the basis of sharp cleavages between the north and south. He wrote:“It must not be forgotten that there was a civil war in the USA between the North and the South. There may also be a civil war between the North and the South in India. Time will supply many grounds for such a conflict. It must not be forgotten that there is a vast cultural difference between the North and the South and cultural differences are very combustible. In creating this consolidation of the North and balkanisation of the South the Commission [States Reorganisation Commission] did not realise that they were dealing with a political and not a merely linguistic problem.”Ambedkar’s words “time will supply many grounds for such a conflict” can be juxtaposed with the timing of the Modi regime’s delimitation Bill being pushed under the cover of the women’s reservation Bill. It has provided the ground for conflict, and the angry and justifiable outbursts from southern states clearly flag an irreconcilable north-south conflict of the kind Ambedkar and Rajagopalachari apprehended.Delimitation is a political problem and should be handled with great deal of care and sensitivity.Ambedkar expressed the view that the reorganisation of states based on language was not just a linguistic problem but a political problem. That view was reflected in Stalin’s remarks that “what we are witnessing today goes beyond delimitation; it is about how power itself is being restructured in one party’s advantage. Is this to strengthen democracy, empower women or recalibrate it for political convenience?”Ambedkar prescribed in his book Thoughts on Linguistic States that to prevent a north-south civil war, huge states in the Hindi-speaking belt should be split into small states to prevent their domination of the south.The sensitivity and understanding of the need to uphold the unity of India that those wise words represent are the need of the hour to defeat a delimitation process curated without following a deliberative and consultative process of lawmaking.S.N. Sahu served as officer on special duty to former President K.R. Narayanan.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.