RASHTRIYA JAGRITI SANSTHAN

RASHTRIYA JAGRITI SANSTHAN

INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL AWAKENING

India & Federalism

In India federalism is a system of government in which powers have been divided between the centre and its constituent parts such as states or provinces. It is an institutional mechanism to accommodate two sets of politics, one at the central or national level and the second at the regional or provincial level.

India had adopted a federal political system that had two tiers of government: The national level and the state level. A crucial third tier (at the level of panchayats and municipalities) was added post the enactment of the 73rd and 74th Amendments in 1992. The Constitution makers adopted a unique model of a federal structure for independent India which is often called ‘centralised federalism.

In the first phase, as the party of freedom, the Congress party enjoyed absolute political hegemony, both at the Centre as well as the states, which prompted political scientist Rajni Kothari to call it the ‘Congress System’. During this period, though national politics was dominated by the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the regional leaders and chief ministers of the Congress also had considerable political clout and support base in the states. Major differences between the Centre and states were resolved in Congress party forums preventing any major federal conflict, creating a consensual model of ‘inner-party federalism’.

In the second phase from 1967 onwards, the Congress party was still in power at the Centre but lost power in many states where many regional party-led and anti-Congress coalition governments were formed. This phase marked the emergence of an era of “expressive” and more direct conflictual federal dynamics between the Congress-led Centre and the opposition parties-led state governments.

During the third phase called the ‘multi-party federalism’ period, a ‘reconfiguration of Indian politics’ took place creating conditions for the regionalisation of national politics. First, as the Congress party’s dominance in national politics considerably declined and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was yet to emerge as a sole national alternative, it created political space for many powerful regional parties and leaders to play a national role in coalition governments and impact the national polity. This period allowed many regional leaders to share national power as no national party was able to garner an absolute parliamentary majority.

In the current phase, since 2014, the ‘dominant party’ federalism has returned with the rise of the BJP party. Ending three decades of coalition governments, BJP garnered a comfortable parliamentary majority in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. At the same time, the party has captured power in several states establishing the party’s hegemony almost similar to the ‘Congress System’. Though BJP remains an extremely powerful force at the national level, with the considerable political weakening of the Congress, it is mostly the regional parties that have challenged BJP’s inroads in the state elections to some extent. This period witnessed some major federal discords between the Centre and the Opposition-ruled states as the latter accused the national ruling party of engineering defections and using the Governor’s office and central investigative agencies to intimidate opposition leaders and destabilise the state governments. Regarding questions of governance, there was initial federal consensus on decisions like passing of GST law, formation of NITI Aayog and GST Council, and acceptance of the Finance Commission’s proposal to increase states’ share of funds. But eventually, the non-BJP ruled states remained at loggerheads with the Centre on several policy issues such as CAA, farm laws, the jurisdiction of BSF in states, GST compensation and assistance during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, the Centre has also been able to co-opt some Opposition-ruled states on contentious issues such as the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir and CAA built on nationalistic plank, termed ‘national federalism’. However, during the later stages of the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis, the Centre recognised the importance of decentralised and localised governance in such a health emergency and gave the states autonomy to deal with the crisis with the Centre playing the crucial coordinating role. In short, while the second dominant party system has arrived with the hegemonic rise of the BJP, the states led by several regional leaders are resisting the rising trends of centralised federalism.

In all four phases, the attempts of centralisation and homogenisation have been resisted by regional actors safeguarding the original federal design. The addition of third-tier local-self-government has also effectively emerged as the strong pillar of Indian federalism by decentralising power at the lowest level of governance. However, two major challenges inhibit greater federal cooperation. First, federal relations in India remains heavily marred by concerns of political partisanship as mutual distrust and electoral competition amongst rival parties at the Centre and the states obfuscates chances of political dialogue and consensus-making. Second, due to such festering political divide and suspicion, the inter-governmental institutions like Inter-State Council, GST Council, NITI Aayog, and Zonal Council remain largely under-utilised for resolving Centre-state and inter-state differences over vital issues of governance. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic as recently acknowledged by Prime Minister Modi has once again reinforced the undeniable need for a robust federal architecture to deliver effective governance and development in a country as diverse as India.

INDIA: A QUASI FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Quasi federal refers to a system of government where the distribution of powers between the

Center and the state are not equal. India is a federation with a unitary bias and is referred as a quasi-federal state because of strong central machinery.

The Constitution of India has not described India as a federation. On the other hand, Article 1 of the Constitution describes India as a “Union of States.” This means, India is a union comprising of various States which are integral parts of it. The Indian Union is not destructible. Here, the States cannot break away from the union. They do not have the right to secede from the union. In a true federation, the constituting units or the States have the freedom to come out of the union.

India is not a true federation. It combines the features of a federal government and the features of a unitary government which can also be called the non-federal features. Because of this, India is regarded as a semi-federal state. Prof K.C Wheare describes it as “a quasifederal state”. The Supreme Court of India also describes it as “a federal structure with a strong bias towards the Centre”.

Indian constitution contains both features of a federal constitution and unitary constitution.

For understanding Quasi Federal government, we have to know that what are the federal features and what is unitary features of Indian Constitution.

The main features of Indian Federal system are as follows:

1) Division of Powers :

The division of powers between two levels of governments is an essential feature of federalism. Federalism means the distribution of powers of the state between the central and the state governments. The basis of such distribution of power is that in matters of national importance, in which a uniform policy is desirable in the interest of the units, authority is entrusted to the centre and matters of local concern remain with the states. In a Federation there should be clear division of powers so that the units and the centre are required to enact and legislate within their sphere of activity and none violates its limits and tries to encroach upon the functions of others. The Seventh schedule contains three legislative lists which enumerate subjects of administration viz., Union, State and Concurrent lists. The union list consists of 100 subjects, the more important of which are defense, railway, posts and telegraph, currency etc. The state list consists of 61 subjects, including public order, police, administration of justice, public health, education, agriculture etc. The concurrent list embraced 52 subjects including criminal law, marriage, divorce, trade unions, electricity etc. The residuary powers have been vested in the central government.

2) Supremacy of the Constitution:

In a federation, the constitution should be the supreme source of strength, both for the centre as well as the federating units. Accordingly, Indian constitution is also supreme and not the hand maid of either the centre or of the states. If, for any reason, any organ of the state dares to violate any provision of the constitution, the court of law is there to ensure the dignity of the constitution, which is upheld at all costs.

3) A Written Constitution:

A Federal constitution must almost be a written constitution. It will be practically impossible to maintain the supremacy of the constitution and division of powers between the centre and the states, unless the terms of the constitution have been reduced into writing.

Accordingly, the Indian constitution is a written document containing 395 Articles and 10 Schedules, and therefore fulfills this basic requirement of a federal government. In fact the Indian constitution is the most elaborate constitution of the world.

4) Rigid Constitution:

A natural corollary of a written constitution is its rigidity. In a rigid constitution the procedure of amendment is complicated and difficult. But this does not mean that the constitution should be legally unalterable. A Rigid constitution, as we know, is one which cannot be changed easily. The Indian constitution is largely a rigid constitution. All the provisions of the constitution concerning federal state relations can be amended only by the joint actions of the state legislatures and the union parliament. Such provisions can be amended only if the amendment is passed by a two-third majority of the members present and by voting in the parliament, and is ratified by at least one half of the states.

5) Independent Judiciary:

For a federation, it is also essential that the judiciary is impartial and independent. A Federal court is indispensable to a federation. It acts as the guardian of the constitution. Especially, this principle has been playing an important and key role in the working of federal government. The constitution has provided for a Supreme Court, and every effort has been made to see that the judiciary in India is independent and supreme. The Supreme Court of India can declare a law as unconstitutional if it contravenes any provisions of the constitution. In order to ensure the impartiality of the judiciary, our judges are not removable by the executive and their salaries cannot be curtailed by the Parliament.

6) Bicameral Legislature:

A bicameral system is considered essential in a federation because it is in the Upper House alone that the units can be given equal representation. The Constitution of India also provides for a bicameral legislature at the Centre consisting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. While the Lok Sabha consists of the elected representatives of people, the Rajya Sabha mainly consists of representatives elected by State Legislative Assemblies.

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