Uttar Pradesh: India's democratic landslip, Sumantra Bose

admin — Tue, 29 May 2007 16:23:37 +0100

If Uttar Pradesh were a sovereign state, it would be the world's sixth most populous country. Instead, with its population of 175 million, it is India's most populous political unit, the most teeming of the thirty-odd constituent states that make up the federalistic Indian Union. A vast sprawl across north India's Gangetic plain - "Uttar Pradesh" literally means "Northern Province" - UP, as the state is referred to by Indians, contains about 15% of India's people and elects a similar proportion of the members of India's national parliament in New Delhi (eighty-one of the 542 members of the directly elected chamber of parliament, the Lok Sabha or "House of the People"). Although, like the rest of India, a predominantly rural and agricultural province, UP has seven cities with populations in excess of one million; one of those is Agra, home of the magnificent Taj Mahal, built in the mid-17th century on the orders of the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan. Uttar Pradesh has been both behemoth and bellwether of India's politics since independence in 1947.

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Uttar Pradesh: India's democratic landslip, Sumantra Bose