How were the new states formed?

The new states were formed along linguistic lines.

a) In 1953, following the mass protests after the death of Potti Sriralmulu, the Telugu speakers were granted the state of Andhra Pradesh.

b) In 1956, the State Reorganisation Committee stipulated the formation of states for Assamese, Oriya, Bengali and Kannada speakers.

c) The idea of linguistic division was used to divide Bombay into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960, and Punjab into Punjab and Haryana in 1966.