ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to show from a historical perspective, that contrary to the belief that the State Reorganisation Commission (SRC) report was actually a textual commitment of India’s adherence to the principle of linguistic provinces, it actually was an attempt to depart from it. The principle of linguistic provinces was part of the romanticism that was associated with idea of nation and nation building. Such security concerns, either political or social, were integral to the concept of homeland which the SRC had anticipated and cautioned about much earlier. The rejection of the demands created conditions for the emergence of demands for ‘homelands’ from a number of tribes in north-east India which the SRC had argued very strongly against in its text. The principle of state reorganisation in north-east India has therefore experienced a shifting paradigm which has the potential of posing much serious concerns for the Indian state. The post-colonial Indian polity had been a site of acrimonious contestations.
