The Gujarati and Marathi identities in cosmopolitan Mumbai

Subject : History

Section :Post independence

Context:

The controversy triggered by Governor B S Koshyari’s statement has rekindled an old debate on a sensitive issue that is rooted in the origin story and political cross-currents of Maharashtra

The struggle for Maharashtra

Maharashtra was created on May 1, 1960 by cleaving the bilingual Bombay State into the unilingual states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, dominated linguistically by Marathi and Gujarati speakers respectively. The leadership of the Congress party was forced to retain Mumbai in the new state of Maharashtra. Other suggestions — including handing over Mumbai to Gujarat or making it a Union Territory — were categorically rejected by stalwarts from Maharashtra.
The birth of the new state was preceded by a period of intense turmoil. In 1956, police fired on a peaceful demonstration by the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti demanding a separate state of Maharashtra, killing 106 people. The stone statue of patriots holding a torch at Hutatma Chowk in the heart of Mumbai is a stark reminder of the blood and sweat that was shed during the agitation for Mumbai (then Bombay).

The States Reorganisation Act, 1956

The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 was a major reform of the boundaries of India’s states and territories, organising them along linguistic lines.
Although additional changes to India’s state boundaries have been made since 1956, the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 remains the single most extensive change in state boundaries after the independence of India.
The Act came into effect at the same time as the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1956,which (among other things) restructured the constitutional framework for India’s existing states and the requirements to pass the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 under the provisions of Part I of the Constitution of India, Article 3
On the basis of the recommendations of State Reorganisation Commission in 1956, 14 states and 6 UTs were created.
The chronology of states’ bifurcation in India after 1956:
1960 – Bombay state split into Maharashtra and Gujarat
1963 – Nagaland carved out of Assam
1966 – Haryana and Himachal Pradesh carved out of Punjab state
1972 – Meghalaya , Manipur and Tripura were formed
1975 – Sikkim became part of Indian union
1987 – Goa and Arunachal Pradesh became states (earlier these were UTs)
2000 – Uttaranchal (out of UP), Jharkhand (out of Bihar) and Chhattisgarh (out of Madhya Pradesh) were formed
Telangana (out of Andhra Pradesh), when it was eventually created in 2014, became India’s 29^th State