There are potential minor and major storms brewing around federalism in India. The question of delimitation and the balance of representation between the states of North and South India requires political finesse. Kashmir still awaits the restoration of full statehood. Tamil Nadu and the Centre are again sparring on the politics of language and education. Tamil Nadu is accusing the Centre of withholding Samagra Shiksha funds and covertly strategising to impose Hindi. The Centre, in turn, is accusing Tamil Nadu of playing politics with the National Education Policy and falsely raising the bogey of Hindi imposition.
The horizontal imbalance between states in terms of development continues to remain a challenge. The functional division of powers between the State, Central and Concurrent lists needs to be renegotiated in light of current development predicaments. A general tendency towards growing authoritarianism will also, in its broad contours, undermine federalism. And occasionally, the politics of cultural representation — appalling stereotypes of states — also rears its head. In historical perspective, the challenges of contemporary federalism are not of the scale that federalism has faced in the past. But as in the past, the question of the dominance of parties threatens to obscure issues of federalism.
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The practice of federalism is, in effect, always a messy affair. There are many different angles from which the problem can be addressed. There is a vast literature on what might be called the “first principles” administrative approach to federalism. On this approach, it makes sense to ask the question: What is the rationale for allocating particular sets of powers at different levels of government? For what kinds of functions is the scale achieved by the central government more important than the autonomy granted to states? While this important question serves as a good starting point for thinking about the allocation of administrative power across different tiers of government, we know from the history of federalism that this pure design rationale has proved inadequate. Often, the federal compact has evolved precisely because many of the principles tried out did not work.
It has to be said that in the history of Indian federalism, the centralisation that we see was increasingly co-produced by the Centre and states. The ascendancy of centrally sponsored schemes, the new bone of contention between the Centre and the states, was largely a function of the fact that health and education, the two items that used to be on the State List, were for decades amongst the most significant failures of states. The pressure of centrally sponsored schemes was necessary to give these areas some boost. It could be, if recent evidence is any guide, that there has now been enough social evolution, capacity building and learning for more autonomy to be given to the states in these domains. The political economy of health and education has changed enough that states can now be trusted more in these domains.
But other domains are trickier. For a long time, it was a bit of a mystery why so many states did not even exercise the revenue-generating powers that they in fact had; and one thing common to most, though not all, states was a reluctance to decentralise power to urban local bodies and panchayats within. In federalism, design has hugely under-determined outcomes.
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The politics of federalism is also complicated by the fact that political, cultural, administrative and economic federalism are not governed by a single logic. We do not pay enough attention to the fact that the formal checks and balances of any constitutional scheme are actually at cross-purposes with another institution of democracy that is not a constitutional institution, but now constitutes its essence, namely political parties. The legislature’s functioning has been more or less superseded by the political party, especially after the introduction of the anti-defection law. Parliament cannot effectively exercise oversight over the executive because party government and partisanship supersede all other formal allocation of powers. This is also a big challenge for federalism.
National parties are important since they knit different regions together. But the national parties can also supersede the demands of federalism. A chief minister is not just a constitutional functionary, the head of government of a state. A chief minister is also part of a party hierarchy that may supersede their function as chief minister. This is even more true in a system where party structures are more centralised. The states are already inserted into the political logic of the party; the chief minister is answerable to the party hierarchy as much as to the state.
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This feature explains two odd features of Indian federalism. When we think of federalism, we often think of the relationship between the Centre and individual states. But in a way, there are three actors here (ignoring local government, for a moment). There is the Centre, individual states, and the states taken together. In a way, the GST is a perfect example, where states together take collective decisions that are binding on all states: Technically, the determination of GST rates is not a Centre versus state issue. The interesting question is: Could this model of a collection of states taking decisions that extend to all states be used elsewhere as well? For instance, in principle, there is no reason that a collection of all states, not the Centre, determines whether a particular set of conditionalities have been fairly applied. It would be in the interest of all states to come up with rules that are fair across all states, since they would be binding across all states. And all states, not just the Centre, would pay the price for any exceptions granted. This is not a panacea. But it is an underused mechanism.
But one way of thinking about this is that when we speak of that unmeaning slogan, cooperative federalism, we think of the states and the Centre cooperating, not states cooperating with each other. Think of a range of issues, airshed management for example or water, where states need to get into the habit of cooperating rather than the conversation being mediated by the Centre, or sometimes even the judiciary. One reason collectivities of states have been a weak mechanism is because states cannot act politically independent of the party.
So, the question is: Is the latest spat over Tamil Nadu about DMK versus BJP, or is it a federalism issue? That it is sometimes hard to tell is a sign that the wires of party structures and federalism are always crossing each other.
The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express
