Uttarakhand to mark 25 years on November 9: Know how the state was formed

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Dehradun on November 9 to take part in the Silver Jubilee celebrations marking 25 years since Uttarakhand’s creation. According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, the event will begin around 12:30 pm. During the programme, Modi will unveil a commemorative postal stamp and address the gathering. The visit will also see the inauguration and foundation laying of projects worth over Rs 8,140 crores -- around Rs 930 crores worth of projects will be inaugurated, and new works valued at approximately Rs 7,210 crores will have their foundation stones laid.

How the state was formed

The day marks not only a milestone for the state but also recalls the long and turbulent struggle that led to its creation. Uttarakhand was officially carved out of the hilly districts of Uttar Pradesh on November 9, 2000, ending decades of social and political agitation. Yet, the first murmurings of a distinct identity for the region can be traced back over two centuries. After the East India Company took control of the Kumaon hills in 1815, local voices began demanding special administrative attention and concessions for the mountainous areas. Autonomy and special rights were centre of public discussions for Garhwal and Kumaon regions of the Himalayas as well as Dehradun valley which were under the administrative unit of the United Provinces (UP) during the colonial times, according to The Indian Express.

These early stirrings continued through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It reported a turning point arrived in 1938 when Jawaharlal Nehru, at a special Congress session, supported the cause for distinct administrative consideration. That was the first public acknowledgment that the lifestyles, customs and cultures of the mountains were different from those of the plains.  Still, after Independence, the demand found little traction, and the hills remained within Uttar Pradesh.

The modern statehood movement took a more organised shape in July 1979 with the formation of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD), which explicitly sought a separate hill state. Though it brought the demand to every door in the region, it could not grow into a dominant political force like the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha or Telangana Rashtra Samithi in their respective regions. Interestingly, historian Shekhar Pathak once noted that the Communist Party of India was the first post-Independence political group to advocate for Uttarakhand statehood, even drafting a proposal for a three-tier system of governance in 1967, reported The Indian Express. The effort, however, failed to influence electoral politics at the time.

It was the 1990s that truly transformed the movement into a mass agitation. The BJP, which had initially criticised the statehood idea as divisive, shifted its stance in 1991 and created the Uttaranchal Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti within the party to back the demand. The Samajwadi Party’s position on the issue, meanwhile, fluctuated. During his first tenure (1989-91), Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav opposed any division of Uttar Pradesh. In his second term (1993-95), however, his government passed a resolution in favour of Uttarakhand’s creation and set up a ministerial committee to study the issue, according to the report.

In 1994, tensions escalated dramatically. Mulayam’s government announced 27 percent reservation for OBCs in state jobs and educational institutions, raising total reservations in UP to about 50 percent. The policy triggered resentment in the upper-caste-dominated hill regions, where opposition to the quota move merged with the long-pending demand for separation. The agitation turned violent, most tragically in incidents like the Khatima and Mussoorie firings, and the Rampur Tiraha episode in Muzaffarnagar where police opened fire on protesters heading to Delhi, killing six and injuring many.

Momentum gathered nationally soon after. On August 15, 1996, Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda announced the decision to form ‘Uttaranchal’, later renamed Uttarakhand in 2007. Two years later, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government introduced the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, which was passed after the UP Assembly suggested 26 amendments. By November 2000, the new state was born.

Since then, Uttarakhand’s creation has remained politically symbolic. All prominent political parties in the state have claimed credit for its formation. “Atal ji ne banaya, Modiji sanwarenge,” the BJP declared ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections, underscoring its role in both the state’s formation and its present development.

In 2023, the Uttarakhand Cabinet approved a 10 per cent horizontal reservation in government jobs for 'Rajya Andolankaris' or people who participated in the separate statehood agitation as the demand for its had been rising in the years of its formation among families of those killed during the movement and those who were injured or imprisoned.

In 2022, the BJP government led by Pushkar Singh Dhami had also increased the Andolankari pension for those imprisoned or injured participating the demonstration for separate statehood.