When the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government decided in 2019 unilaterally to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir and downgrade it from a state in...
When the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government decided in 2019 unilaterally to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir and downgrade it from a state into a Union territory, many argued that it was likely to be a one-off action. No other Indian state had such a complex constitutional arrangement as Jammu and Kashmir, coupled with a hold on India’s political imagination. That’s why, it was argued, this move could not be seen a tactic that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would seek to use elsewhere.
Others, however, warned that it wasn’t unlikely that such an anti-federal tactic could be repeated, given that the BJP-controlled Parliament does as it wishes without considering wishes of states.
The BJP has not actually carried out such a move anywhere else yet. But the fact that it pulled it off in Jammu and Kashmir without major pushback from the broader Opposition appears to have given it a handle to at least threaten similar action elsewhere.
West Bengal and Tamil Nadu
After it lost the high-pitched political battle in West Bengal earlier this year, for example, BJP leaders began to call for the state to be bifurcated, turning North Bengal into a Union territory. Although not a concerted demand from the national BJP leadership, the party nevertheless did...
