Southern Seize: Provocations and Priorities

Peninsular politics was shaped by a blend of resistance to and collaboration with Delhi. But the current tensions show the need to do more if the region is to maintain its political space

- RATHIN ROY

The Indian peninsula is quite used to attempts by those running the Union government to establish hegemonic dominance over the region. In medieval times, such attempts were easily foiled. Attempts to appeal to religion and ethnicity were largely futile.

The peninsula had its own Muslim rulers and Christian elites and delivered non-Brahmanical political settlements with greater ease than the rest of the subcontinent. Mughal governors like the Nizam quickly fostered autonomous kingdoms. The British, who secured the peninsula by a squeak, were careful to emulate the Marathas and establish collaborative and autonomous governance arrangements. The Madras and Bombay presidencies were substantially autonomous of Calcutta and, later, Delhi.

The Indian independence movement was a significant force in the peninsula, but most of its iconic leaders—Bhagat Singh, Gandhi, Nehru, Subhash Bose, Jinnah, etc.—looked northwards for their great struggles. And so, in 1947, the Congress and opposition leaders jockeying for power in Delhi lacked a mass base in the peninsula.