NARENDRA MODI likes to drag rabbits out of hats. One night in 2016 the Indian prime minister declared that 500- and 1,000-rupee notes—representing 86% of money by worth—would stop to be authorized tender by the tip of the night time. In 2020 he locked down the nation at only some hours’ discover. So it’s hardly shocking that hypothesis has been working rampant since Mr Modi’s authorities introduced that it’s to convene a “special session” of Parliament, from September 18th to twenty second. What trick does he have up his sleeve now?

For the second the guessing recreation has settled on two potentialities. One is that Mr Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will change the nation’s identify in English from India to Bharat (which is already the identify in Hindi). The nameplate Mr Modi sat behind as he negotiated with G20 leaders at a summit over the weekend has added gasoline to that idea. The different guess is that Mr Modi intends to reorganise the electoral calendar, in order that India’s unending carnival of state and federal elections henceforth happen all on the identical time, as soon as each 5 years. In both case the change would serve a undertaking Mr Modi has been pushing from the beginning: attempting to centralise and homogenise a staggeringly huge and numerous nation.

Since coming to energy in 2014 the BJP has set about reworking India into one thing extra like a European nation-state. That imaginative and prescient includes each strengthening the central authorities and selling a pan-Indian, Hindu-nationalist identification. The authorities routinely emphasises that India is “one nation”, implementing insurance policies resembling “one nation, one ration card” (for subsidised grain) and proposing many extra, resembling “one nation, one uniform” (for the police). The thought of synchronising polls has been on the BJP’s manifesto since 2014. It is named “one nation, one election”.

In financial issues, the federal government’s centralising tendencies are principally very welcome. In 2017 Mr Modi launched a nationwide goods-and-services tax (“one nation, one tax”, higher generally known as GST) searching for to deepen the nation’s widespread market. It appears to be paying off. Between 2017-18 and 2020-21 the worth of interstate commerce elevated by 44%, greater than double the expansion in GDP throughout the identical interval, in line with a research within the Indian Public Policy Review, a journal. The paper’s authors attribute the rise to the introduction of GST and better financial integration.

Moreover, the federal government is furiously building highways, commissioning new airports and launching zippy prepare providers to knit Indians nearer. The roll-out, over the previous decade, of a nationwide digital identification system and of digital payments has assuaged issues that typically brought on complications for Indians who travelled exterior their very own areas. It is getting simpler to construct companies that span the nation.

It is plainly in India’s pursuits to forge a extra subtle single market. Yet the federal government’s strident “one nation” rhetoric is inflicting another ties to fray. The chief divide in India is between the industrialised, richer south, and the agrarian, impoverished north. The south is made up of 5 states: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana (see map). The north is dwelling to 2 of the poorest ones, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. The south is richer, safer, more healthy, higher educated, and fewer terrible to girls and Dalits than the north (see chart). Bihar and UP occupy the final and second-last positions when India’s states are ranked in line with their scores on the human improvement index, a measure of well-being.

At the time of the final census in 2011 UP and Bihar had 25% of India’s inhabitants, to the south’s 21%. The hole has grown. The newest official estimates recommend that in 2022 UP and Bihar had 26% of India’s folks, whereas the south’s share had declined to 19.5%. Their economies have additionally diverged. GDP per capita within the south is 4.2 occasions better than in UP and Bihar, up from 3.3 in 2011-12. The southern states contribute 1 / 4 of India’s corporate- and income-tax revenues, in contrast with simply 3% for UP and Bihar. When firms resembling Apple open new factories in India they head straight to the south, dwelling to expert staff and business clusters.

Southern alarm bells

Politically, too, the north and south are completely different international locations. No state within the south is dominated by a BJP authorities, which is seen as a celebration of the Hindi-speaking north. Karnataka, the one southern state the place the BJP had made inroads, voted out Mr Modi’s get together in elections earlier this 12 months.

Regional variations are actually inflicting tensions on three fronts: cultural, fiscal and political. Start with tradition. The south has lengthy resented what it sees because the imposition of values and language from the north. In 2019 Amit Shah, India’s dwelling minister, tweeted that “if one language can do the work of uniting the country, then it is the most spoken language, Hindi.” In response protests broke out throughout the south, and even the BJP’s allies within the area distanced themselves from his feedback. It is not only about phrases, explains R. Srinivasan of the Tamil Nadu state planning fee. Southern defenders of language additionally consider they’re defending a broader political identification, one which helps social justice, gender equality and emancipation from caste prejudice.

Complaints about India’s fiscal compact are rising, too. Though the central authorities rakes in income, states do a lot of the spending, significantly in essential spheres resembling training, well being and welfare. The introduction of the GST weakened states’ revenue-raising powers. In 2021-22, spending by states accounted for 64% of public expenditure, however they raised solely 38% of revenues. As a outcome, states are actually extra dependent than ever on transfers from the centre. How a lot they get is determined each 5 years by the Finance Commission, a constitutional physique.

What every state receives varies relying on measures resembling its inhabitants and stage of improvement. As a outcome, southern states obtain far much less from the centre than they contribute. Redistribution throughout states is a function of any federal system, an ethical responsibility and, in India, a constitutional obligation. But it’s turning into extra controversial as state economies diverge. Concerns will most likely redouble later this 12 months, when the subsequent finance fee begins figuring out the way it will share revenues for the interval 2027-32.

The third and probably most harmful set of tensions pertains to political illustration. The structure requires that seats in Parliament be allotted in line with inhabitants, with a roughly equal variety of voters in every constituency and redistricting carried out after each census. But in 1976 the Congress authorities froze India’s electoral boundaries for 25 years to keep away from penalising states that succeeded with family-planning insurance policies. In 2002 a BJP authorities prolonged the moratorium till 2026. The south’s share of India’s inhabitants has since dropped by 5 share factors, whereas that of UP and Bihar has grown by three factors.

The result’s a misallocation of seats. Going by the 2011 census, the south ought to have 18 fewer MPs in India’s 545-seat decrease home than its present 129. UP and Bihar ought to achieve 14 over their current 120, in line with calculations by Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington. On common, an MP in Uttar Pradesh represents almost 3m folks; his counterpart in Tamil Nadu a mere 1.8m.

The constitutional and ethical arguments in favour of redistricting are plain. But the sensible ramifications for southern states could be giant. If the centre goes forward with it, warns a outstanding determine within the south, “that is the beginning of the end of India as a country…In my children’s lifetime this will not be one country anymore.” In May Mr Modi inaugurated a brand new Parliament constructing, able to seating 888 lawmakers, lending credence to the concept that his get together intends to reallocate seats whereas additionally increasing the home with a purpose to soften the blow for states that lose out.

The thought of synchronising India’s many elections can be inflicting fear. The authorities’s critics insist that holding all polls on the identical time would reinforce the benefits that nationwide events take pleasure in over regional ones (resembling those who run a lot of the southern states). Regional events, which have restricted sources, would wrestle to struggle each nationwide and state-level campaigns on the identical time. The BJP counters that the present system, which sees a handful of states go to the polls yearly, is damaged. It paralyses policymaking, forces political events into continuous marketing campaign mode and prices a fortune for events and the exchequer. Having simultaneous elections could be cheaper and result in higher governance, say supporters.

Analyses of previous elections have produced conflicting solutions about whether or not harmonising polls will change how folks vote. Any new coverage must make provisions for state governments dropping the assist of their legislatures and collapsing in the midst of electoral cycles. And it’s unclear whether or not Mr Modi would be capable of push by means of the constitutional amendments this plan would require.

Since coming to energy 9 years in the past, Mr Modi and his get together have fulfilled many parts of their agenda, from turbocharging infrastructure upgrades and elevating the nation’s world profile to revoking the particular constitutional standing of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu & Kashmir and constructing a temple to the Lord Ram within the northern metropolis of Ayodhya. The thriller session of Parliament subsequent week could also be about simultaneous elections (an previous pledge), about altering India’s identify (a newish obsession), or about one thing else completely. Whatever the agenda, the nice magician should be cautious to not noticed the nation in half.■