Today (May 1), both Gujarat and Maharashtra celebrate their states’ creation. They were born out of the bilingual Bombay State, which failed to settle the tug-of-war between Gujaratis and Marathis over the city of Bombay.
The case of Puducherry shows us how Union Territories, as pockets of arbitrary power, enable an authoritarian role for the Union government while trampling upon the core of federalism and democracy.