The State Of The Provinces: Delhi's Eternal Tango With Turf, Pride, And Uneasy Coexistence

The votes have been cast. The results would be out on May 4. There will be winners and there will be losers. After a brief period of recriminations, resentments and reprisals, everybody will settle down to an uneasy coexistence, especially in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

What the 2026 assembly polls in these two states have instigated is an unhappy feeling of turf invaded and turf defended, “my space” being lost or retained. This will have a lasting, indeed, consequential impact on our national sense of togetherness and our collective journey.

Notwithstanding all the democratic trappings, Delhi retains the aura of an “imperial seat” of authority and power. In more than one sense, this has always been the case over the centuries. The “central power” has always had to find the imagination to put in place a mechanism to keep the provinces and the periphery quiet, compliant and happy. This requirement has tested the statesmanship and skills of all rulers—from Ashoka to Akbar to Curzon to Nehru/Patel/Ambedkar—to produce the right mix of coercion and cajoling, and, a balance between joyful autonomy and sullen obedience.

The 1950 Constitution, of course, does provide a framework for sharing power between the Centre and the states. Since laws and statutes do not get implemented in a vacuum, it is the politics of the day that adds spice and bite to the equation between the Centre and the states—at best a hazardous enterprise, given the historic fault lines of linguistic, regional, religious, ethnic diversities and differences.

It was and remains imperative that this equation between the core and the rest should not be allowed to get degenerated into an unfair and unreasonable arrangement. It is the task of politics in India to produce democratic legitimacies on a national scale, emotional satisfactions in the regions, and cultural assurances at the local levels.

In the early years of the Republic, the Indian National Congress with its pan-Indian presence and outlook could ensure that democratic competitiveness did not yield electoral dividends for ultra-localism. This was not an easy task; each region had centuries and centuries of cultural richness, local histories of self-dignity and pride, and a linguistic vibrancy to resist and reject any suggestion of imposition, particularly of the “Hindi imperialism”. There was no dearth of ignorance and intolerance in the Hindi-speaking states to talk of “madrassis” and their presumed inadequacies. Nor was there a shortage in the “south” of regional and local heroes, with demagogic skills to run down Hindi and Hindi-wallahs.

Savour this 1959 biting quip from Annadurai:

…“If we were to ask, ‘What grammar is there in Hindi? What is its literary flourish? After much effort, they would show us two epics—Tulsidas’ Ramayana and the All India Railway Guide. They offer these two as the best literary works in their language.” Such delicious contempt.

If the Tamilians entertained a well-merited and well-founded notion of being superior to the Hindi-wallahs, the Bengalis never had any doubt on that count. And, with good reason. They have had Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chatterjee, Subhas Chandra Bose and Swami Vivekananda in their corner; and they were, after all, the Bhadraloks, a self-invented category of excellence, learning and urbaneness. Bengalis and Tamilians are not alone in this noble parochialism: almost every part of India is proud of its uniqueness, a sense of specialness sustained by historical and literary imaginations.

On the other hand, there was always the “imperial” Delhi’s political compulsion to mobilise sentiments and fellow-feelings on a pan-Indian scale for national projects and undertakings. The trick was to ensure that nationalism did not add up to exclusion of regional aspirations and ambitions. Because, at the end of the day, a national consensus and cohesion had to be evolved as a prerequisite for any kind of collective progress and welfare and for stability and security.

As the ruling party at the Centre, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is entitled to spread its footprints all over the country. Just as Indira Gandhi once observed that as the president of the Indian National Congress, she could not countenance the proposition that the party’s flag would not fly in some parts of India; the BJP leadership too is within its right to try to come to power in West Bengal or Tamil Nadu or Kerala.

The trick for a national political party ruling at the centre is how to seek and consolidate imperial power without being imperialistic. The over-the-top deployment of central forces in West Bengal during the 2026 elections is not without precedent; what is unprecedented is the impression that the Election Commission of India, the central agencies and central forces and the BJP have colluded to convert the poll scene into a kind of ashwamedha yagna, challenging any regional power to try to tame the galloping imperial horse.

There is bound to be resistance to the BJP’s maximalist overreach. Both in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the regional political players and entities are not prepared to concede to the Centre a prerogative to impose its definition and understanding of ‘national’ and ‘constitutional’. Just as in an earlier role the BJP had popularised the concept of “Gujarati aasmita”,—an amalgamation of sub-nationalism, regional exclusiveness, and a defiance of “Delhi”—the chief ministers in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have taken a leaf out of the BJP book, especially after the respective Raj Bhavans were converted as sites of active suborning of legitimately elected governments. What was sauce for the goose in Gandhinagar was not allowed to be sauce for the gander in Chennai and Kolkata.

The BJP’s argument in Tamil Nadu—and more pointedly in West Bengal—is that the presumed local custodians of regional pride and honour have done a poor job, and that the voters and citizens in the two states would be better off letting Narendra Modi and Amit Shah take care of their prosperity and their dreams. An unapologetic presumptuousness was on display. The BJP leaders have asserted that the Trinamool Congress has protected neither the Maa, nor the Maati, nor the Manush in its signature slogan, and the BJP could not be handicapped with the tag of “outsiders”.” But on the other hand, Mahua Moitra simply proclaims: “Trinamool is Bengal”.

Election time invariably produces rhetorical heat. In 2026, we seem to have inflicted deep wounds on ourselves, with the “us” versus “them” theme settling down in permanent corners. Elections are meant to deepen the democratic legitimacy of our constitutional arrangements. This time, national and political voices have combined hands to weaken the national compact. Consequentially unhelpful.

(Views expressed are personal)

Harish Khare is a Delhi-based senior journalist and public commentator