Hyderabad as Union Territory will suffer from deficit democracy. The UPA government’s reported resolve to go ahead with the bifurcation is welcome as it can end the uncertainty that has taken a massive toll in the last three years. However, the inclination to turn Hyderabad into a Union Territory for five years reflects a lack of imagination and forethought and can lead to a serious deficit of democracy in the city region that will cause irreversible damage. There are many tragedies arising from the manner in which the UPA government has dealt with this issue.
The most damaging of them is that the issue of how to govern the Hyderabad city region has been kept unprobed until the last minute. There are viable alternatives to the formation of a Union Territory available within the existing constitutional and legal framework. Some of these alternatives have been proposed in a recent study titled Governing Mega City Regions in India, by the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
The CPR propositions are not just with regard to Hyderabad but with regard to all the five mega city regions in India. Even the Hong Kong model proposed by public intellectuals in recent times for Hyderabad belongs in this genre of solutions. According to these proposals, Hyderabad can be governed from within the state government’s domain but given a degree of autonomy and accountability to regions beyond the city.
This could include creating a new structure to govern the city region by state law and including central government nominees in it. The difference between a Union Territory and the CPR formulation is that in the latter case, the city region can be governed primarily by the state government while having all the necessary features that are required for legitimate and effective governance of a globalizing city.
The actual political and institutional content of the proposed Union Territory is anybody’s guess at this point. However, there are just two possibilities as far as the extent of the Union Territory is concerned. It could be either the over 700 sq kms of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation or the 7100 sq kms of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority.
The latter includes the 11 industrial area local authorities (including Cyberabad) in the vicinity of GHMC; two special planning zones (Cyberabad and Hyderabad Airport Area); two municipalities – Sangareddy and Bhongir, several Special Economic Zones, 38 census towns and over 700 panchayats in Medak, Nalgonda, Mahbubagar districts besides Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts. In terms of political representation, this area includes 7 out of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state and 34 out of the 294 assembly constituencies.
Admittedly, the Constitutional provisions around the Union Territory give the Union Government the flexibility to calibrate the actual political and institutional configuration of the administration and political representation through acts of Parliament. After all, some of the former Union territories have now turned into full-fledged states. Two of the seven Union Territories in India now – Delhi and Pondicherry - have partial statehood in that they have elected assemblies and one - Chandigarh serves as a joint capital.
However, given the timeframe of five years during which Hyderabad is also proposed to be the joint capital and the lackadaisical manner in which the UPA has dealt with the state bifurcation issue until now, compounded by the fact that general elections are round the corner, it seems very unlikely that the UPA government will expend any energy on creating a meaningful institutional framework of accountability in local and regional governance.
On the other hand, there would be no time to create a dedicated Union Territory cadre that can understand the region and effectively respond to the challenges. By default, the region would be governed by the Lieutenant Governor’s office – an institutional form that cannot possibly be equipped with either the political legitimacy or the coherent administrative machinery to deal with the challenges of a globalizing city region.
In other words, turning the HMDA area into a Union Territory will effectively create a democratic vacuum. This is precisely the kind of environment that can lead to exacerbation of tensions and violence of various kinds because there will be no politically viable and legitimate means of resolving the conflicts. Yet, in order to retain the city’s global and national competitiveness, the Union government will be under pressure to maintain an image of security, law and order and general wellbeing of the population.
The result will be the unleashing of a cycle of repression by governmental and extra-governmental agencies. Hyderabad is no stranger to this kind of vacuum. Time and again, the city and the region surrounding it has been subjected to deficits of democracy and administrative inefficiency. And each time, it has taken decades to repair the damage even partially. But this time, recovery may not be anywhere in the visible horizon.
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