Understanding Federalism in India

• Federalism is a form of power-sharing in modern democracies involving a vertical division of power among different levels of government.
• This chapter focuses on federalism, detailing its general aspects, theory, and practice within India.
• It includes discussion on constitutional provisions, policies, and real-world applications to strengthen federalism, including local government as India's third tier.

What is Federalism?

• Belgium shifted from unitary to federal by reducing central power and giving constitutional power to regional governments.
• Sri Lanka continues to be unitary, with the national government retaining all power, though Tamil leaders seek a federal system.
• Federalism divides powers between a central authority and constituent country units, commonly with two government levels.
• One government oversees the entire country, usually responsible for national interest subjects.
• The other exists at the province or state level, handling the day-to-day administration.
• Both government levels enjoy power independently.
• Only 25 of 193 worldwide countries have federal systems, representing 40% of the world's population.

Key Features of Federalism

• Federalism consists of two or more government levels or tiers.
• Different tiers of government govern the same citizens, each with its own jurisdiction in legislation, taxation, and administration.
• Jurisdictions of government tiers are constitutionally specified, ensuring guaranteed existence and authority for each tier.
• Fundamental constitutional provisions cannot be unilaterally changed; changes require consent from all government levels.
• Courts have the power to interpret the constitution and power levels, with the highest court settling disputes.
• Revenue sources for each government level are specified to ensure financial autonomy.
• The federal system objectives include safeguarding country unity and accommodating regional diversity and promoting unity.
• Crucial aspects are power-sharing agreements and trust between different governmental levels.
• An ideal federal system constitutes mutual trust and agreement to coexist.
• The balance of power between central and state governments varies by federation, mainly depending on historical context.
• Federations form through independent states joining together to increase security by pooling sovereignty and retaining identity.
• Federations form when a large country decides to divide the power between constituent states and the national government.
• In "coming together" federations, constituent states have equal power and are strong relative to the federal government.
• In "holding together" federations, the central government tends to be more powerful relative to the states.
• Often, different constituent federation units have unequal powers and special powers granted.

What Makes India a Federal Country

• India is a country with many languages, religions and regions
• India is described in the Constitution as a 'Union of States'.
• The Indian Union is based on the principles of federalism.
• The Constitution originally had two tiers of government, Union and State governments, as well as the Central Government.
• A third tier of federalism in the form of Panchayats and Municipalities was added later.
• The different tiers enjoy separate jurisdiction.
• A three-fold distribution of legislative powers between the Union and State Governments is specified in the Constitution.
• The Union List includes subjects of national importance, such as defense, foreign affairs, banking, communications and currency.
• The Union Government can make laws for subjects mentioned in the Union List.
• The State List 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 the State List.
• The Concurrent List includes subjects of common interest to both the Union and State Governments, such as education, forest, trade unions, marriage, adoption and succession Both the Union and State Governments can make laws on the subjects mentioned in the Concurrent List.
• The Union Government law prevails if the laws conflict.
• The Union Government has power to legislate on residuary subjects, like computer software, that did not fall in any of the three lists.
• Most 'holding together' federations do not give equal power to constituent units.
• Some States in the Indian Union enjoy special status such as Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.
• These States enjoy special powers under certain provisions of the Constitution of India (Article 371) because of their peculiar social and historical circumstances.
• These powers protect land rights of indigenous peoples, their culture and give preferential treatment in government services.
• Non-permanent residents cannot buy land or housing in these states.
• Changes to power sharing require a two-thirds majority in both Parliament Houses and ratification by state legislatures.
• The judiciary oversees the implementation of constitutional provisions and procedures and the High Courts and the Supreme Court.
• The Union and State Governments can raise resources by levying taxes to carry out government responsibilities.

How is Federalism Practiced?

• The real success of Indian federalism is the democratic politics, spirit, respect for diversity and desire for living.
• The creation of Linguistic States and language policy were major components for democratic politics.
• The boundaries of old States were changed in 1947 to create new States.
• New States were created to ensure people spoke the same language in the same State.
• Differences in culture, ethnicity or geography also determined some States, such as Nagaland, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand.
• Some national leaders worried that creating States based on language would lead to disintegration.
• For some time, the Central Government resisted Linguistic States.
• The creation of linguistic States united the country and made administration easier.
• Indian constitution did not give the status of national language to any one language.
• Hindi was identified as the official language, spoken by only 40% of Indians, with safeguards to protect other languages.
• Besides Hindi, there are another 22 other languages recognised by the Constitution.
• Candidates for Central Government positions may opt to take the examination in any languages.
• States also have their own official languages.
• Unlike Sri Lanka, used a cautious attitude in spreading the use of Hindi.
• However, many non-Hindi speaking States wanted to still use English.
• It was agreed to continue using English along with Hindi for official purposes, to which many critics thought favoured the English-speaking elite.
• Restructuring the Centre-State relations has strengthened federalism in practice.
• Constitutional arrangements for sharing power work in reality depends on how the ruling parties and leaders follow these arrangements.
• For a long time, the same party ruled 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.
• The Central Government would often misuse the Constitution to dismiss the State Governments that were controlled by rival parties.
• Since 1990, regional political parties increased and Coalition Governments at the Centre began
• Major national parties had to ally with regional parties to form central governments due to no single party getting a clear majority in the Lok Sabha.
• There was a new culture of power sharing and respect for the autonomy of State Governments.
• This 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.
• Federal power sharing is more effective today than it was in the early years after the Constitution came into force.

Decentralisation in India

• Federal governments have two or more tiers of governments.
• India cannot be run only through two-tiers as States are large and diverse.
• Federal power sharing in India needs another tier of government, below that of the State governments.
• Decentralisation of power is when power is taken away from Central and State governments and given to local government.
• Local issues are settled best at the local level as people have knowledge of local problems.
• Local areas can spend money and manage things more efficiently enabling people to participate in decision making.
• Local government enables democratic participation and is the best way to realise local self-government.
• Panchayats in villages and municipalities in urban areas were set up in all the States.
• These were elections to these local governments were not held regularly and the local governments did not have any powers or resources.
• In 1992, the Constitution was amended to make the third-tier of democracy more powerful and effective.
• Holding regular elections to local government bodies is now mandatory.
• Seats are reserved in the elected bodies and executive heads Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.
• At least one-third are minimum positions reserved for women.
• An independent State Election Commission was created in each State to conduct panchayat and municipal elections.
• The State governments are required to share some powers and revenue with local government bodies and the sharing of power varies from State to State.
• Rural local government is known by the name panchayati raj and each village 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.
• The panchayat makes decisions for the entire village working under the gram sabha supervision and all the voters in the village are its members.
• Approve the annual budget and review the performance twice or thrice annually.
• A few gram panchayats makes up a panchayat samiti, block or mandal with members are by all the panchyat members.
• All the panchayat samitis or mandals in a district together constitute the zilla (district) parishad.
• Most of the zilla parishad members are elected as well as members of the Lok Sabha and MLAs of that district.
• The zilla parishad chairperson is the political head of the zilla parishad.
• Municipalities are set up in towns and big cities are constituted into municipal corporations.
• Both are controlled by elected bodies consisting of people's representatives.
• Municipal chairperson is the municipality political head.

Brazil Experiment

• Utilized local inhabitants to make decisions for their city
• The city is separated into many sectors or wards
• Sectors hold meetings in which anyone living in that area can partipate
• Meetings take place to discuss issues impacting the entire city and meetings are open to all citizens
• The budget is discussed in these meetings
• The proposals are put to the municipality that takes the final decision.
• Each year about 20,000 people participate in the exercise helping to ensure money is spent for the benefit of all areas
• Buses now run to poorer colonies and builders cannot evict slum-dwellers without resettling them
• The new system of local government is the world's largest experiment in democracy with 3.6 million elected country representatives
• Constitutional status for local government deepened the democracy with increased women's representation
• Elections are held regularly and enthusiastically
• Most state governments have not transferred significant powers to the local governments or given adequate resources to realize adequate self-government.