Journey of Regionalism on and along the track of Nationalism and Federalism in Indian Democracy- A Critical Geo-Political Analysis

Regionalism in Indian Politics is fast spreading across various states of India. It has become a striking feature of the Indian political party system. The rise of regional political parties have played significant role in the regional, state and even national politics of our democratic country. After the first general election of 1952, the Election Commission had declared 19 political parties as regional parties. In fact, the regional political parties have become a part and parcel of Indian political system. The term Regionalism has two connotations. In the negative sense, it implies excessive attachment to ones region is preference to the country or the state. In the positive sense it is a political attribute associated with peoples love for their region, culture, language, etc. with a view to maintain their independent identity. While positive regionalism is a welcome thing in so far maintaining as it encourages the people to develop a sense of brotherhood and commonness on the basis of common language, religion or historical background. The negative sense regionalism is a great threat to the unity and integrity of the country. In the Indian context generally the term regionalism has been used in the negative sense. The feeling of regionalism may arise either due to the continuous neglect of a particular area or region by the ruling authorities or it may spring up as a result of increasing political awareness of backward people that have been discriminated against. Quite often some political leaders encourage the feeling of regionalism to maintain their hold over a particular area or group of people. So, the emphasis of this paper based on geo-political analysis are to analyze the factors responsible for the growth of regionalism, determine the factors instrumental for the growth of regional parties, create awareness about the role of regional parties, to distinguish a regional party from a national party, enumerate the roles of Political Parties in Balancing Federalism and Regionalism, assess the roles of regionalism on politics and suggestive Measures for Correcting Regional Imbalances.