India's Federalism under Stress

The hallmark of a federal form, A.V. Dicey wrote some 20 years ago, is that the people desire union, and must not desire unity. 1 If in fact they were to unite, it would no longer be a federal but a unitary government. Thus, two seemingly contradictory forces are involved: the desire of federating units for national unity and their desire to retain individual independence. While India attempted to carve out a federal form of government, the emphasis all along has been on ways of keeping it together in the face of polycentrism and historical divisions. Accordingly, India is called a Union of States. To get a clear picture of India's federalism, one needs to understand the several regional, linguistic, and religious divisions in the country (with 15 recognized languages in 25 states and seven union territories) and analyze the constitutional distribution of powers, devolution of resources, role of governors, emergency powers, the dominant party theme, planning, AllIndia services, the decentralization of power scheme, and other provisions and processes, including Article 3 empowering Parliament to change the boundaries of any state. This article, however, confines itself to an examination of only two of these facets and their net impact on Indian federalism: (1) the use (or misuse) of the exercise of emergency powers, with particular reference to the case of Tamil Nadu, and (2) the decentralization scheme under the Panchayati Raj Bill of 1989.