When the nation is wrestling with the issue of how to integrate multi lingual population one wonders how other nations dealt with similar issues. After independence India too faced similar issues of simmering tensions of its multi-lingual citizenry.

British had divided India in two types of territories – provinces ruled directly by British officers and Princely states ruled by hereditary rulers – and 1950’s Constitution used them as the basis to create its 28 states. However, such a division did not take into account the language preferences of the citizens of these states.

So a movement developed for the creation of linguistic based states, unsettling the stability of the budding nation. In 1953, Nehru appointed a commission under GB Pant to reorganize states. Pant’s States Reorganization Commission recommended creation of fourteen states and seven union territories mainly around linguistic line.

Many other changes to India’s state boundaries have been made but the states reorganizations enacted by Nehru’s government essentially facilitated the political integration of the country.