Question

notes of the chapter federalism in india
please help​

Answer 1

Art. I of the Indian constitution calls “India that is Bharat” “a union of states.” The term federation is absent in this description. Yet experts agree that Indian constitution is a federal constitution, though as a federation India is different from either the U. S. or the Canadian federation.

A federation is a political contrivance to reconcile national unity with state rights. A federation is essentially a composite polity consisting of a national or central government administering subjects of national interest and a number of governments of the component units of federation called the state or provincial governments. Such governments administer subjects of essentially local interest. There may be same subjects concurrently administered both sets of governments.

A written and usually rigid constitution embodies the distribution of subjects between the two sets of authorities. The constitution is made rigid in order that neither the central nor the state governments may alter the constitutionally ordained distribution of powers acting alone.

A federation also has a supreme judiciary to act as guardian of the constitution. This is necessary to make the national and state governments operate within their constitutionally allotted sphere and prevent either from overstepping its bounds.

Finally, a federal constitution is appropriate only in a federal society. A government cannot be federal unless the society is federal. India, a mosaic of sub-culture groups like the Bengalees or Biharis is undoubtedly a federal society. Hence our constitutional system is logically federal.