Q5(a) · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2022 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks · 1 min read

← Q4(c) Q5(b) →

Regionalism as an opportunity and threat to national integration

Topic: Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization. Syllabus: 1.1 Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization—Prehistoric (Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Neolithic-Chalcolithic), Protohistoric (Indus Civilization). Pre-Harappan, Harappan and post-Harappan cultures. Contributions of the tribal cultures to Indian civilization. Same official PYQ from year-wise 2022 and Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization.

Revision summary

Regionalism is loyalty to language, state, or homeland. Linguistic states and hill councils can integrate by sharing power. Sons-of-the-soil politics and separatism threaten the civic nation. Naga talks show region as a bargain inside the Union. The constitutional test is share versus exit.

Model answer

Introduction

Regionalism is political and cultural loyalty to a language, state, or homeland inside India. It can federate the republic, and it can also split the civic nation.

Body

Opportunity

  • States Reorganisation, 1956, used language regions to reduce the old multilingual province as a wound. That was regionalism as a safety valve.
  • Federal bargaining, hill councils, and Sixth Schedule bodies in the North-East turn region into a constitutional share, not a secession script.
  • Naga peace talks and other accords treat regional identity as something the Union can house.

Threat

  • Sons-of-the-soil drives and linguistic riots exclude internal migrants and shrink national labour circuits.
  • Separatist phases in parts of the North-East and earlier Punjab show region as an armed exit.
  • When region fuses with a single religion or caste, it stops being cultural federalism and becomes a veto on the common roll.

Balance

  • M. N. Srinivas already saw regional languages as modern public spheres. The test is whether the region stays inside the Constitution.

Flow diagram

flowchart TD
  R[Regionalism] --> O[Linguistic states councils]
  R --> T[Sons of soil secession]
  O --> I[National integration]

Conclusion

Regionalism integrates when it is federal language and council. It threatens integration when it becomes exclusion or secession.

Quick related

Students also ask

  • Issues of tribal agricultural labourers

    Next question on this syllabus topic (2022 · Q5(b)). View answer →

  • Is every regional party a threat?

    No. Many are federal bargainers. Threat begins at exclusion and secession.

  • Did linguistic states end regionalism?

    They reduced one conflict and created new minorities inside each state.

PYQ trend

When UPSC asked this

Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.

  1. 2022 · Q1(a) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks

    Pit-dwellers of Kashmir

    View answer →

  2. 2022 · Q1(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks

    Varna and Buddhism

    View answer →

  3. 2022 · Q1(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks

    Dharma versus Religion

    View answer →

  4. 2022 · Q1(e) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks

    Westernisation and Modernisation.

    View answer →

  5. 2022 · Q3(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks

    Describe the methods adopted by Sir Herbert Hope Risley in classifying Indian populations. What are the criticisms against Risley's classification?

    View answer →

  6. 2022 · Q4(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks

    Describe briefly the proto-history of Gujarat. Discuss the significance of Gujarat's proto-history in international trade

    View answer →

  7. 2022 · Q4(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks

    Critically examine Indigenisation of Christianity in India

    View answer →

  8. 2022 · Q5(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks

    Issues of tribal agricultural labourers

    View answer →

More from this topic

Q6(c) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks

Trace the history and describe the methods of formulating the lists of OBCs, both at the State and National levels

Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization

Kalelkar listed; Mandal implemented 27 percent with social-educational-economic tests. Indra Sawhney added creamy layer and a 50 percent ceiling. 102nd Amendment constitutionalised NCBC; 105th restored state lists after the Maratha judgment. Rohini tries to sub-categorise Central OBCs; Ram Singh required data for Jat inclusion. Centre and states maintain separate lists; method is gazette politics under judicial review.

Q6(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 2 · 20 marks

"The village was not merely a place where people lived; it had a design in which were reflected the basic values of Indian civilization." Who said this? Elaborate

Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization

The statement is from the Srinivas village-studies tradition: the village as a designed microcosm of Indian civilisation. Design includes caste ecology, agrarian rank, ritual calendar and factional politics. Values: hierarchy-with-interdependence, local dharma, jati marriage, sacred geography. Marriott, Dube and Bailey showed regional versions of the same idea. Land reform, migration, 73rd Amendment and PESA have rewritten the plan without erasing rank.

Q5(e) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks

Lothal dockyard and international trade relations.

Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization

S. R. Rao identified a burnt-brick tidal basin at Lothal as a dock beside warehouses and bead workshops. Gujarat Harappan coastal sites together support craft export to the Gulf and Mesopotamia (Meluhha). Some archaeologists prefer a reservoir reading; geomorphology of the estuary is still discussed. Even without the word dock, Lothal is a water-edge trade and craft town. International trade here is Bronze Age Gulf networks, not a modern port trust.

Toppers' copies

Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.