Chapter -2

FEDERALISM
 Introduction

• Federalism: Federalism is a system of government in

which the power is divided between a central authority and
various constituent units of the country.
• In the previous chapter through the examples of Belgium
and Sri Lanka we have studied about power sharing. There
we saw that through the constitutional amendment of 1993
Belgium shared the power with different ethnic groups and
solved the problem of conflicts on the other hand Sri Lanka
acted opposite and the result was civil war
KEY FEATURES OF FEDERAL GOVERNMNT
Federal and Unitary Government
Types Of Ferderalism
• India emerged as an independent nation after a
painful and bloody partition. Soon after Independence
several princely states became the part the country.
The constitution clearly provided a threefold
distribution of legislative powers between the Union
government and state government. These are:-
Lists in Indian Constitution
 What about subjects that do not fall in any of the three lists? Or
subjects like computer software that came up after the constitution
was made?
According to our constitution the union government has the power to
legislate on these ‘Residuary subjects’.
• The sharing of power between the Union government and the state
government is basic to the structure of the constitution. It is not easy
to make changes to this power sharing arrangement. The parliament
cannot on its own change this arrangement. Any change to it has to
be first passed by both the Houses of the Parliament with at least
two- thirds majority. Then it has to be rectified by the legislatures of
at least half of the total states.
• In case of any dispute about the division of powers, the High Courts
and the Supreme courts make a decision. The Union and state
governments have the power to raise resources by levying taxes in
order to carry on the government and the responsibilities assigned to
each of them
 Linguistic States
• The creation of Linguistic states was the first and a major test
for democratic politics in our country.
• Boundaries of many previous states were changed in order to
create new states.
• When the demand for the formation of states on the basis of
language was raised, some national leaders feared that it
would lead to the disintegration of the country.
• The central government resisted linguistic States for
sometime but the experience has shown that the formation of
linguistic states has actually made the country more united.
• It has also made administration easier.
• Some states were created not on the basis of language but to
recognize difference based on the culture, ethnicity or
geography.
Language Policy
• The second test for Indian federation is the language policy.
• Our constitution did not give the status of national language
to any one language. Hindi was identified as the official
language. But Hindi is the mother tongue of only about 40
% of Indian therefore there were many safeguard to protect
other languages.
• Besides Hindi, there are 21 other languages recognized as
Scheduled Language by the constitution.
• A candidate in an examination conducted for the central
government positions may opt to take the examination in
any of these languages.
• States too have their own official languages. Much of the
government work takes place in the official language of the
concerned states.
• According to the Constitution the use of English for official
purposes was to stop in 1965 but many non-Hindi speaking
states demanded that the use of English continue.
• In Tamilnadu this movement took a violent form. The Central
Government responded by agreeing to continue the use of
English along with Hindi.
• Many critics think that this solution favoured the English-
speaking elite.
• Promotion of Hindi continues to be the official policy the
Government of India. Promotion does not mean that the central
Government can impose Hindi on States where people speak a
different language.
• The flexibility shown by the Indian political leaders helped our
country avoid the kind of situation that Sri Lanka finds itself in.
Centre- State relation
• How the constitutional arrangements for sharing power
works in reality depends to a large extent on how the
ruling parties and leaders follow these arrangements.
• For a long time the same party ruled both at the centre and
in most of the states. This meant that the State
Governments did not exercise their rights as autonomous
federal units.
• As and when the ruling party at the State level was
different, the parties that ruled at the Centre tried to
undermine the power of the States. In those days, the
central Government would often misuse the Constitution
to dismiss the state governments that were controlled by
the rival parties.
• This undermined the spirit of federalism. All this changed
significantly after 1990. This period saw the rise of regional
political parties in many States of the country. This was also the
beginning of the era of Coalition Governments at the centre.
• Since no single party got clear majority in the Lok Sabha, the
major national parties had to enter into an 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.
• This trend was supported by a major judgement of the Supreme
Court that made it difficult for the Central Government to dismiss
state governments in an arbitrary manner
• Thus federal power sharing is more effective today than it was
in the early years after the constitution came into force
Gram Panchayat
• Rural local government is popularly known by the name of
Panchayati Raj.
• Each village or a group of village 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
that ward or village.
• It is the decision making body for the entire village. The
Panchayat works under the overall supervision of gram
Sabha. It has to meet at least twice or thrice in a year to
approve the annual budget of the gram Panchayat and to
review the performance of the gram Panchayat.
Panchayat Samiti
• The local government structure goes right up to the
district level. A few gram panchayats are grouped
together to form what is usually called a Panchayat
samiti or block or mandal. The members of this
representative body are elected by all the Panchayat
members in that area.
Zila Parishad
• All the Panchayat samities or mandals in a district
together constitute the zila parishad. Most members of
the zila parishad are elected. Members of Lok Sabha
and MLA of that district and some other officials of the
other district level bodies are also its members. Zila
parishad chairperson is the political head of the zila
parishad.
Municipalities/ Municipal corporations
• Similarly local government bodies exist for urban areas
as well. Municipalities are set up in towns. Big cities
are constituted into municipal corporations. Both
Municipalities and municipal corporations are
controlled by elected bodies consisting of people’s
representatives. Municipal chair person is the political
head of the municipality. In a municipal corporation
such an officer is called the mayor.
Chapter is
Over