Back in the 1920s, the Indian National Congress � the main party of the freedom struggle � had promised that once the country won independence, each major linguistic group would have its own province.

However, after independence, Congress did not take any steps to honor this promise. For India had been divided on the basis of religion: despite the wishes and efforts of Mahatma Gandhi, freedom had come not to one nation but to two. As a result of the partition of India, more than a million people had been killed in riots between Hindus and Muslims.

Both Prime Minister Nehru and Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel were against the creation of linguistic states. After the Partition, Nehru said, �disruptionist tendencies had come to the fore�; to check them, the nation had to be strong and united. Or, asPatel put it: the first and last need of India at the present moment is that it should be made a nation.

Everything which helps the growth of nationalism has to go forward and everything which throws obstacles in its way has to be rejected. We have applied this test to linguistic provinces also, and by this test, in our opinion [they] cannot be supported. That the Congress leaders would now go back on their promise created great disappointment.

The Kannada speakers, Malayalam speakers, the Marathi speakers, had all looked forward to having their own state. The strongest protests, however, came from the Telugu-speaking districts of what was the Madras Presidency.

When Nehru went to campaign there during the general elections of 1952, he was met with black flags and slogans demanding �We want Andhra�. In October of that year, a veteran Gandhian named PottiSriramulu went on a hunger fast demanding the formation of the Andhra state to protect the interests of Telugu speakers.

As the fast went on, it attracted much support. Hartalsand bandhswere observed in many towns. On 15 December 1952, fifty-eight days into his fast, PottiSriramulu died. As a newspaper put it, �the news of the passing away of Sriramulu engulfed entire Andhra in chaos�. The protests were so widespread and intense that the central government was forced to give in to the demand. Thus, on 1 October 1953, the new state of Andhra Pradesh came into being.

After the creation of Andhra, other linguistic communities also demanded their own separate states. A States Reorganisation Commission was set up, which submitted its report in 1956, recommending the redrawing of the district and provincial boundaries to form compact provinces of Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu speakers respectively.

The large Hindi-speaking region of north India was broken up into several states. A little later, in 1960, the bilingual state of Bombay was divided into separate states for Marathi and Gujarati speakers. In 1966, the state of Punjab was also divided into Punjab and Haryana, the former for the Punjabi speakers (who were also mostly Sikhs), the latter for the rest (who spoke not Punjabi but versions of Haryanvi or Hindi).

Read More: India After Independence: A New and Divided Nation