The Guardian view on Modi redrawing India's electoral map: deepening a dangerous north-south divide

The Guardian

09-03-2025

When Narendra Modi's alliance won a narrow majority in last year's Indian election, it signalled his waning popularity after a decade in power. A victory in 2029 may seem unlikely. Yet his government's push to redraw parliamentary constituencies using post-2026 census data could tilt the electoral field in his favour.
The process, known as delimitation, ensures each member of parliament represents an equal number of voters – a principle of democratic fairness. Since 1976, however, it has been frozen to avoid penalising Indian states that curbed population growth. If delimitation proceeds, Mr Modi's populous northern strongholds will gain seats, weakening the political clout of India's economically dynamic and culturally distinct southern cone. Its five states are governed by different parties but, critically, none belong to Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). Southern states have long accused Mr Modi's government of bias in federal funding and project approvals. Last week's gathering of the south's political leadership in Delhi to protest against his move underscores the risk of backlash.
India's north and south are worlds apart: the six largest northern states have 600 million people – twice the south's population – but lag far behind. Tamil Nadu thrives on industry, education and social mobility, with only 6% in poverty compared with 23% in Bihar. A child in Kerala has better survival odds than in the US; in BJP-run Uttar Pradesh (UP), they're worse than in Afghanistan. It makes sense to redistribute resources to alleviate poverty. But UP alone receives more federal tax revenue than all five southern states combined. Even if it grew faster than southern India, it would take decades to catch up in per capita income. For southern India, delimitation represents both economic and political marginalisation – being taxed more, represented less and sidelined in national policymaking.
A recent paper by Paris's Institut Montaigne thinktank highlights how India's north-south divide is deepening due to economic, demographic and political disparities, stirring southern discomfort. It compares the situation to the EU's Greek debt crisis, where wealthier northern countries resented subsidising the poorer southern ones. The report considers Mr Modi's home state of Gujarat – a wealthy but highly unequal western region with slow population growth – but warns that the Hindi‑speaking north's larger populace and lack of socioeconomic progress will deepen tensions and drag the country down.
The Indian economist Jean Drèze notes that while the BJP lost ground in the north in 2024, it gained in the south. He argues that if seats were redistributed by population while maintaining state-wise party shares, Mr Modi's coalition would have won 309 MPs, not 294, out of 543 – an edge in a tight race. Prof Drèze suggests Mr Modi may be pushing delimitation to lock in a lead in 2029, when rising discontent could threaten his hold on power.
Southern concerns could be addressed by freezing seat allocations for decades to allow the north to catch up. However, Mr Modi seems to prefer expanding India's parliament to prevent any state from losing representation, while shrinking southern influence. Much hinges on the timing of India's census, a crucial tool for evidence-based policymaking. Already postponed due to Covid in 2021, further delays are increasingly difficult to justify – they obstruct welfare distribution, stall efforts to improve women's parliamentary representation and appear politically motivated. If delimitation proceeds before 2029 it could reshape India's political landscape to the BJP's advantage – but at the cost of a growing north-south rift that threatens to fracture the Indian union.