A region is an area in which its citizens are unified on the basis of language, culture, economic and political interests. Regionalism can be defined as a feeling of pride or loyalty to a region or community and individual belongs to. This ideology may stem a notion of superiority of one region over another and it produces dependability to a community rather than to the nation as a whole. Furthermore, Regionalism is an ideological concept in politics, which focuses on the interests of a particular region, or group of regions, by increasing the regions influence, and political power by means or measures of delegation, states' rights, decentralization, autonomy, and separation from sovereignty. While still connected to some sort of central government, regionalism affects development by promoting and strengthening self-governing bodies, forming a more effective form of allocation of local resources, which would benefit local populations, raise competition levels and stimulate competition levels amongst the regions.In addition Regionalism affects the issue of development because it divides cities, states into separate administrative regions.
The decentralization of power in India unlike the centralization of power in China provides the uppermost levels of democracy. Regionalism becomes an impediment to development when it encourages protectionist economy and a closed culture not available to compare itself with other different cultural local entities. In India regionalism is accommodated through the federal system and the formation of states along linguistic and ethnic lines. In contrast China adopts a unitary system which rests authority solely on a centralized power, with the local governments allocated by central government. Furthermore, Regionalism in India is largely dependent on an immense amount of political parties that embody the different cultures and communities within their country.
While in China, Regionalism is dependent on a one Political Party that determines the needs rather than represents the needs of the people. In this essay, I will discuss how regionalism has affected economic development, and education in both India and China. I will also illustrate how regionalism has affected the political parties and the dynamics of local autonomy. Overall, the way China has handled the differences within their states has contributed to their effectiveness in implementing policy changes and economic reforms. Even though India is diverse in every aspect, some scholars suggest that Regionalism has been a success through the countries cultural and linguistic differences in creating unity, however, it has produced problems in the implementation of policies and economic reform.
Regionalism describes situations in which different religious or ethnic groups with distinctive identities coexist within the same state boundaries, often concentrated within a particular region and sharing strong feelings of collective identity. It often involves ethnic groups whose aims include independence from a national state and the development of their own political power. Both India and China are sub-continental states enclosing distinct geo-economic regions of their own. Each inherited fissiparous tendencies and deep political cleavages from the pre-independence/pre-liberation periods.
The worst of these (between the Indian Muslim League and the Indian national Congress in India and between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China in China) resulted in the partition of India at the time of independence in 1947 and the establishment of the ROC on Taiwan when Kuomintang was expelled from mainland China in1949.1 In addition Mansigh suggests that the Cold war put barriers on Asia that directly impinged on China and India, in the 1950s China was in alliance with the Soviet Union and India cooperated in economic development projects with countries in South and Southeast Asia within the framework of the Colombo plan and ECAFE, but "regionalism was not part of their agenda. The Initiative for forming regional associations in Asia was taken by smaller countries and China and India became parts of these associations in the 1980s and 1990s.2Regionalism has created balance and imbalances within India. India is a massive country having continental dimensions and comprising no fewer than 28 States and 7 Union Territories.3 It is a multi-racial, multi-lingual nation.
Social factors contributing to regionalism in India include the diverse languages and different cultures. Among the many diverse cultures and languages, it is not a surprise that there are many regional feelings, regional parties, and regional institutions and organizations representing goals of the people. Therefore, these social factors contribute to the division among the Indian people. Regionalism has remained perhaps the most potent force in Indian politics ever since independence (1947), if not before. It has remained the main basis of many regional political parties which have been governing many states since the late 1960s.4In addition, India is a new federation with a high density population.
Spate suggests that modern federalism which is essentially a form of government appropriate to new lands with vast area and thin population, is valid in the sense that every new political and administrative experiment has a better chance of success in new and relatively empty lands where people do not have a long history, and where strong and conflicting cultural identities in the component regions have not developed.5 However, countries such as India, with deep-rooted historical loyalties and with one of the oldest histories in human civilization, have adopted the federal form of government. Moreover, Dikshit asserts that India has generally been regarded as one of the most successful federations outside the classical group.6In India, Regionalism is accommodated by a federal system. In a federal system, there are two levels of government with constitutional authority to make laws affecting citizens.
7 The National government in India, also known as the Centre or Union, has constitutional powers superior to those of the regional units, called states.8 Government is divided between the Union and the states. Therefore, India is a 'Union of States". The Union and States are each responsible for different activities.
According to Charlton, The State has the right to constitute and determine the powers of the local government entities. Moreover, the National parliament has residuary power, the power to make laws.9The Union Government in India has the taxing powers. However, according to Charlton States may collect sales taxes and taxes on agricultural income, alcoholic beverages mineral rights, luxuries and etc.
10Some analyses of Indian Politics suggest that the development of strong regional polities offers the best hope for nation unity and democracy and reflects the spread of political participation to many groups formally excluded with a society. Overall that regionalism offers hope for national unity.11 Therefore one can argue that it has helped in building a nation by allowing the democratic system within India to accommodate the demands of each region. India is a diverse and large country.
Therefore, a central unitary system in India would be unsuccessful in meeting the needs of all the different cultures and groups.India has an immense linguistic diversity; India's languages consist of Hindi and twenty-two other languages. Regionalism was given a new incentive by the emergence of the Telegu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh .The growth of this movement can be traced back, The commission of the 1955 report recommended that political boundaries be redrawn largely along linguistic lines, and in the 1956 States Reorganization Act provided for fourteen states and six union territories (in contrast to the twenty-seven states that has existed in 1950).
12 Regionalism is embedded in India's diversity of languages cultures, tribes, communities, religions and so on, and encouraged by the regional concentration of those social attributes, and stimulated by a sense of regional deprivation.Culturally, India's different regions are different from one another. For instance, southern India (the home of Dravidian cultures), which is itself a region of many regions, is evidently different from the north, the west, the central and the north-east.13.
Even after various phases of territorial restructuring since 1950, most regions of India contain many sub regions marked by some social and cultural identity symbols. In India, regionalism, or sense of loyalty to the particular region manifested itself variously (Ram 1968; Rao 1975; Chandra, Mathur and Pandey eds 1976; Reddy and Sharma 1979; Mishra 1984; Wallace 1985; Das Gupta 1988; Sarkar 1991; Mukherjee 1992).14
