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Back in the 1920s, the Congress had promised to create linguistic states after the independence. But the partition of the country along communal lines changed the mindset of the nationalist leaders. They wanted to prevent further divisions in the country on sectarian lines. Nehru and Sardar Patel were against the creation of linguistic states.

But people from many parts of India began their demand for creation of states based on languages. The strongest protests came from the Telugu speaking districts of the Madras Presidency. Nehru was shown black flags when he went there to campaign for the general elections of 1952.

Potti Sriramulu: In October of 1952, a Gandhian leader Potti Sriramulu went on a fast onto death to demand the formation of Andhra Pradesh for Telugu speakers. After fifty eight days into his fast, Potti Sriramulu died on 15 December 1952. This sparked large scale violence and protests. The government had to concede to the demand and the new state of Andhra Pradesh was created on 1 October 1953.

Creation of more states: After the creation of Andhra Pradesh, demands from other linguistic groups came cropping up. A State Reorganisation Commission was set up to look into the matter. The Commission submitted its repots in 1956. Based on its recommendations; the states of Assam, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka were created. The large Hindi-speaking region of the north was also broken up into several states. Bombay was divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960. Punjab was divided into Punjab and Haryana in 1966.