I85PREP
⌘ K
Tamil Nadu HSE Second Year History study materials
Tamil Nadu HSE Second Year History study resources

Tamil Nadu HSE Second Year History: Governance and Political Developments after Independence

Tamil Nadu HSE Second Year History · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Governance and Political Developments after Independence

Governance and Political Developments after Independence. The exam checks integration of princely states, linguistic reorganisation, planned development and the constitutional bodies that run them.

Integration and reorganisation

  • Accession was secured through Instruments of Accession, negotiated by Sardar Patel with V.P. Menon; Junagadh, Hyderabad (Operation Polo, 1948) and Kashmir (1947) were the difficult cases; Goa was integrated in 1961.
  • Andhra was created on 1 October 1953 after Potti Sriramulu's death fast, the first state formed on a linguistic basis; the Fazl Ali Commission led to the States Reorganisation Act, 1956.
  • Madras State was renamed Tamil Nadu by the Madras State (Alteration of Name) Act, in force from 14 January 1969.

Planning and institutions

  • The Planning Commission (1950) was an executive body, not a constitutional one; the Finance Commission is constitutional, under Article 280.
  • The First Five Year Plan ran from 1951 to 1956, with the National Development Council linking the Centre and states; NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission in 2015.
  • The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) gave constitutional status to panchayats and municipalities respectively.

Political change

  • Congress dominance before 1967 gave way to coalition politics; the 1969 split in the Congress, the Emergency of 1975–77 and the 44th Amendment's rollback followed.
  • The Mandal Commission report was implemented in 1990; the Right to Information Act and MGNREGA date from 2005.
  • On language, the Official Languages Act, 1963 and its 1967 amendment kept English in continued official use, a response to the anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu.

Worked example

Why was Andhra created in 1953? The JVP Committee had earlier rejected linguistic states, but Potti Sriramulu's fast unto death and the unrest after his death forced the government to concede; Andhra's creation set the precedent that produced the 1956 reorganisation. Reasoning moves from pressure group to policy change to institutional outcome.

Traps

  • 1953 (Andhra) precedes the 1956 Act; do not merge the two dates.
  • 73rd is rural, 74th is urban.
  • The Planning Commission was not a constitutional body.