why has the Indian Federation given a special status to a few regions of the country in Short
Answers
Answer:
The Government of India Act 1935 aimed to establish India as a Federation of States. It emphasized division of powers, independent and apolitical Governors and Governors-General and introduced provincial autonomy for the first time in India. On 26 January 1950, India adopted a new constitution.
Legislative powers
Executive powers
Financial powers
Disputes
Territories
Jammu and Kashmir
Issues
Unitary bias
Article 1 (1) of the constitution says India shall be a union of states and its citizens shall have at least two tiered governance. The people of a Union Territory have every right to opt for statehood. Federalism being part of basic structure of the Indian constitution, denying federalism to the people of Union Territories is unconstitutional. However, the amended (in 1956) Article 3, allows the union government power with prior consent of the President (common head of states and union governments) to (a) form a new state/UT by separating a territory of any state, or by uniting two or more states/UTs or parts of states/UTs, or by uniting any territory to a part of any state/UT; (b) the power to establish new states/UT (which were not previously under India's territory) which were not in existence before.
Appointment and role of governors
Governor appointments are the responsibility of the President, on the advice of the Union Government. Governors are generally not residents of the state.
Should the constitutional machinery in a state break down, Article 356 allows a state of emergency that dissolves the state government and establishes Presidential rule. No emergency at the centre can dissolve the Union government. Misuse of Article 356 was rampant in the decades following its adoption, during the Indira Gandhi era.[12][13][14][15] In 1991 the Supreme court passed a landmark judgement acknowledging misuse of the article and establishing principles for the Union government to follow before a state emergency can be invoked.
The Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories of India are designed as administrators and are appointed by the President on the advice of the Union government. Lieutenant Governors can override local government policies only after taking parliament consent.[16]
Economic federalism
States are at liberty to manage their finances as long as that does not lead to financial emergency as per Article 360. The Government of India is trying to impose uniform taxation throughout India and to take over states' tax collection mechanisms without regard to the impacts on individual states.[17][18] Recently the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional right of states to impose an Entry Tax which is against the principle of a general sales tax (GST).[19]
Control of industries, which was a subject in the concurrent list in the 1935 act, was transferred to the Union List. The Union government in 1952 introduced the freight equalisation policy that damaged many Indian states, including West Bengal, Bihar (including present-day Jharkhand), Madhya Pradesh (including present-day Chhattisgarh) and Orissa. These states lost their competitive advantage of holding mineral resources, as factories could now operate anywhere in India. This was not the case in the pre-independence era when business houses such as the Tatas and the Dalmias set up industries in these states, and most of the engineering industry was located in West Bengal. Following the end of the policy in the early 1990s, these states did not catch up with more industrialised states. In 1996, the Commerce & Industry Minister of West Bengal complained that "the removal of the freight equalisation and licensing policies cannot compensate for the ill that has already been done"
National laws permit a private/public limited company to raise loans internally and externally to its capacity. The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 limits state borrowing even when they have not defaulted/faced a financial emergency. The employees' salary and pension expenditure of many state governments exceed their total revenue, without the President declaring a financial emergency. Article 47 of Directive Principles of the state policy prohibits intoxicating drinks that are injurious to health but is not enforced. Instead many states promote and tax liquor sales.[citation needed]
Political economy
The government is devolving central funds to the states under specific schemes (NREGA, etc.) whose implementation by the states is controversially subject to government approval, which violates Article 282.[6] The controversy arises from the fact that the grants for centrally sponsored schemes and central plan schemes are under the ruling party's control and discretion. In 2017, the ruling party was accused of ignoring states in need or where poor people are concentrated, in order to pursue partisan goals. This was described as pork-barrel politics.The party's nomenclature is designed to convey that the central government is the source of these policies.