Delimitation: Will north India’s gain be south India’s loss?

India is currently experiencing a political storm, with the first waves now hitting the southern region.

In the midst of a contentious debate over the rewriting of electoral votes to reflect changes in population over period, local officials are calling for mass mobilization to defend the country’s political interests.

In a high-stakes push, they are urging citizens to “have more children”, using meetings and media campaigns to amplify their message: that the process of delimitation could shift the balance of power.

MK Stalin, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, one of India’s five southern states, and an archrival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP), claims that “delimitation is a Damocles ‘ sword hanging over southern India. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Telangana are the other four.

These five states account for 20% of India’s 1.4 billion people. They also outperform the rest of the country in health, education and economic prospects. A child is less likely to be born here than in the north, due to lower population growth rates.

Their officials worry that the more prosperous north may eventually lose parliamentary seats, which would be considered “punishment” for having fewer kids and generating more wealth. Poorer, more densely populated says in the north have often contributed more to national revenue, with poorer, more filled ones in the north getting larger shares based on need.

According to the Indian Constitution, votes are to be assigned to each position based on its inhabitants, with constituencies having roughly equal numbers. Additionally, it requires that seats be reallocated following each survey in order to reflect most recent population data.

In response, India redrew parliamentary chairs three times in 1951, 1961, and 1971, according to the census’s annual results. Since then, institutions of all stripes have halted the training because they fear an imbalance of representation would result from state-specific varying fertility levels.

The next delimitation exercise is set for 2026, but uncertainty looms as India hasn’t conducted a census since 2011, with no clear timeline for when it will take place.

This has set the stage for a potential crisis. “Tamil Nadu is leading the charge and India is on the brink of a federal deadlock,” says Yamini Aiyar, a senior fellow at Brown University

The lower house of parliament, known as the Lok Sabha, houses immediately elected MPs, has increased from 494 to 543 votes, and this number hasn’t changed since. Due to the ice, there haven’t any fresh seats added in the state of India despite the country’s population growth since 1971.

In 1951, each MP represented merely over 700, 000 persons. More than three times the people that a part of the US House of Representatives would represent has increased to an average of 2.5 million per MP as of today. A UK MP, in contrast, represents about 120,000 individuals.

All Indians are underrepresented, though not equally, according to experts, because the districts are very significant. ( The ratio was set at one MP for 750, 000 people in the original Constitution. )

That’s not all. Using census data and population projections, economist Shruti Rajagopalan of George Mason University has highlighted the “severe malapportionment” – unequal distribution of political representation – in India.

Take this into account. Each MP represents about three million people in Uttar Pradesh ( UP), India’s most populous state with over 240 million residents.

An MP in Kerala, where reproduction rates are comparable to those in several other European nations, makes up roughly 1.75 million.

This means that the typical voting in Kerala’s southern has 1.7 times more power to choose an MP than a voter in UP’s north.

Ms. Rajagopalan also points out that while populous, less developed states like UP and Bihar currently have nine and twelve seats, respectively, more than their people discuss, Tamil Nadu and Kerala currently have nine and six seats. ( Stalin warns that, based on projected population figures, Tamil Nadu could lose eight seats if delimitation occurs in 2026. )

The issue will get worse by 2031: UP and Bihar will have a dozen seats below their population ratio, while Tamil Nadu will probably have 11 seats above its ratio, with other states falling” somewhere in between,” according to Ms. Rajagopalan.

She claims that as a result,” India is no longer living up to its underlying democratic theory of “one-person, one vote.” Constituency sizes may be almost equivalent for this principle to be understood.

Numerous solutions have been suggested by experts, many of which may require a strong bipartisan discussion.

One way to increase the number of seats in the lower apartment is one.

In other words, India may return to the original legal ratio of one MP for every 750, 000 citizens, which would increase the Lok Sabha to 1, 872 tickets. ( The new parliament building can accommodate 880 people, so a significant upgrade is required. )

The other option would be to increase the number of seats in the Lok Sabha to the point where no status will lose its latest range of political seats. According to various estimates, 848 seats may be required to achieve this goal.

Professionals like Ms. Rajagopalan argue for a more decentralized governmental system in addition to this decision.

In this design, says would be able to raise more money while retaining a large portion of their income. The growth requires would then be allocated using federal cash. The central government raises and spends the majority of the state’s total revenue, accounting for less than 40 % of it, while spending about 60 % of it is spent by the state government.

The structure of the parliament’s lower house could be changed. This is a second option. With chairs allocated disproportionately to the people and a maximum of 250 seats, the Rajya Sabha represents the interests of the states.

Rajya Sabha members are elected by state legislatures, not directly by the public. Milan Vaishnav of Carnegie Endowment for Peace suggests a radical approach would be to fix the number of seats per state in the upper house, similar to the US Senate.

He claims that “making the lower house a true forum for discussion of state ‘ passions could possibly soften the opposition to a reallocation of seats in the lower home.”

Other ideas include cutting big states, where India’s top five states account for more than 45 % of total seats.

Miheer Karandikar of Takshashila Institution, a Bangalore-based think-tank, cites UP as an example of how big states skew things. UP’s share of total votes cast in India is around 14% currently. He estimates this would likely increase to 16% after delimitation, “which allows it to retain its status as the most significant state politically and in terms of legislative influence”. Splitting a state like UP could help matters.

For now, the anxious southern leaders – whose rhetoric is partly political with Tamil Nadu elections looming next summer – have been joined by counterparts in Punjab to urge the government to maintain current seats and freeze electoral boundaries for the next 30 years, beyond 2026. In other words, it’s a call for more of the same, preserving the status quo.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made little significant statement so far. Home Minister Amit Shah claimed southern states would not lose “even a single seat” in the upcoming delimitation, though the meaning remains unclear. Meanwhile, the federal government’s decision to withhold education funds and label Tamil Nadu’s leadership as “undemocratic and uncivilised” over a contentious education policy has deepened divisions.

Suhas Palshikar, a political scientist, warns that India’s federal structure is threatened by the north-south divide. The “north-south prism” is only likely to persuade northerners and their allies to demand a delimitation that would benefit them. According to Mr. Palshikar, a counter-mobilization in the north can make it impossible to reach any negotiated resolution.

He believes that expanding the size of the Lok Sabha and ensuring that no state loses its current strength is not only “politically prudent step”, but something which will “enrich the idea of democracy in the Indian context.” Balancing representation will be the key to preserving India’s strained federal spirit.