ð Passed the immediate post-independence crisis there was strength to drive India towards the federalist base of its constitution. However, in the 70’s Indira Gandhi stopped it and recentralized, causing an increasing tension which got even worst in the eighties, with the emergency of separatist movements in Punjab, Kashmir and erosion of cultural identity marked by the influence of USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakian disintegration in the 90’s, as well as an increasingly liberalization due to the globalization enabling regional actor to emerge stronger… driving it to an unstable situation.
ð The Indian Constitution provides for a parliamentary, federal system with certain unitary features and a formal bias in favor of the Center.
ð From the earliest Governmental Regulatory Acts, 1773 until independence, India was governed as a unitary and not as a federal state.
ð The idea of federalism was first introduced after World War I, pronouncedly after 1930.
ð Federalism emerged as solution to two main problems:
o The future of the semiautonomous (562) princely states (represented 2/5 of Indian territory
o The Muslims demands for greater autonomy.
§ They represented 24% of the population prior to partition, most concentrated in east and west India.
ð 1st Federative move was the Act of 1935, establishing a federative colonial rule which was highly centered in the Governors General, representative of the British Crown.
ð The constitution of Independent India followed much of 1935 Act and divided central commitments from local ones (State list), reserving the most important (national importance) for the central authorities in the so called Union List (has 97 items):
UNION LIST (97) STATE LIST (66)
o Defense Public order and police
o Foreign affairs Welfare
o Currency Health
o Bank duties Educational
o Income taxation Local Government
o - Industry
o - Agriculture
o - Revenue
ð There is also a shared authority scope of issues, related in the Concurrent List (47):
o Civil and criminal law
o Social and economic planning
ð The residual and conflict cases are up to the Union authority.
ð The Union counts on special powers/emergency powers which can be raised under three articles and take body according to other three, as follows:
o Situations for raising special powers:
§ Article 356: Failure of the constitutional machinery in the state
§ Article 352: An emergence threatening India’s security, by war, external aggression and internal disturbances
§ Article 360: A threat to financial security, stability or credit
o Shape of the special powers:
§ Articles256 and 257: The executive power of a province must be exercised so as to comply with Union laws and so as not to impede or prejudice the exercise of Union Executive authority.
§ Article 365: If the government does not comply with the upper articles, the Union government may take over control
o SPECIAL LEGISLATIVE POWER OVER ANY MATTER INCLUDED IN THE STATE LEGISLATIVE LIST CAN BE CONCEIVED BY THE RAJYA SABHA (UPPER HOUSE) TO THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
ð The Union command the taxes and revenues control, which makes the states heavily dependent for financial support
o According to Article 275, with exception of land sales and some others, the taxes are collected by the Union and supposed to be given back, however, the Article 278 grants the Union with the power to drive this money to any public purpose
§ For this, the money which was supposed to be divided by the constitutionally established Finance Commission – responsible to plan the distribution from 5 to 5 years – happens to be distributed among states much more due to the extraconstitutional advisory board of the Cabinet, called Planning Commission – also settled from 5 to 5 years.
ð States that for the first two decades after independence the Congress hegemony reinforced this centralization.
ð However, Hardgrave and Kochanek claim that the reduced importance of states is not enough to call it a quasi-federal or unitary system. They prefer to call it a cooperative federalism.
a) State list possesses some of the more important functions , such as education, agriculture and welfare
b) State political leaders challenge the centralization as a way to safe their local electoral support
§ The political and administrative dependence of the central government on the states in critical policy areas resulted in a cooperative federalism based on a bargaining process between the Center and the states.
· Mainly during the Congress Party hegemony, from independence to 1969.
· Highlights this cooperative aspect as a consequence of the heterogeneity of the states.
· Says that, in general, the new state elites born after 1969 were self-consciousness and self-assertiveness, parochial and concerned with distributive politics in an effort to stay in power, most of they were not separatists.
c) The central government can’t sustain unpopular governments for a long time of intervention
ð With the end of Congress hegemony some governmental mechanisms of coordination of states emerged, such as:
o Conference of Chief Ministers: Handle nonplaning political issues requiring national uniformity, coordination and Center-State cooperation.
o National Development Council: Extraconstitutional mechanism to deal with all issues involving economic planning
o Interstate Council: Constitutionally provided mechanism to co-ordinate interstate relation. Was eclipsed by the NDC until 1990
ð States that even in the best circumstances the Center-States relation has always raised a variety of tensions, which are bound to increase as the raising powers are purely regional on its support, appeal and program
o Quotes the case of Dravitra Munnetra Krazhagam (DMK), the Tamil Nadu party which broke the Congress hegemony (1967) and extended its regional interest to a national party, All-India Anna DMK (AIADMK), which demands a federalism reform to restrict Union to defense, foreign affairs, interstate communication and currency issues.
o Same claim raised by the Communist government of West Bengal
o Other states on the periphery of India’s Hindi-speaking heartland.
ð Those claims followed by the split of the congress party, the ghost of separatist wars regarding three wars with Pakistan (1948, 1965, 1971) and a border war with China (1962) and the reduced economic development drove the elites to support a strongly centralized government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (1966-1977 and 1980-1984).
o All elected bodies within the Congress organization ceased to be elected and were appointed from New Delhi
o State chief ministers became the personal appointees of Mrs. Gandhi, regardless of their ability to build a local base of support
ð Generated the disintegration of Congress, the rise of mass protest and an authoritarian response on the part of central government
o Process accelerated from 1975 to 1977 during the emergency times and from 1980 on.
o The politics of manipulation displaced the politics of accommodation
ð Two reflexes of the exaggerated instability:
1. Claims of the President N. Sanjiva Reddy and from the 4 non-Congress chief minister from south states.
2. THE PUNJAB RIOT
a. Drives to her death in 1984.
ð Tried to manage this creating the Sarkaria (1983-1988) Commission, to constitutionally reshape the relation between center and states.
o Kept the role of governors
o Kept the reservation of state bills to the consideration of President
o Kept the use of extraordinary powers 256, 257 and 365
o Set up the Economic and Development Council
o Curtained????
o Praised the State Finance Commission over the Planning Commission
§ Didn’t want to make the Planning Commission constitutional
o Posed restraints to union in matters of concurrent list
o Highlighted the importance of the Interstate Commission under Article 263
§ which should change the name to Inter-Governmental Council
§ should start considering issues apart from planning s and socio-economic sphere.
§ Should be ruled by a permanent secretariat based on Union Cabinet Secretariat.
o There were recommendations to give more powers to the states under IDRA (Industries Development and Regulation Act)
o In matters of conservation and improvement of forests resources both, center and states, should have the same power.
o Wanted to amend water dispute act to empower the Union to take a suo-motto to set up a tribunal for inter-state water dispute.
o The commission urged that measures be taken to provide a more equitable sharing of revenue and to prevent the arbitrary dismissal of state governments.
o Emphasized the importance of a strong center to preserve the unity and integrity of the country.
è Such recommendations reinforced many centralization aspects and frustrated federalist expectations
ð However the government didn’t do much to implement these recommendations, the opposition make reference of it whenever they touched the issue of federalism
o One unexpected result is that the government performed a “Responsive Administration”
§ E.g. rendering strength to Panchayati Rej which led to introduction of 64th Amendment Act in Lok Sabha, where it was defeated anyway.
ð D. D. BASU defines: “The constitution of India is neither purely federal nor purely central but a combination of both. In spite of federalism the national interest ought to be paramount”
ð The centralized aspect was important to keep India together in face of threatens like cast, communalism, linguism and scramble for power.
ð During this time India passed through ad hoc adjustments based on political and electoral interests.
ð This reform reflected in the map of India, under change since 1953.
ð However during the 1930’s the Congress declared to be favorable to a linguistic division of the territory, after the independence they followed the Dar Comission and JVP Committee (Jawaharlal Nehru; Vallabhai Patel; and Patabhi Sitaramayya) suggestion that it would go against the national brotherhood for having a sub-national bias, and, besides, that linguistic minorities would exist anyway.
ð In 1953, however, Madras got independence from
PUNJAB, KASHEMIR AND NORTHEAST
…
ð After all, one can’t says India lost its federalism, as stated by the co-existence of very different parties, such as:
o Communist government in Kerala
o United Front in West Bengal
o DMK in Tamil Nadu
o BJP in Marahastra, Rajastan and Delhi
ð The regions claims for statehood are always a proof of this:
o Meghalaya
o Nagaland
o Manipur
o Lipura
o Mizuran
o Goa
o Arunachal Pradesh
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