A diverse group may come together or federate on points of common interest if unity is mutually beneficial. A federal government is one that oversees a diverse group of governments who have come together in pursuance of some common interests. The federating units retain autonomy in some aspects of their existence and cede it in other aspects. The latter is based on the premises that the federal government, to which the autonomy has been ceded, will work for the benefit of all units.
The federal structure is part of the basic structure of the Constitution of India. This structure, which includes the doctrine of secularism, cannot be undone even by parliamentary legislation. It comprises qualities that are so fundamental to the formation of the Indian Union that no degree of majoritarianism can override it.
More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives under some form of federal or semi-federal administrations.
Federalism is an ideology that proposes an agreement between friends — big or small, rich or poor, fat or thin, they all come together on the principle of friendship alone. And all true friendships are based on equality and dignity. There can be no element of force in friendship. Let us extend this understanding of federalism to governments. If the federal government abuses powers ceded to it by federating units the union no longer qualifies as a federation but becomes an instance of crude majoritarianism. An example of this will be a situation where the federal government takes away from a rich, less populous constituent unit to give to a poor, more populous one without an explicit consent of the latter. This scenario will be an instance of tyranny. In the so-called federal system of the Indian Union, the Finance Commission unleashes exactly this sort of tyranny on rich, progressive constituent units to subsidise the more populous basket cases of the so-called Hindi belt.
The separation of powers in the Indian Union’s federal system is a hotly debated topic. Much of the debate about it had actually taken place before the partition of India in 1947. Those debates had gone in favour of province with non-Congress majorities and the agreement reached as a result of those debates formed the basis of the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946. Defence, External Affairs, Currency and Communications were only legislative subjects set aside for the Union or the federal government in that plan. All other legislative subjects were to be in the domain of states/provinces.
The latter also got residuary powers over legislative subjects not specifically mentioned. The list of residuary powers has increased since then. Alongside, there has been a centralisation of powers, vested in the federal government, dictated by a massive Congressite majority led by upper and middle Gangetic plain politicians. States have been reduced to the status of mere vassals, with very limited elastic revenue sources of their own. This chipping away of powers from states to the Centre has been a constant in the story of Indian federalism since the adoption of the Constitution in 1950.
The behaviour of the Congress and the BJP governments has been similar on this count, apart from the latter’s pursuance of this agenda in the garb of PR gimmicks like “co-operative federalism” and with an eye towards promoting a toxic majoritarianism characterised by the phrase: Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan.
Thus, the resources of states away from this region are routinely extracted to service the material economic interests of the group of ideal citizens. Dissent from this scheme is branded as anti-national.
New Delhi routinely interferes, coerces and blackmails states, thus, hollowing out the executive authority vested in state governments. Subject after subject has been transferred from the state list to the concurrent list, where Centre’s wishes prevail. Federalism in the Indian Union has, thus, reached a serious crisis point.
A comparison with other federal systems (like the USA, Pakistan, Canada, Australia or the UK) reveals the falsity of Indian federalism.
Pakistan seems to have learned its lessons from the Bangladesh episode. It has abolished concurrent list and transferred subjects on the list to provinces. Residuary powers also lie with provinces.
In USA, the powers enjoyed by states have so far prevented the effect of President Donald Trump’s tyrannical policies from being felt at the state level.
In Canada and UK, constituent parts have been allowed referendums on independence and have near sovereign provincial parliaments with massive revenue powers. All states of the USA, all provinces of Canada and all nations within the UK have their separate flags — something unthinkable in the Indian Union. This just goes off to show our deep anxiety about the fragile nature of unity underlying our paeans of Unity in Diversity.
A federal system is like entering a marital contract. Unless each partner to the contract has autonomous rights, including the right of separation, their coming together can’t be seen as a marital union but as a forced cohabitation. And in such a system, domestic partner abuse is will be the norm. Indeed, it will be the only guarantor of stability in such a coming together. The characteristics of federalism practised in the Indian Union are not much different.
The writer is a brain scientist and commentator based in Bengal