Seema Chishti 
The world is in turmoil. The new Donald Trump administration has injected disturbingly high levels of uncertainties in the global landscape, overthrowing long-established alliances, norms and rubrics. Multipolarity, New Delhi’s professed aim in recent years, does not necessarily follow from a fractured and polarised world.
If the seas are stormy, a ship without internal turbulence is what any captain would want. But not Narendra Modi. Recent weeks have been marked by several provocative moves by the Modi government which signal disregard towards internal unity. Whether done out of a lack of mindfulness or its inability to not provoke sharp divides and ruptures, the Hindutva approach is anything but unifying. It renders India weak and vulnerable to Trump’s antics.
One-language formula
The three-language formula was arrived at to assuage sentiments of speakers of other languages not wanting to buckle under Hindi raj. It meant that public schools are expected to teach the mother tongue, English and another modern Indian language. In pushing states like Tamil Nadu to follow this formula, the Modi government is essentially trying to smuggle in Hindi as that ‘third language’. The argument that it is unifying, or constitutional, is beyond audacious. This policy is not enshrined in the constitution but in the controversial New Education Policy of 2020. This is not ‘unifying’ as it is not followed in north Indian states, which as P. Chidambaram argues, cannot imagine teaching any south Indian language. They effectively teach just one language, Hindi (and some English). This amounts to “starting an unprovoked war”.
There is clarity in what the Tamil Nadu chief minister has said, as the making of Hindi (in opposition to Urdu and then Hindustani) has been a political project closely associated with a Hindu-India since the colonial period. Even in recent decades, Hindi has “swallowed” innumerable languages and dialects spoken in north and west India, particularly once the Census started counting all of them as Hindi to depict India as a Hindi-speaking country.
In a desperate attempt to build a monochrome Hindu India, getting rid of all diversities is critical for the Hindutva ecosystem, so obliterating the country’s thousands of non-Sanskritic languages becomes an ideological imperative. Tamilians rightly protest at their language being dismissed as ‘regional’ – it is classical, modern, living, official and among the 22 national languages. Why is the Union education minister, an RSS product, harping on a line that provoked a deep fracture and threatened India’s unity? Those cleavages were politically bridged by the formation of linguistic states in the 1950s but are now being split wide open again.
Delimitation to hurt non-Hindi speaking states
Union home minister Amit Shah’s ‘pro-rata’ talk on delimitation has fooled no one. Not even the BJP’s Tamil Nadu chief, K. Annamalai, who has left out mention of this phrase in his letter to the state chief minister, M.K. Stalin, written to let the chief minister know that the BJP won’t attend the all-party meeting on delimitation on March 5. Fresh delimitation of the Lok Sabha constituencies is expected after 2026. If the exercise is conducted with a view to “increase” the number of MPs, it will give northern and western states a huge reward for not being able to stabilise their populations.
It seems to be the aim because one of the reasons for hastily constructing the new Parliament building was to accommodate over a thousand MPs. Such a massive increase would tilt the power balance further against the southern states, which will find far fewer MPs in proportion to the northern MPs. The levers of who runs Delhi will never be with southern states. This was the reason the Constitution was amended to protect the interests of the southern states. As per amendments last made to Article 82 in 2001, the 84th Constitutional amendment has frozen the total number of seats according to the 1971 census. The balance of seats amongst states was not changed, even if within states, the boundaries of Lok Sabha constituencies were redrawn before the 2009 general elections.
With no concrete assurance from the Modi government that there won’t be “1,000 MPs”, it is stoking fears, breeding insecurities and risking deep fissures. “One India”, which Modi loudly talks about so often, cannot be about subjugating the multiple expressions that constitute India.
States’ tax share to be cut further?
Add to this, reports that the Modi-government is telling the Finance Commission to slash the states’ share of taxes from 41% to 40% from 2026. Such an anti-federal move will further threaten the states, particularly those in southern India where the BJP is a marginal player. Most state governments already feel that their ability to raise taxation has been squeezed with the GST taking away the fiscal autonomy they enjoyed previously.
States account for approximately 60% of total state spend in the Indian economy. Due to the high levels of cess and excise imposed by the Modi government, their real share of total revenue received has been much less than the 41%. The compensation they were offered to accept the principle of GST too has not been fully paid. In a situation where Tamil Nadu receives 29 paise for every one rupee it gives to the Centre, and Uttar Pradesh gets Rs 2.73 and Bihar Rs 7.06, further taking away the money from the states’ share will exacerbate tensions and revive long-buried conflicts.
A new report has again underlined how divided, unequal and poor India is. The government refuses to even acknowledge the problem. The report succinctly reveals an India sharply and unevenly divided into at least India 1, India 2 and India 3. ‘India 1’ – or what is known as consuming India – comprises about 140 million people and is the class that MNCs want to sell to. They are disproportionately loud and heard in the corridors of power, and are living at levels equivalent to the economic realities of Mexico. ‘India 2’ is the aspirant class of about 300 million people, living at the levels of an average Indonesian. And ‘India 3’, that is one billion Indians, are living at levels of “Sub-Saharan Africa”. Economists see these deep economic divides as a “societal problem”, adding further to the divisions that are currently being fuelled by the politics and policies of this government.
India’s unity lies in accepting its diversities – which works towards the project of an emancipated citizenry – instead of steamrolling them into “One India” under the Sangh’s “Hindi-Hindu-Hindusthan” framework. As India braces to face challenges forced upon it by a world order in a whirlpool, every ounce of togetherness its people can project, borne of a genuine desire to come together, is critical. Manipur and Kashmir continue to present severe security challenges and India’s immediate environment, with a volatile Bangladesh and Myanmar and a hostile Pakistan, is not offering any relief. In this situation, internal cohesion must be a top priority.
The Modi government either thinks it can manage the disunity its divisive policies have catalysed to accelerate its ideological project by force, or it is simply incompetent and unable to think through the consequences of the million mutinies it is fanning. Whatever be the motives, the consequences of such moves will not be great for India and Indians. More so in the era of Trump, Vance and Musk.