The Indian State has accommodated regional sentiments through what mechanism?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Federalism
Option (1) Federalism — Correct. Regional sentiments come from India’s diversity of languages, cultures, tribes and religions. Indian federalism has been a means of accommodating these regional sentiments: after Independence the old provinces were reorganised into linguistic states, and new states have been created since, each with its own government within the Union.
Option (2) Secularism — Incorrect. Secularism deals with religion: the separation of religious and political authority and the state’s equal respect for all religions. It does not give regions a say in their own government.
Option (3) Regionalism — Incorrect. Regionalism is the regional sentiment itself, the feeling of a region’s separate identity. The question asks how the state has met that feeling, so regionalism cannot be the mechanism.
Option (4) Communalism — Incorrect. Communalism is aggressive chauvinism based on religious identity, a problem the state has to fight, not a way of accommodating anyone.
NCERT (2025-26): “6.2 Regionalism in the Indian Context … Regionalism in India is rooted in India’s diversity of languages, cultures, tribes, and religions. It is also encouraged by the geographical concentration of these identity markers in particular regions, and fuelled by a sense of regional deprivation. Indian federalism has been a means of accommodating these regional sentiments (Bhattacharyya 2005).…” |