Uttarakhand

Nestled in the Himalayas, the regions of Kumaon and Garhwal had been sidelined by both the colonial and post-colonial administrations. Their marginalisation, which began under British forest policies, evolved over decades into a full-fledged political struggle for statehood. This essay traces the state’s trajectory and explains how economic, environmental, and social concerns converged to create it. 

The arrival of the British in India kick-started the commercial exploitation of the Kumaon and Garhwal forests, with vast tracts converted into reserved forests. This restricted civilian access and thus destroyed the livelihoods of local peasants and artisans. Further, traditional practices like collecting fuelwood, grazing cattle, or gathering medicinal herbs were deemed illegal under new forest laws, and offenders were heavily penalized (Rana, 2024).

The hill people’s concerns about their demands –  for improvements in infrastructure, education, healthcare, political representation, and traditional forest rights— were consistently ignored, soon transforming into a call for an autonomous hill state (Rawat, 2019; Mishra, 2000). In a significant meeting held in 1946 at Haldwani, Kumaon leaders such as Badri Dutt Pande and Puran Chand Tiwari presented the idea of the hills being a separate administrative unit. This marked one of the earliest formal expressions of the desire for self-rule in the area. These leaders believed that the governance structures of the time did not consider their differing socio-economic and environmental contexts (Mukherjee, 2012).

After independence, these regions were consolidated under the Uttarakhand region of the United Province. This region consisted largely of the princely state of Tehri Garhwal and the districts of Garhwal and Kumaon. While the new Indian government worked on integrating princely states and redrawing state boundaries, Uttarakhand remained unrecognized in administrative terms. Despite the contributions of the region to the freedom struggle, the central government did little to provide a governance framework to address their specific needs (Mukherjee, 2012; Mawdsley, 1997).

When the States Reorganization Commission (SRC) was constituted in 1953, its focus was largely on linguistic reorganization, following popular agitations in states like Andhra and Maharashtra. Unlike other states in India, where linguistic differences were the reason, the demand for autonomy in Uttarakhand stemmed from its geographical (and therefore cultural) distinctions from the United Province. The region's argument centered on geographic remoteness, lack of infrastructure, and chronic neglect—factors that, unfortunately, did not carry sufficient weight in the commission’s recommendations. As a result, the SRC didn’t consider their case. This oversight only deepened the perception of marginalization among the hill populace (Mishra, 2000).

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the emergence of regional political parties in Uttar Pradesh that served as platforms for conversations about preserving natural resources, addressing the marginalization of hill regions, and protecting the rights of local communities. Environmental degradation, coupled with economic stagnation, had begun to alarm citizens, prompting them to seek representation that would champion their unique challenges. This period also coincided with broader ecological movements like Chipko, which emerged from the Garhwal region and highlighted the vulnerability of hill ecosystems. While these movements were not explicitly political at first, they played a vital role in sensitizing people to the need for self-determined governance structures (Rawat, 2019).

The rise of the Janata Party at the national level in the late 1970s renewed hope for the creation of Uttarakhand as a separate state, as the party was vocal about state reorganization for administrative convenience (Mishra, 2000). Their government had promised a more decentralized and federal governance model, making Uttarakhand supporters hopeful. However, there were no substantial institutional changes (Robinson, 2001).

In 1979, the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) emerged as a political party with the sole agenda of campaigning for Uttarakhand's statehood. Other parties, such as the Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini (USV), also formed with the same objective. While UKD enjoyed grassroots support, it was heavily overshadowed by the larger national parties. Nevertheless, it managed to keep the statehood issue alive in public discourse (Tillin, 2011).

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) later expressed interest in the demand for Uttarakhand but proposed the name Uttaranchal for the new state, as it sounded more politically ‘neutral’ (‘Uttarakhand’ had regional folk origins, while ‘Uttaranchal’ was more generic). Though many felt "Uttaranchal" lacked the cultural and historical significance of "Uttarakhand", statehood supporters accepted this compromise in the hope of achieving their larger goal (Robinson, 2001; Mishra, 2000).

In 1994, the coalition government in Uttar Pradesh, led by the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), appointed the Kaushik Committee to understand the hill people’s grievances. The committee recommended that the eight mountain districts of Garhwal and Kumaon be consolidated into the state of Uttarakhand, with the centrally-placed Gairsain as capital (Pal, 2000).

The final push for Uttarakhand's statehood occurred in response to a controversial reservation policy for OBCs in government jobs and educational institutions. The communities of Garhwal and Kumaon opposed the policy, as only 2% of their population was officially categorized as OBC and thus felt increasingly marginalized. The state’s harsh response to the ensuing mass protests — police firings and custodial deaths — further consolidated the hill people across socio-economic lines. (Mawdsley, 1996).

In December 1998, when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to central power, a bill to create Uttarakhand was introduced in the Lok Sabha and received presidential assent in August 2000. The legislative process that followed was relatively swift, reflecting the political consensus amongst parties by that time (Kalra, 2021).

With the Uttar Pradesh Reorganization Act of 2000, the state of Uttaranchal was officially created as the 27th state of India on 9 November 2000, comprising thirteen districts. Nityanand Swami, a BJP politician from Dehradun, was sworn in as the first Chief Minister. (Kalra, 2021; ToI, 2016).

The struggle, however, did not end with statehood. Discontent arose when the Chief Minister was not from the hills, and the capital of the state was designated as the plain-located Dehradun, rather than Gairsain. Today, Dehradun remains the capital, though it was meant to only be so temporarily. Garsain was made the summer capital in 2014, but this is not considered enough by activists across the state (Sen, 2017).

Additionally, there was a demand to restore the state’s original name, Uttarakhand. When momentum was building for this change, the State Assembly, under ND Tiwari, passed a unanimous resolution to officially rename the state, effective from 1 January 2007. This was more than just a name — it symbolized the people’s say in any decision about their state, right down to what it was called (Srivastava, 2011).

References

• Government of India. Uttaranchal (Alteration of Name) Act, 2006. 

  
  

• Kalra, M. (2021). Uttarakhand Political Instability: A Bane of Small States. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention (IJHSSI) (pp. 58–63). 

  
  

• Mawdsley, E. (1996). Uttarakhand agitation and other backwards classes. Economic and Political Weekly, 31(4), 205–210.

  
  

• Mishra, S. (2000). The politics of state formation in India: the case of Uttarakhand (Doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia). 

  
  

• Mukherjee, P. (2012). The Creation of a Region: Politics of Identity and Development in Uttarakhand. In Rethinking State Politics in India (pp. 117-137). Routledge India. 

  
  

• Pal, M. (2000). Facing New Challenges. Economic and Political Weekly, 4467-4469.  

  
  

• Rana, R. (2024). British Policy Towards Kumaon and Garhwal Forest Area: A Historical Analysis. Gyanshauryam, International Scientific Refereed Research Journal. 

  
  

• Rawat, S. (2019). Uttarakhand’s State Movement: A Historical Study. Journal of Acharya Narendra Dev Research Institute. 

  
  

• Robinson, J. (2001). Regionalising India: Uttarakhand and the politics of creating states. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 24(2), 189-212. 

  
  

• Sen, S.R. (2017, February 10). After 16 years of talks, why hasn’t the Uttarakhand capital shifted to Gairsain? HuffPost. 

  
  

• Srivastava, R. (2011, November 17). Hill state was carved out after 70 years of struggle. The Times of India. 

  
  

• Tillin, L. (2011). Questioning borders: Social movements, political parties and the creation of new states in India. Pacific Affairs, 84(1), 67-87.