India is the world’s seventh-largest country and the world’s second most populous country soon to overtake China. It is not possible to manage the entire country and its entire population from just one location. Hence, India is divided into states and union territories.
The formation of India into states and union territories
In the 1920s before Indian independence, the Indian National Congress promised that Indians would be split into different provinces based on linguistic ( Language based ). But Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel were against these linguistic-based provinces. After Indian independence, India is split by the state reorganization commission in 1953 and gave its report in 1955 that 16 States and 3 Union territories. The Government split the country into 14 states and 6 Union territories under the state reorganization act passed in 1956.
But Article 370 of the Indian constitution gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, a region located in the northern part of Indian subcontinent and part of the larger region of Kashmir which has been the subject of a dispute between India, Pakistan and China since 1947. Jammu and Kashmir was administered by India as a state from 1952 to 31 October 2019, and Article 370 conferred on it the power to have a separate constitution, a state flag, and autonomy of internal administration.
Union territory
Union territories were created as they were too small to be independent, politically unstable, or financially weak, or they were culturally, geographically, and economically too different from the surrounding states.