India, Aug. 18 -- During the late 1990s, I visited Raipur, a then-sleepy town in Madhya Pradesh, which was agog with excitement and anticipation. The NDA regime under Atal Bihari Vajpayee had almost sealed the partition issue: Chhattisgarh would be carved out of the state (along with Jharkhand from Bihar, and Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh). People in Raipur, including journalists, were busy speculating about the first chief minister of the new state. Some placed bets on the late Vidya Charan Shukla (I&B Minister during the Emergency) as his family dominated the region. Others felt Congress President Sonia Gandhi would anoint the "tribal" leader, Ajit Jogi. The hope and expectation were palpable.

My cousins in Ranchi told me about the si...