• What is the issue?
• The issue of cotton growers’ suicides in vidarbha region has occupied a place of prominence in recent times.
• The movement for separate statehood for Vidarbha seems to have become dormant for decades.
• But Telangana has succeeded in its movement and became the 29th state in the Union of India.

What is the history of Vidarbha region?

• Vidarbha was part of the province known as the Central Provinces and Berar during the British period.
• The state of Maharashtra, set up in 1960, has three major regions—Western Maharashtra (including Konkan), Marathwada and Vidarbha.
• The vidarbha region was revenue surplus before the merger in 1960.
• According to the 2011 census data, Vidarbha comprises 64.9% of rural population and 35.1% urban.
• It has faced an acute agrarian crisis that has led to nearly 14,000 suicides of farmers in its six districts in the last 16 years.
• The region has one of the highest Suicide Mortality Rate (SMR) with 300% more than Mumbai region.
• The States Reorganization Commission gave a favorable recommendation in view of the separate state of Vidarbha in 1955.

What are the reasons behind the demand for separate statehood?

• After independence, there was a regional inequality in the mode of development among the 3 regions of Maharashtra.
• Western Maharashtra has seen a surge in the construction of irrigation channels and development in agricultural activities.
• This has not happened in Marathwada and Vidarbha region.
• Marathas and Kunbis in the Western Maharashtra became the dominant political class.
• They represent their interest in the policies of the state government, at the cost of the other two regions of the state.
• Sugar cooperatives from Western Maharashtra region have enjoyed unlimited state support but cotton cultivators from vidharba region have not.

Why the movement has failed to pick up?

• The demand for a separate state has been receding slowly.
• Lack of mobilization on the issues of economic backwardness among small and medium farmers
• Traditional exploitative social relations such as class and caste discrimination are yet to become weaker in the region.
• Religious conversion (to Buddhism) did not result in relief from caste discrimination.
• Land reform legislation does not weaken the feudal hold on land.
• It has led to increase in the ownership of land among SC and BC community farmers but they continued to depend on upper caste for technical know how for cultivation.
• Hence, in a way they were dependent upon farmers from the upper castes who were also from the upper classes.
• But the 1952 Hyderabad Tenancy Act, the most progressive Act of its type in independent India has succeeded in its mission.
• Role of intellectuals and broader social base – In Telangana, civil society members like academics, journalists and artists supported the movement by attaching significance to the Telangana identity.
• On the contrary, Vidarbha has predominantly a problem of agrarian distress and educated middle – upper classes have no visible role to play.
• The social base of the movement in Vidarbha has remained narrowly agrarian and rural, with no broad-based support.
• Role of media and communication technologies - Vidarbha has not seen usage of social media and mass media technologies to a great extent.
• It is mainly because of the confinement of the economic distress to the rural.
• The rural as vote bank and politics – The electoral prospect of winning many seats in rural Telangana region was high.
• But, urban centres have emerged as the new foci of electoral politics in Maharashtra.
• Service sector developed with a rapid pace in Vidarbha which also created a dent in the rural economy.
• Effective Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and pressure groups are not present as a whole.

What is the way forward?

• The demand for a separate state runs parallel to the demand for dedicated economic policies.
• Temporary special relief packages need to be replaced with permanent economic support from the state government.
• There is a looming naxalite danger in few districts in the region which has to be addressed through an integrated action plan.
• The social base of the movement will need to expand by creating awareness about the backwardness of the region has to spread.
• Intellectuals from the region must fill in the ideological void and work towards mobilizing the masses for economic development.