One State, One Vote: A Development Mandate?

What Kerala, and Bihar and Andhra and Uttar Pradesh were once, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh are now. The one-stateone-vote recommendation of the LODHA COMMITTEE has brought focus to bear upon the North-East, the region most ignored politically, economically and culturally. It is an important step, and one long overdue.

- Suresh Menon

As a schoolboy when I visited Kerala with my parents on holidays, I always found it difficult to round up cousins for a game of cricket. “Cricket is for madmen and Maharajahs,” my grandfather would pronounce (perhaps suggesting they were the same), and that was that. Cricket was not popular, although Kerala did play the Ranji Trophy, going through the motions till they (usually) finished at the bottom of the table in South Zone.

Then came television, huge amounts on ‘development’ from the Board of Control for Cricket in India, two fast bowlers a generation apart — Tinu Yohannan and Shanthakumaran Sreeshanth who played for the country — and a whole population was hooked. Today there are nearly half a dozen players from the state on the verge of national selection. It took time, but the process of growing roots always does.

What Kerala, and Bihar and Andhra and Uttar Pradesh were Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh are. The one-state-one-vote recommendation of the Lodha Committee has brought focus to bear upon the North-East, the region most ignored politically, economically and culturally. It is an important step, and one long overdue. “There is no interest in cricket there,” is only one of the many excuses for the lack of development of the game in the region. But that’s only partly true.

Interest can be created. Hokaito Zhimoni, the left-arm medium pacer and the first Ranji player from Nagaland (he played for Assam) told the Wisden India website “If the BCCI continue to send coaches and provide infrastructure for training, then things will get better.

“I ENDED UP PLAYING just four first-class matches. I did what I could, but have now moved to my family business and I am trying to get into the police service.”