How has center state relations evolved in India after independence?
Answers
Concept of Indian Federation and Centre-State Relations
The Indian Constitution provides for a federal system of government but the term ‘federation’ has nowhere been used in the Constitution. On the other hand, Article 1 of the Indian Constitution describes ‘India, that is Bharat’ as a ‘Union of States’, an expression which implies two things. Firstly, unlike the USA the Indian federation is not the result of an agreement between the units. Secondly, the units have no right to secede from the federation. In fact the States of the Indian federation have no independent existence of their own. Parliament can alter their names and territories without their consent.
The Constituent Assembly members were convinced that a vast country like India could not be efficiently governed from a single Centre and thought it desirable to adopt a federal system of government. The diversity of race, religion, and language also impelled them to go for a federal policy, because it could ensure unity of the country while assuring autonomy in matters of local importance. It may be observed that the Indian Constitution does not possess all the features of a typical federation and makes many deviations. In view of these deviations the critics have challenged the federal character of the Constitution, and described it as ‘quasi-federal’. For example, K.C. Wheare says: “The Indian Union is a unitary State with subsidiary federal features rather than a federal State with subsidiary unitary features.”5 Granville Austin agrees with this view when he describes the Indian federation as a new kind of federalism to meet Indian’s peculiar needs.6
This federal character was given by the framers of the Constitution primarily for two reasons:
(a) a federal state is more effective than a unitary one when the size of its territory is as large as India.
(b) A federal state is more effective than a unitary one when diverse groups of its popu-lation live in a discrete territorial concentration as in India.
For resolving the controversy regarding the true nature of the Indian federal system, it is desirable to understand as to what is implied by a federal system and what are its special features. State governments are not agents of the Central Government nor do they draw their authority from them. On the other hand both the Central and State governments draw their authority from the Constitution.
Answer:
1) for a long time, same party used to rule both the state and center.so the states did not practice any autonomous powers.
(2) as when the ruling party at the state and center was different, the center tried to undermined the power of states. the center misused the the constitution to dismiss the rival state parties.
(3) so the spirit of federalism was undermined.
(4) this phase changed from 1990. this period saw the rise of several regional parties in many states of India.
(5) this was the beginning of era of coalition governments at the center.
(6) therefore no single party received a single majority in the lok sabha elections.
(7) thus the major national parties had to enter into an alliance with many other parties including several regional parties.
(8) this led to a new culture of power sharing and respect for the autonomy of state governments.
(9) this trend was supported by the supreme court