What is Regionalism?

It refers to affinity of people to their specific area or region which has its own government, different customs and religious practices etc. It is based on diversity of languages, culture, tribes and religions. It is encouraged by the geographical concentration of these identity markers in particular regions and fuelled by a sense of regional deprivation. It depends also on the historical formation or administration of a region. Eg. prior to independence, the British had divided India into Presidency states i.e. Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Owing to that older effect, these constitute presently major political-administrative units of a semi-federal state called the union of India. Besides this, there were princely states and principalities all over India who had accustomed to their particular kind of administration hence, posed difficulty for Indian union after independence and still pose one or other problems.