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Schwartzberg Atlas, v. , p. 225.

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linguistic and Sikh communal demands cannot be clearly sepa- rated; cf. plate X.A.5). An additional innovation in the re- organization of 1956 was the creation of five "zonal councils," which were set up to foster consultation and regional coopera- tion among neighboring states on problems of common concern and, in doing so, to counter the fissiparous tendencies to which, it was feared, the creation of linguistic states might give rise.

Unanticipated at the time when the States Reorganization Act was passed were the growing demands for greater auton- omy that were to evolve among various tribal peoples of north- east India. These demands, at times violently expressed, were sparked by the success of the Naga tribes in gaining their own autonomous region in 1957 and resulted in a series of subse- quent territorial and political changes, all of which are detailed on plate IX.A.2.

Of the remaining changes in the territorial map of India since 1956, the absorption of the last Portuguese colonial pos- sessions in the area in 1961 and the establishment of Sikkim as India's twenty-second state in 1975 are particularly noteworthy.

Concurrent with the simplification and rationalization of the map of India at the state level was a parallel set of changes operating at the district level. To detail them all would not be practicable for the early years of independence; but we have attempted to do so for the period from 1961 to 1972 (plate IX.A.3). Three maps, (b)-(d), on plate IX.A.2 illustrate changes affecting both districts and minor princely states in the period from 1947 to 1960.

Since the number of princely states that acceded to Pakistan after partition was few compared with the Indian case and since the political map was simpler to begin with, with a rela- tively high degree of correspondence of provincial areas with linguistic regions, the task of redrawing the map faced by the nation's leaders was not overly difficult. In fact, the only im- portant events of the period before 1955 were the establish- ment of the Federal Capital Area of Karachi in 1948 and the creation in 1952, by merger, of the Baluchistan States Union. In 1955, however, all of the western wing of the country save for the Centrally Administered Tribal Areas and the Federal Capital Area were merged into a single province, "West Paki- stan," on a par with "East Pakistan" (which name replaced "East Bengal" in 1955). The basis for this move was to assuage the fears expressed by the Bengalis during the protracted and, till then, fruitless attempts to draft a national constitution that, ranged against the four provinces of the West, the interests of East Pakistan would not be adequately safeguarded, even though it had a clear majority of the country's population. A single unit in the West, however, was never popular with the non–Punjabi-speaking populations of that area, since within West Pakistan Punjabis were, in turn, a clear majority. Conse- quently the old provinces, but not the former princely states, were restored in March 1970. The most climactic of the changes in the map of Pakistan occurred, of course, in 1971, with the separation of Bangladesh. This is treated in detail on plate IX.D.1, maps (c) and (d).

Mention has been made above of the establishment of con- stitutions for India and Pakistan. Until such time as both coun- tries could adopt their constitutions, however, the effective parliamentary governments were, insofar as was feasible, those of the Constituent Assemblies elected in 1946 under the Gov- ernment of India Act of 1935. The table in the lower left corner of plate IX.A.1 indicates the composition of the initial assem- blies. The chart in the lower right corner shows the organiza- tion of India under the Constitution of 1949 (taking effect, as noted, in 1950), which despite numerous subsequent amend- ments is still in effect today (1977). In Pakistan, the first Constituent Assembly was dissolved by emergency decree in October 1954. A second assembly, summoned in April 1955, succeeded in drafting a constitution that went into effect in March 1956, only to be suspended in October 1958. A second constitution, drafted by a commission appointed by President Ayub Khan, was enacted in March 1962. The nation's orga- nization under that constitution, which remained in force till March 1970, is shown in the lower left corner of plate IX.A.2. A third constitution for the truncated state of Pakistan was promulgated in August 1973.

A final component of plates IX.A.1 and 2 that is relevant for understanding the territorial changes illustrated thereon is the set of pie graphs showing the populations, in 1951 and 1971 respectively, of the nations of South Asia and, in the case of India and Pakistan, of their major subdivisions.

Sources

Official Documents

India, Census (1951), (1961), (1971); India (Republic), Ministry of States (1950); Pakistan, Census (1951), (1961).

General References and Periodicals (all for various years)

Asian Recorder; India News; New York Times; Pakistan Af- fairs; Times of India Directory. . . .

Other Works

J. V. Bondurant (1958); Sivaprasad Das Gupta (1960); V. P. Menon (1961); Raye R. Platt (1962); B. L. Sukhwal (1971); M. Weiner (1968); W. Wilcox (1963).

IX.A.3. Administrative Divisions, 1975, with Changes since 1961

The map of administrative divisions presented here is in- tended as a basic reference aid for regional studies in which information and comparisons are needed at the district level in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and at comparable admin- istrative levels elsewhere. An identical map is printed on trans- parent plastic and inserted unbound in the end cover pocket of the atlas so that it can be removed and superimposed on other atlas plates at the same scale. This map reflects information on the names and boundaries of minor administrative divisions available to us as of mid-1975, when a final draft of the map had to be completed. To the best of our knowledge, however, it is accurate at the district level only through the middle of 1972; since that date a number of Indian states have increased the number of their constituent districts, while in Bangladesh one new district, Patuakhali, was created from a portion of the ex- isting district of Barisal. Although authoritative maps are not yet available to enable us to portray accurately all recent changes at the district level, we have endeavored to indicate their essential nature on the page entitled "Late Particulars" at the conclusion of the atlas text.

Included on plate IX.A.3 are a series of inset maps showing administrative divisions as of 1961 for those areas in which changes took place during the period 1961–72. These insets will enable users of the atlas to relate the data of the numerous maps of sections X and XI drawn at the level of minor admin- istrative subdivisions for the year 1961 to the names of the then-existing units.

To judge the degree to which the administrative map of In- dia and Pakistan has been simplified at the district level since 1947, a comparison might usefully be made with plate XIII.C.1. At a different level states in 1975 or 1961 may be compared with provinces and princely states shown on plate VIII.D.1.

Sources

Government Documents

Bangladesh, Census (1974); India, Census (1961), (1971); Nepal, Census (1961); Pakistan, Census (1961), (1972).

General References (all for various years unless otherwise indicated)

Asian Recorder; India, a Reference Annual; India News; Ka- bul Times Annual (1967); Pakistan Affairs.

Maps (other than those in sources cited above and below)

See entries in main bibliography for the following authorities: Afghanistan, Cartographic Institute; Ceylon, Survey Depart- ment; India, Survey of India; Pakistan, Survey of Pakistan; U.S., Central Intelligence Agency.

Other Works

L. Dupree (1973); J. Humlum (1959); P. P. Karan (1960).

IX.B. ELECTIONS, 1947–73

IX.B.1–5. Elections in India, 1951–72

In the winter of 1951–52, in what was till then the largest free election in the history of the world, some 106 million vot- ers went to the polls for the first time in an independent India. Elected at the time were 488 members of the Lok Sabha (Peo- ple's Assembly), the lower house of Parliament, as well as members of the Vidhan Sabhas (Legislative Assemblies) of all the states of India except Jammu and Kashmir, for which a Constituent Assembly was elected in November 1952. General elections, along the lines of the first, were also conducted in 1957, 1962, and 1967, at both the national and the state levels. In 1971 the Congress Party, which has ruled India without in- terruption since 1947, chose to go to the polls in advance of the anticipated 1972 date for the fifth general election. Ballot- ing was held that year for a new Lok Sabha as well as for the assemblies of three states then under "president's rule."1 For the legislatures in the remaining states what has been termed a "mini-general election" was held in 1972. Plates IX.B.1–5 depict the results of all the above-mentioned elections as well as of a number of midterm elections held in various states from 1954 to 1970 to terminate periods of president's rule. Details of elections held at the national and state levels since 1972 have been provided under the heading "Late Particulars" on page 263. All the maps of this section of the atlas and the data under "Late Particulars" may be profitably studied in conjunc- tion with the unbound chart, "A Political Conspectus of South Asia, 15 August 1947–31 December 1975," found in the end cover pocket of the atlas.

Uniform mapping methods were employed, insofar as fea- sible, to portray the results of all Lok Sabha and all State Leg- 1 Under the Indian constitution, state legislatures may be tempo- rarily suspended when the president deems them unable to operate in a normal manner. The presidentially appointed state governor then exercises authority until a new election can be held. islative Assembly elections. The method is explained in the legend for each map. For Lok Sabha elections, shown on map (a) of each plate, the degree of participation, in terms of num- ber of seats contested, and the results, in terms of seats won and seats won by an absolute majority, are shown by bars of varying lengths for each all-India or major regional party for each state or union territory, the bars being ranged from left to right according to the parties' positions on the political spec- trum. Also shown are the number of seats won as well as those won by absolute majorities by all minor parties combined and by the independents, but not the number of seats they con- tested. Along with the bars representing parties, groups of minor parties, or independents, dots are placed where practi- cable, to show the proportion of the popular vote polled. Where the level of a dot is above that of the bar showing the propor- tion of all seats won, the party's success in the election was relatively poor compared with its voting strength; the wider the gap, the poorer the relative performance. The reverse is also true. Finally, within each state the background color and pattern indicate the party obtaining the largest portion of the total vote and the fraction of the total vote it received. The all- India results are summarized in a graph to the right of the Lok Sabha map.

Vidhan Sabha elections are shown by map (b) on each plate and, for midterm elections, on the insets to the left. For these elections, as for those to the Lok Sabha, bars representing the several parties are ranged from left to right, with minor parties and independents being separately shown. Data are provided on the number of seats won, but not on the number of seats contested, the number of seats won by an absolute majority, or the percentage of the total popular vote polled, except for that of the leading single party, for which the voting percentage of the party is depicted by the background color in each state or union territory.

A graph in the lower left corner of plate IX.B.5 summarizes the results of the first five Lok Sabha elections held in India in a way that facilitates comparisons from one election to an- other. Perhaps the most striking fact revealed by this graph is that although the Indian National Congress never achieved an absolute majority of all of the votes cast in a given Lok Sabha election, the actual ranges varying from 41 percent in 1967 to 48 percent in 1959, it never failed to gain an absolute majority of all seats, obtaining more than 74 percent in 1952 and a minimum of 54 percent in 1967. The principal reason for the persistent edge Congress enjoys in percentage of seats won compared with its percentage of votes lies in the fact that the opposition parties were more or less evenly divided in strength between those to the left of Congress and those to the right. Hence, in all elections before 1961 most of the Congress can- didates winning Lok Sabha seats were able to do so without receiving an absolute majority of the votes cast. In 1971, how- ever, Congress actually won an absolute majority of all Lok Sabha seats in constituencies in which their candidates received more than 50 percent of all the votes cast. It will be seen that of all the parties, Congress alone possessed sufficient all-India strength to field a candidate for virtually every seat contested, except in the 1971 elections, when for strategic reasons it con- tested only 442 out of 521 seats. Of the other parties not a single one contested for a majority of all seats in any election since 1952, when the Socialists put up 256 candidates, of whom only 12 won seats. (No other non-Congress party in 1952 even contested as many as 30 percent of all seats.)

Among the lessons the Socialist debacle of 1952 and similar experiences in that and other elections, at both the national and state levels, seem to have imparted to the opponents of Con- gress, the following may be suggested: First, given the meager resources at the disposal of the opposition parties, the way for a party to maximize its chances for a good showing in a given election is to concentrate its resources by fighting hard in the small number of constituencies where the party's strength is relatively great and not to contest the remainder. Second, chances for success may be greatly enhanced by working out strategic anti-Congress, no-contest agreements with other par- ties (e.g., party A agrees not to oppose the candidate of party B in constituency X in return for B's agreement not to oppose A's candidate in constituency Y). Finally, in state assembly elections parties have learned that, with few exceptions, only by creating united fronts (sometimes extending over an im- probably broad range of the political spectrum) can they hope to overturn Congress control of given states. All the foregoing strategies, incidentally, have also been adopted since 1967 by Congress itself in those few state elections when it found itself in the position of the opposition.

Combining the data of the maps of elections to the state Legislative Assemblies ((b) and (c) on plates IX.B.1–5), one derives the results shown in table 9.1.

Table 9.1 confirms the difficulty opposition parties face in trying to unseat Congress. It is particularly noteworthy that no ideologically based opposition party has ever won a clear ma- jority in a state Legislative Assembly election, and that in the few instances of single-party, non-Congress control since 1967, when the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) first won an

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