Foundation Days of Indian States: Dates and the Acts

The correct answer is B, Haryana. The Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966 divided the then state of Punjab on a linguistic basis with effect from the first of November 1966: the Hindi speaking southern districts became the new state of Haryana, the hill areas were transferred to Himachal Pradesh, and the city of Chandigarh was made a union territory to serve as the shared capital of both Punjab and Haryana. Haryana Day and Punjab Day therefore fall on the same date. Option A is wrong because Himachal Pradesh, although it gained territory by this Act, became a full state only on the twenty-fifth of January 1971, under the State of Himachal Pradesh Act of 1970. Option C is wrong because Uttarakhand was created on the ninth of November 2000 from Uttar Pradesh. Option D is wrong because Chhattisgarh was created on the first of November 2000 from Madhya Pradesh; sharing the day of the month with Haryana is exactly the trap here.

The correct answer is A, the second of June 2014. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014 carved Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh and named the second of June 2014 as the appointed day; Hyderabad was to serve as the common capital of both states for a period fixed by the Act. Telangana thus became the twenty-ninth state at the time of its creation, and it remains the most recent state to be formed. Option B is wrong because the first of November 2000 is the foundation day of Chhattisgarh, carved out of Madhya Pradesh. Option C is wrong because the ninth of November 2000 is the foundation day of Uttarakhand, then named Uttaranchal, carved out of Uttar Pradesh. Option D is wrong because the thirty-first of October 2019 is the date on which the former state of Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two union territories, a change that created no new state at all. Note the distinction between a new state and a new union territory.

The correct answer is A, Birsa Munda. Jharkhand was created by the Bihar Reorganisation Act of 2000, and the fifteenth of November was deliberately named as the appointed day because it is the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, the tribal leader of the Munda community who led the Ulgulan, or great tumult, against colonial land policy and missionary pressure at the end of the nineteenth century, and who died in Ranchi jail while still a young man. Option B is wrong because Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, was born on the third of December and came from Bihar, not from the Jharkhand region. Option C is wrong because Sidhu Murmu, who with his brother Kanhu led the Santhal rebellion of 1855, is remembered on a different date, Hul Diwas in June. Option D is wrong because Tantia Bhil was a rebel of the Nimar region of central India. Learn this pair together with the state's Act of creation.

The correct answer is B, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura. The North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act of 1971 came into force on the twenty-first of January 1972 and raised Manipur and Tripura from union territories to full states while making Meghalaya, until then an autonomous state within Assam, a state in its own right; the same Act created the union territories of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. Option A is wrong because Nagaland had already become a state on the first of December 1963, and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh attained statehood much later, both on the twentieth of February 1987. Option C is wrong because Assam was already a state and Sikkim joined the Union only in 1975. Option D is wrong for the same reasons, mixing a union territory of 1972 with a state of 1975. The three that share the twenty-first of January can be remembered as the Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura group.

The correct answer is A, Bombay State. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 had left Bombay as a large bilingual state containing both Marathi and Gujarati speaking areas, and the demand for separate linguistic states continued in both. The Bombay Reorganisation Act of 1960 therefore divided it with effect from the first of May 1960 into Gujarat, with its capital first at Ahmedabad and later at Gandhinagar, and Maharashtra, with Bombay as its capital. The first of May is kept in one state as Gujarat Day and in the other as Maharashtra Day. Option B is wrong because Madras State kept its boundaries and simply took the name Tamil Nadu in January 1969. Option C is wrong because Mysore State similarly took the name Karnataka in November 1973 without being divided. Option D is wrong because Saurashtra was itself merged into Bombay State in 1956 and had ceased to exist as a separate state by 1960.

The correct answer is B, 1975, by the Thirty-sixth Amendment. Sikkim's entry into the Union came in two steps. The Thirty-fifth Amendment of 1974 first made it an associate state, a status created for it alone. The Thirty-sixth Amendment then made it a full state of the Union, and the sixteenth of May 1975 is kept as the day of that accession; the amendment also inserted Article 371F, which carries special provisions for Sikkim. Option A is wrong because the Thirty-first Amendment of 1972 dealt with the strength of the Lok Sabha, not with Sikkim. Option C is wrong because 1963 is the year Nagaland became a state, by an ordinary Act of Parliament and Article 371A. Option D is wrong because the Fifty-third Amendment relates to Mizoram, whose statehood came in 1987 along with that of Arunachal Pradesh. Remember Article 371A for Nagaland and Article 371F for Sikkim.

The correct answer is B, the first of November. The date carries a double significance for Karnataka. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 brought the Kannada speaking areas together as an enlarged state on the first of November 1956, though it was then called Mysore State; and it was again on the first of November, in 1973, that the state was renamed Karnataka. The day is celebrated as Rajyotsava, the festival of the state, with the state flag and the state anthem. Option A is wrong because the first of May is Gujarat Day and Maharashtra Day, from the division of Bombay State in 1960, and also Labour Day. Option C is wrong because the fifteenth of November is the foundation day of Jharkhand. Option D is wrong because the thirtieth of May is the statehood day of Goa, which became a state in 1987. Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh keep the same first of November as Karnataka.

The correct answer is A. Bihar Diwas recalls the twenty-second of March 1912, when Bihar was separated from the Bengal Presidency and constituted as a province of its own, along with Orissa; the two were separated from each other later. Bihar is therefore one of a small group of states whose foundation day is older than the Republic itself, and it does not derive from any of the reorganisation Acts. Option B is wrong because the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 made only minor boundary adjustments to Bihar and did not create it. Option C is wrong because the separation of Jharkhand, on the fifteenth of November 2000, reduced Bihar rather than founding it, and is kept as Jharkhand's day, not Bihar's. Option D is wrong because the first provincial assembly under the Government of India Act of 1935 is not the event the day commemorates. Compare Odisha's Utkal Divas on the first of April, for the year 1936.

The correct answer is A, the first of December 1963. The State of Nagaland Act of 1962 gave effect to an agreement with Naga leaders and brought the new state into being on the first of December 1963, carved out of Assam; Article 371A was inserted in the Constitution to give Nagaland special provisions covering Naga customary law and land. Nagaland was thus the sixteenth state, and it was among the earliest states created after the great reorganisation of 1956. Option B is wrong because the twenty-first of January 1972 is the day Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura became states. Option C is wrong because the twentieth of February 1987 is the day Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, the other two states carved from the north east, attained statehood. Option D is wrong because the first of November 1956 is the day of the States Reorganisation Act, which did not create Nagaland. Group the north east by dates: 1963, 1972 and 1987.

The correct answer is B. The Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act of 1987 raised Goa from a union territory to a full state with effect from the thirtieth of May 1987, making it the twenty-fifth state of the Union, while Daman and Diu continued as a separate union territory. Statehood Day therefore marks a change of constitutional status, not the end of colonial rule. Option A is wrong because the liberation of Goa from Portuguese rule took place in December 1961 and is remembered separately as Goa Liberation Day on the nineteenth of December. Option C is wrong because Goa had already been a union territory since 1962, and the 1987 Act ended rather than began that status. Option D is wrong because the proposal to merge Goa with Maharashtra was put to the people in the opinion poll of 1967 and was rejected, which is why Goa kept a separate identity and eventually became a state.