What Is Federalism?

Federalism is a system of government in which power is divided between a central

authority and various constituent units of the country.

A federation has two levels of government. Both these levels of government enjoy
their power independently of the other.

1. One is the government for the entire country, which is usually responsible for a few
subjects of common national interest.
2. Governments at the level of provinces or states, which look after much of the day-to-day
administering of their state.

Difference Between Unitary System and Federal System

Unitary System Federal System

There is only one level of government, or the sub-units are There are two or more levels (or
subordinate to the Central Government. tiers) of government.

The Central Government can pass on orders to the provincial or local The Central Government cannot
government. order the state government to do
something.

The central government is supreme, and the administrative divisions State Government has powers of its
exercise only powers that the central government has delegated to own for which it is not answerable to
them. Their powers may be broadened and narrowed by the central the central government.
government

Key Features of Federalism

Some of the key features of the federalism system are:

1. There are two or more levels (or tiers) of government.

2. Different tiers of government govern the same citizens, but each tier has its own
JURISDICTION in specific matters of legislation, taxation and administration.
3. The existence and authority of each tier of government is constitutionally guaranteed.
4. The fundamental provisions of the Constitution cannot be unilaterally changed by one
level of government. Such changes require the consent of both levels of government.
5. Courts have the power to interpret the Constitution and the powers of different levels of
government.
6. Sources of revenue for each level of government are clearly specified to ensure its
financial autonomy.
7. The federal system has dual objectives: i) To safeguard and promote the unity of the
country and ii) To accommodate regional diversity.
Different Routes Through Which Federations Can Be Formed
Two aspects are crucial for the institutions and practice of federalism: mutual trust
between the government of different levels and agreement to live together. There are
two kinds of routes through which federations have been formed.

1. The first route involves independent States coming together on their own to form a bigger
unit. This kind of “coming together” federation is formed in the USA, Switzerland and
Australia.
2. The second route is that a large country decides to divide its power between the
constituent States and the national government. This kind of ‘holding together’ federation
is followed in India, Spain and Belgium countries.

What Makes India a Federal Country?

All the features of the federal system apply to the provisions of the Indian
Constitution. The Indian Constitution is a three-fold distribution of legislative powers
between the Union Government and the State Governments. The 3 lists are
mentioned below:

1) Union List: It includes subjects of national importance such as the defence of the
country, foreign affairs, banking, communications and currency. The Union
Government alone can make laws relating to the subjects mentioned in this list.

2) State List: It contains subjects of State and local importance such as police,
trade, commerce, agriculture and irrigation. The State Governments alone can make
laws relating to the subjects mentioned in this list.

3) Concurrent List: It includes subjects of common interest to both the Union

Government as well as the State Governments. The list includes education, forest,
trade unions, marriage, adoption and succession. Both the Union as well as the
State Governments can make laws on the subjects mentioned in this list. If their laws
conflict with each other, the law made by the Union Government will be considered.

How Is Federalism Practised?

The real success of federalism in India is attributed to its nature of democratic
politics. Have a look at some of the major ways in which federalism is practised in
India.

Linguistic States
The creation of linguistic States was the first and a major test for democratic politics
in India. From 1947 to 2017, many old States vanished, and many new States were
created. Areas, boundaries and names of the States have been changed. Some
States have been formed of people who speak the same language. These states are
known as Linguistic States.

Language Policy
A second test for the Indian federation is the language policy. Hindi was identified as
the official language. Besides Hindi, there are 21 other languages recognised as
Scheduled Languages by the Constitution. States, too, have their own official
languages, and government work takes place in the official language of the
concerned State.

Centre-State relations
Restructuring the Centre-State relations is one more way in which federalism has
been strengthened in practice. Suppose no single party gets a clear majority in the
Lok Sabha, the major national parties can alliance with many parties, including
several regional parties, to form a government at the Centre. This led to a new
culture of power sharing and respect for the autonomy of State Governments.

Decentralisation in India
When power is taken away from Central and State governments and given to the
local government, it is called decentralisation. The basic idea behind decentralisation
is that there are a large number of problems and issues which are best settled at the
local level. Local people can also directly participate in the decision-making.

A major step towards decentralisation was taken in 1992. The Constitution was
amended to make the third tier of democracy more powerful and effective. Here are
the key features of 3-tier democracy:

1. It is constitutionally mandatory to hold regular elections for local government bodies.

2. Seats are reserved in the elected bodies and the executive heads of these institutions for
the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.
3. At least one-third of all positions are reserved for women.
4. State Election Commission has been created in each State to conduct panchayat and
municipal elections.
5. The State governments are required to share some powers and revenue with local
government bodies. The nature of sharing varies from State to State.

Panchayati Raj System

Rural local government is popularly known as Panchayati Raj. Each village, or a
group of villages in some States, has a gram panchayat. This is a council consisting
of several ward members, often called panch, and a president or sarpanch. They are
directly elected by all the adult population living in a village or ward. Gram Panchayat
is the decision-making body for the entire village.

The Panchayat works under the overall supervision of the Gram Sabha. All the
voters in the village are its members. It has to meet at least twice or thrice a year to
approve the annual budget of the gram panchayat and to review the performance of
the Gram Panchayat.

When Gram Panchayat are grouped together, they form a Panchayat

Samiti or Block or Mandal. The member of the Panchayat Samiti representatives
are elected by all the Panchayat members in that area.

All the Panchayat Samitis or Mandals in a district together constitute the Zilla
(district) Parishad. Members of the Lok Sabha, MLAs of the district, and some
other officials of other district-level bodies are members of Zilla Parishad.

Municipalities
As Gram Panchayat is for Rural areas, similarly, we have Municipalities for urban
areas. Big cities are constituted into Municipal Corporations. Both Municipalities and
Municipal Corporations are controlled by elected bodies consisting of people’s
representatives. The Municipal Chairperson is the political head of the Municipality.
In a Municipal Corporation, such an officer is called the Mayor.
This new system of local government is the largest experiment in democracy
conducted anywhere in the world. Constitutional status for local government has
helped to deepen democracy in our country. It has also increased women’s
representation and voice in our democracy.

Frequently Asked Questions on CBSE Class

10 Political Science Notes Chapter 2
Federalism
Q1

What is ‘Federalism’?

Federalism is a system of government in which power is divided between a central

authority and various constituent units of the country.
Q2

What are the sects under the Panchayati Raj?

The Panchayati Raj system consists of Gram Panchayat at the village level,
Panchayat Samiti at the block level and Zila Parishad at the district level.
Q3

What are the functions of a municipality?

1. Urban planning including town planning.2. Regulation of land use and construction
of buildings.3. Planning for economic and social development.4. Roads and
bridges.5. Water supply for domestic, industrial and commercial purposes.

Story of Belgium
Belgium is a small country in Europe with a population of over 1 crore, about half the
population of Haryana. Of the country’s total population, 59% speak the Dutch
language, 40% of people speak French, and the remaining 1% speak German. Look
at the map below to know the language variation of Belgium. The minority French-
speaking community was rich and powerful, so they got the benefit of economic
development and education. This created tensions between the Dutch-speaking and
French-speaking communities during the 1950s and 1960s.

Accommodation in Belgium
In Belgium, the government handled the community difference very well. Between
1970 and 1993, Belgian leaders amended their constitution four times and came up
with a new model to run the government.

Here are some of the elements of the Belgian model.

1. The Constitution prescribes that the number of Dutch and French-speaking ministers
shall be equal in the Central Government. Some special laws require the support of the
majority of members from each linguistic group. Thus, no single community can make
decisions unilaterally.
2. The state governments are not subordinate to the Central Government.
3. Brussels has a separate government in which both communities have equal
representation.
4. Apart from the Central and the State Governments, there is a third kind of government.
This ‘community government’ is elected by people belonging to one language community
– Dutch, French and German-speaking – no matter where they live. This government has
the power regarding cultural, educational and language-related issues.
The Belgium model was very complicated, but it helped to avoid civic strife between
the two major communities.

Story of Sri Lanka

Now, let’s take the situation of another country, Sri Lanka. It is an island nation
having a population of 2 crores, about the same as Haryana. Sri Lanka has a diverse
population. The major social groups are the Sinhala speakers (74%) and the Tamil
speakers (18%). Among Tamils, there are two subgroups, “Sri Lankan Tamils” and
“Indian Tamils”. You can see the map below to know the population distribution of
different communities in Sri Lanka.

In Sri Lanka, the Sinhala community enjoyed the bigger majority and imposed its will
on the entire country.

Majoritarianism in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka emerged as an independent country in 1948. The Sinhala community was
in the majority, so they formed the government. They also followed preferential
policies that favoured Sinhala applicants for university positions and government
jobs. These measures taken by the government gradually increased the feeling of
alienation among the Sri Lankan Tamils. Sri Lankan Tamils felt that the Constitution
and government policies denied them equal political rights, discriminated against
them in getting jobs and other opportunities and ignored their interests. Due to this,
the relationship between the Sinhala and Tamil communities become poor. Sri
Lankan Tamils launched parties and struggled for the recognition of Tamil as an
official language, for regional autonomy and for equality of opportunity in securing
education and jobs. But their demand was repeatedly denied by the government.
The distrust between the two communities turned into widespread conflict and turned
into a civil war. As a result, thousands of people from both communities have been
killed. Many families were forced to leave the country as refugees, and many more
lost their livelihoods. The civil war ended in 2009 and caused a terrible setback to the
social, cultural and economic life of the country.

What have you learned from the stories of Belgium and Sri Lanka?
 Both countries are democracies, but they deal differently with the concept of power-
sharing.
 In Belgium, the leaders have realised that the unity of the country is possible only by
respecting the feelings and interests of different communities and regions. This resulted
in mutually acceptable arrangements for sharing power.
 Sri Lanka shows that if a majority community wants to force its dominance over others
and refuses to share power, it can undermine the unity of the country.

Why is power sharing desirable?

You will find the answer to this question in the points below.

1. Power sharing is good because it helps to reduce the possibility of conflict between social
groups.
2. The second reason is that a democratic rule involves sharing power with those affected
by its exercise and who have to live with its effects. People have a right to be consulted
on how they are to be governed.

Let us call the first set of reasons Prudential and the second moral. The prudential
reasons stress that power-sharing will bring out better outcomes, whereas the moral
reasons emphasise the act of power-sharing as valuable.

Form of Power Sharing

Most of you must think that sharing power = dividing power = weakening the country.
A similar thing was believed in the past. It was assumed that all the power of a
government must reside in one person or group of persons located in one place.
Otherwise, it would be very difficult to make quick decisions and to enforce them. But
these notions have changed with the emergence of democracy. In a democracy,
people rule themselves through institutions of self-government. Everyone has a
voice in the shaping of public policies. Therefore, in a democratic country, political
power should be distributed among citizens.

In modern democracies, power sharing can take many forms, as mentioned below:

1. Power is shared among different organs of government, such as the legislature,

executive and judiciary. This is called horizontal distribution of power because it allows
different organs of government placed at the same level to exercise different powers.
Such separation ensures that none of the organs can exercise unlimited power. Each
organ checks the others. This arrangement is called a system of checks and balances.
2. Power can be shared among governments at different levels – a general government
for the entire country and governments at the provincial or regional level, which is called
the federal government.
3. Power may also be shared among different social groups, such as religious and
linguistic groups. ‘Community government’ in Belgium is a good example of this
arrangement. This method is used to give minority communities a fair share of power.
4. Power sharing arrangements can also be seen in the way political parties,
pressure groups and movements control or influence those in power. When two or
more parties form an alliance to contest elections, and if they get elected, they form a
coalition government and thus share power.

Frequently Asked Questions on CBSE Class

10 Political Science Notes Chapter 1: Power
Sharing
Q1

What is ‘Power Sharing’?

Power sharing means the distribution of power among the organs of the government,
such as the legislature, executive and judiciary.
Q2

What are the languages spoken in Belgium?

Belgium is composed of four language areas: the Dutch language area, the French
language area, the German language area (9 municipalities in the east of Belgium)
and the bilingual Brussels-Capital area.
Q3

Where is Sri Lanka located?

Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean, located to the south of the Indian
Subcontinent, sprawling over an area of 65,525 sq. km.