A Case for Sub-States

Meghalaya has caused undeserved damage to the idea of regional autonomy. As a sub-state it was the first and only experiment of its kind in India, which has now been abandoned without a fair trial. Perhaps the potentiality of the experiment for promoting cohesion within a State through dispersal of political power was never appreciated. Perhaps it was just a grudging attempt to meet the Hill people's demand for a separate State half-way and, in effect, was meant to be a stepping stone to full statehood.