How did States and Union Territories come into existence in India?

"When was the First battle of Panipat fought?", asked Professor Sreeram in our Marketing class, during my second year of MBA. Not a marketing question definitely, but Sreeram sir, a learned man he is, had a knack of asking such questions (my perception 😊).

"17th century", "16th century" and some other replies from our classmates didn’t make sir happy.

"1526", came out a reply amongst the chorus of other responses.

"Who said that ?", asked the professor.

I, generally a backbencher, since the days height-wise seats allocation wasn’t the norm anymore, slowly raised my hand.

"That is correct. What's your name?"

"Prakhar". Brimming with confidence, gazing at my colleagues Shubham, Mrigendra and Ritesh, I proudly exclaimed.

"That is correct. And when was the second battle of Panipat fought?"

All the confidence shattered just like a mirror struck with stone. The cool expression on my face vanished rapidly. "I don’t know sir".

"30 years later. 1556. But glad you remember something at least".

The morale boosting words again put a smile on my face. I remembered something at least. Though I was not great at history, I wasn’t bad either. I gained a penchant for the subject in class 8 but history's twin Civics didn’t really get into my head. Starting from Parliament, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha till the very grassroots level Gram Panchayats didn't fascinate me at all. But studying for MBA interviews, I had no choice but to revisit all the Civics lessons again.

So when my erstwhile teammate Akshay asked me to write a blog on States and Union territory, I readily took it up. Though the difference is quite known, I did contemplate on a few other things that may catch your attention.

How did States and Union Territory come into existence?

Before we gained independence, India was divided into 'provincial' and 'princely' states. Provincial states were administered directly by the Empire while the Princely states by local Indian rulers, who had allied with the British. At the time of independence, the country had 11 Provinces and 250+ Princely states. Once independent, these states got re-organized under the 'States Reorganization Act' and over the time new states got merged, carved out to form what we have today; 29 states.

States after the Reorganization Act

In all this hullaballoo, some regions found themselves isolated. They were too small to be a state and could not be merged into one of the neighboring states due to a host of reasons like: to preserve their native culture, maintain their military strength or just to keep them secluded because of innate instability and/or unbalanced economy in the area. These were coined as 'Union Territories', and they were to function as the Union government's protégé.

However, Delhi and Puducherry were given the status of a Quasi state or Partial statehood, by an amendment in the Constitution. These have their own elected Chief Minister and thereby a Legislative Assembly.

The difference between a State and a Union Territory (India), is summarized in the below table.

	State	Union Territory
Government	Have their Own elected government	Ruled by Central government
Administrative Head	Chief minister, elected by the people	Lieutenant Governor, appointed by President
Constitutional Head	Governor	President
Governed Area	Large area	Small area
Total Number	29	7

Recently, we have seen a spate in the demand for a full statehood demand for Delhi, due to a continous stiff between the CM and the LG. As per the partial statehood regulations/provisions, the Delhi government doesn’t have control over: 1) Delhi Development Authority 2) Delhi Police and 3) Municipal Corporation of Delhi. We have also seen several accusations levied from both the sides. Well Supreme court's July 4 verdict asked the L-G to be a facilitator rather than an impediment to the services towards the people. Whatever be the case, we believe that it is the collective responsibility of government and the people to make a place good and worthy of living.

Nerd Notes:

1. Some of the princely states like Kashmir, Mysore and Hyderabad were as large as England
2. Andaman and Nicobar islands was the first union territory of India
3. Union Territories have no representation in the Rajya Sabha, except for Delhi and Puducherry

Thanks for reading. Keep smiling !

- Prakhar