Reorganisation of States in India: Acts, Dates and PYQs

The correct answer is D, 1953. Andhra State came into being on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking districts of the Madras province. The immediate cause was the death of Potti Sriramulu on 15 December 1952 after a fast unto death for a Telugu state, and the agitation that followed forced the Government's hand.

Option C, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, when Andhra State was enlarged with the Telugu areas of Hyderabad and renamed Andhra Pradesh, so it marks a later step and is the commonest wrong choice. Option A, 1950, is the year the Constitution came into force, when the map still carried the Part A to Part D classification. Option B, 1947, is independence, five years before the agitation began. The order to remember is 1952 death, 1953 Andhra State, 1956 Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is D, Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu-speaking Andhra State was carved out of the Madras province on 1 October 1953, the first time independent India accepted language as the ground for a new state, and in 1956 it was enlarged and renamed Andhra Pradesh. Every later linguistic state followed this precedent.

Option A, Karnataka, was formed in 1956 as Mysore State by bringing Kannada-speaking areas together and was renamed Karnataka only in 1973, so it came later. Option B, West Bengal, existed from 1947 as a product of the partition of Bengal rather than of a linguistic reorganisation. Option C, Punjab, was reorganised on a linguistic basis much later, in 1966, when Haryana was separated and hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh. Learn 1953 as the single date for the first linguistic state.

The correct answer is C, Sardar Hukam Singh. The Parliamentary Committee headed by Sardar Hukam Singh, then Speaker of the Lok Sabha, examined the demand for a Punjabi-speaking state and recommended the division of Punjab. The Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 followed, and on 1 November 1966 Haryana became a separate state while the hill districts went to Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh was made a Union Territory serving as the shared capital.

Option A, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was Prime Minister until January 1966 and did not head such a committee. Option B, Indira Gandhi, was Prime Minister when the Act was passed but again headed no committee on the question. Option D, Sir Chhotu Ram, was a peasant leader of the region who died in 1945, long before the reorganisation. A related name worth keeping is the Shah Commission, which drew the actual boundaries after the committee reported.

The correct answer is C, Article 3. It allows Parliament to form a new state by separation of territory, to unite two or more states, to increase or diminish the area of a state and to alter its boundaries or its name. Such a bill may be introduced only on the recommendation of the President, who must first refer it to the legislature of the state affected for its views, and those views do not bind Parliament.

Option A, Article 1, only describes India as a Union of States and names the territory. Option B, Article 2, lets Parliament admit into the Union or establish new states, which concerns territory not already part of India, and is the trap in this question. Option D, Article 5, deals with citizenship at the commencement of the Constitution and has nothing to do with the map. Remember Article 4 as well, which is why a reorganisation law needs only a simple majority.

The correct answer is B, Fazl Ali. The States Reorganisation Commission was appointed in December 1953 with Fazl Ali as chairman, and it submitted its report in 1955. It accepted language as an important test but not the only one, and recommended that the classification of units into Part A, B, C and D states be given up.

Option A, S. K. Dhar, headed the Linguistic Provinces Commission of 1948, which advised against redrawing provinces on language, so he belongs to the earlier stage of the story. Options C and D, K. M. Panikkar and H. N. Kunzru, were the two other members of the Fazl Ali Commission and are placed here because candidates who remember the three names often cannot say which of them chaired it. The chain to learn is Dhar 1948, JVP 1949, Fazl Ali 1953 to 1955, Act 1956.

The correct answer is B, 1960. The reorganisation of 1956 had left a bilingual Bombay State with Marathi and Gujarati speakers together. Agitation by the Samyukta Maharashtra movement and the Mahagujarat movement led to the Bombay Reorganisation Act, and on 1 May 1960 the state was divided into Maharashtra with Bombay as its capital and Gujarat with Ahmedabad as its first capital.

Option A, 1956, is the year the States Reorganisation Act created the bilingual state rather than divided it. Option C, 1963, is the year Nagaland became a state, on 1 December. Option D, 1966, is the year Punjab was divided and Haryana was formed, on 1 November. Both states keep 1 May as their formation day, so the date is easy to confirm, and note that Gandhinagar became the capital of Gujarat only later.

The correct answer is C, Telangana. It was formed on 2 June 2014 under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, out of the north-western districts of Andhra Pradesh, and Hyderabad was made the common capital of both states for a transitional period. It is counted as the twenty-ninth state.

Options A, B and D are the three states created in the year 2000, which take the numbers twenty-six to twenty-eight in the same count: Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh on 1 November, Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh on 9 November, and Jharkhand from Bihar on 15 November. Because they were created within a fortnight of one another, examiners often ask for their order, so tie each to its parent state and its date. The reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 created Union Territories, not a thirtieth state.

The correct answer is B, the 36th Amendment. Sikkim became the twenty-second state of the Indian Union on 16 May 1975 through the Constitution (Thirty-sixth Amendment) Act, 1975, which placed it in the First Schedule as a state and added Article 371F for special provisions relating to it.

Option A, the 35th Amendment of 1974, is the near miss: it gave Sikkim the intermediate status of an associate state of the Union, a status no other unit has ever held, and that arrangement lasted less than a year. Option C, the 42nd Amendment of 1976, is the wide-ranging amendment that added the words socialist, secular and integrity to the Preamble and the Fundamental Duties. Option D, the 44th Amendment of 1978, undid much of the 42nd and moved the right to property out of the Fundamental Rights.

The correct answer is A, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand. All three came into being within a fortnight in November 2000: Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh on 1 November, Uttarakhand, then named Uttaranchal, from Uttar Pradesh on 9 November, and Jharkhand from Bihar on 15 November.

Option B swaps one of them for Telangana, which was created much later, on 2 June 2014. Option C names the states of 1987: Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh on 20 February and Goa on 30 May. Option D names the three north-eastern states that became full states together on 21 January 1972 under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971. Group the years in your notes as 1972, 1987, 2000 and 2014, each with its set of states, and keep the parent state beside each name, because a question often asks which existing state a new one was carved out of rather than the year.

The correct answer is B, Ladakh. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 took effect on 31 October 2019 and replaced the former state with two Union Territories. Ladakh, made up of the Leh and Kargil districts, was constituted without a legislative assembly and is administered by a Lieutenant Governor.

Option A, Jammu and Kashmir, is the other Union Territory created by the same Act, and it does have a legislative assembly, which is exactly the contrast the question tests. Option C, Puducherry, has had a legislature since long before this Act and is not its creation. Option D, Chandigarh, is a Union Territory without a legislature, but it was created in 1966 when Punjab was divided, not in 2019. Remember that a Union Territory with a legislature is the exception, and only a handful have one.