Demography Representation Delimitation : A North south divide in India – Ravi K. Mishra

Description

As India prepares for delimitation after the next Census, a popular argument holds that the southern states will be penalised for successfully controlling population growth through family planning, while the north did not. Historian Ravi K. Mishra challenges this view.

Drawing on around 150 years of census records, gazetteers and boundary and state reorganisation data, he shows that every region of India has had its own period of peak population growth, at different times — and that the south’s slowdown began long before family planning took hold. He argues that the north and west are currently under-represented, at odds with the principle of ‘one person, one vote, one value’. Mishra is Joint Director of the Prime Ministers Museum and Library.