Federalism Within The Union : Distribution Of Responsibilities In The Indian System

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In India, there has been a historical tradition of centralisation of power and authority, and a government is considered efficient and effective if it is able to bring about social transformation. Hence, very consciously the overwhelming share of powers and responsibilities has been kept with the Union. But good governance is no substitute for self-governance. Federal sharing of responsibilities does not mean that Union has what it has and shares in the powers that the State have. It is not correct to just say that there is too much of centralisation because it is not the same level of centralisation or decentralisation in all subjects. Structural changes have been introduced in the system. Yet, some questions remain unanswered: Are the federal units institutions of empowerment or are they institutions of governance? In the absence of fiscal autonomy, how can these units be considered effective means of 'shared governance, institutions of empowerment, or tires of federal democracy? There are federal dimensions to issues that, at first, appear to constitutionally belong to one or the other tier of governance. Another paradigm shift is because of economic opening up and 'liberalisation'. Discourses on our federalism have high lighted union-states conflicts have remained neglected. All the existing formulations need to be reinterpreted in the light of contexual changes and new political-economic realities.

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Akhtar Majeed : Professor of Political Science, Director, Centre for Federal Studies, at the Hamdard university, New Delhi. Ajay Kumar Singh : Senior Lecturer (Political Science) at the Centre for Federal Studies, Hamdard University, New Delhi. Kumar Suresh : Senior Lecture (Sociology) at the Centre for Federal Studies, Hamdard University, New Delhi.