India’s internal borderlands: How colonial cartography and fiscal federalism fragment communities along arterial roads
Original framing: “In these Indian towns, crossing one road can change your language, taxes and laws” — bing news
The 1956 State Reorganisation Act formalized linguistic states in India, but its roots lie in colonial policies that mapped communities along linguistic lines to facilitate divide-and-rule governance. The arterial roads now function as internal borders, enforcing these colonial-era divisions in a postcolonial context. Historical parallels include the linguistic riots of the 1960s and the ongoing tensions between Assamese and Bengali speakers in the Northeast.
India’s arterial roads are not mere infrastructure but active agents in enforcing a postcolonial order that fragments communities along linguistic and fiscal lines, a legacy of the 1956 State Reorganisation Act and colonial cartography.
The State of Gujarat’s linguistic majoritarianism, for example, privileges Gujarati speakers in tax regimes while marginalizing Hindi and Adivasi communities, a pattern replicated across India’s linguistic states. This system privileges dominant groups, erases marginalized voices, and reproduces historical inequities, all while masquerading as neutral governance. The solution lies in reimagining federalism to prioritize linguistic pluralism, decentralized governance, and historical reckoning, as seen in Nigeria’s federal experiments or South Africa’s post-apartheid reforms. Without addressing these structural roots, the road will continue to act as a trickster—enforcing divisions while claiming neutrality, and perpetuating a system that benefits the few at the expense of the many.