The election round the corner, political parties burn the midnight oil to dig out forgotten issues that might interest citizens, even if such issues are stupefying or bizarre. It requires a high degree of imagination, creativity and daring, or the lack of all these to roll out ideas.
One such great idea which sprang a surprise was West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s idea of having four revolving capitals for India, ostensibly because of the concentration of power in Delhi.
The idea of having more than one capital is not new, and as many as fourteen countries have such an arrangement. They include Netherlands, Bolivia, S. Africa, Cote D’D’ Ivoire & Benin, Chile, Georgia, Honduras, Malaysia, Montenegro, S. Korea, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania and Western Sahara. Ancient political or merger agreements, ease of congestion, ease of administration and redrawing political maps have been reasons for such an arrangement. India suffers from none.
Didi touted for Kolkata as one of the capitals; this is, if Assam, Bihar, Odisha and the North-East agree to award their votes in favour of Bengal. I wondered where the other three capitals could be. Being Tamil, and biased, I chose Chennai as the Southern Capital but heard war-cries from Karnataka’s Bengaluru even before typing this. Maharashtra could have been a choice, but would the increasingly powerful Gujarat let the Maratha regiment get a walkover? Where will the Northern capital be? The contestants could be J&K or Punjab. If J & K is chosen, which already has two State capitals, will the nation’s summer capital move with the State’s?
Why not start such a novel experiment with four State capitals in West Bengal to see the benefits and difficulties?
What will happen to Delhi? What will happen to the Parliament? What about the embassies which are all located in the capital? What about the armed forces’ command? What about the Supreme Court of India? Where will the farmers protest with tractors and trucks? They can all be tackled and keep revolving with the revolving capitals. It will improve the infrastructure in the new capitals and our GDP.
I can foresee strong opposition from Central India. Why four and not five? Maharashtra might yield Mumbai for Gujarat’s Ahmedabad but might claim Nagpur as its alternative site. ‘Nagpur?’ would fume the secular lobby, never! Over our dead bodies would shout a few others.
In the ensuing months, we keep fighting over the most suitable venues, forgetting the poverty, lack of education, tardy GDP growth and all other woes. Let us once again prove that we are a bigoted and divided nation.
The concept of multiple capitals must be buried forever and rejected.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
