Nonsecessionist Regionalism in India: The Uttarakhand Separate State Movement

Studies of regionalism in India have tended to concentrate on the secessionist struggles in Kashmir and Punjab, and on centre-State relations within the federal union. An issue which has received far less attention has been that of nonsecessionist regionalism—the various demands for the creation of new smaller States within India. The persistent tendency of the centre has been to view these movements as threatening and divisive and, therefore, with varying degrees of success, to resist and repress them. However, a number of commentators have suggested that smaller States are one way in which India's federal structure could become more equipoised, decentralised, and participatory. In this paper the author examines the recent mass movement for a separate State of Uttarakhand, an area which currently forms the Himalayan part of the State of Uttar Pradesh. Given the limitations of space, she concentrates on one aspect of the movement, namely how protestors have mobilised particular grammars and strategies of resistance in their struggle to persuade the central government (the final arbiter) that their demands for separation from Uttar Pradesh are justified and that the creation of Uttarakhand would benefit both the region and the country, economically, environmentally, and strategically.