Federalism - Class 10 Political Science - Extra Questions

After 1990, India saw the rise of regional political parties in many States of the country. This was also the beginning of the era of COALITION GOVERNMENTS at the Centre. Since no single party got a clear majority in the Lok Sabha, the major national parties had to enter into an alliance with many parties including several regional parties to form a government at the Centre. This led to a new culture of power sharing and respect for the autonomy of State Governments. This trend was supported by a major judgement of the Supreme Court that made it difficult for the Central Government to dismiss state governments in an arbitrary manner. Thus, federal power sharing is more effective today than it was in the early years after the Constitution came into force.

When power is taken away from Central and State governments and given to local government, it is called decentralisation. The basic idea behind decentralisation is that there are a large number of problems and issues which are best settled at the local level. People have better knowledge of problems in their localities. They also have better ideas on where to spend money and how to manage things more efficiently. Besides, at the local level it is possible for the people to directly participate in decision making. This helps to inculcate a habit of democratic participation. Local government is the best way to realise one important principle of democracy, namely local self-government. 
The need for decentralisation was recognised in our Constitution. Since then, there have been several attempts to decentralise power to the level of villages and towns.

The central government has the power to frame laws on important functions like defense, finance, external affairs, etc; Centre has overriding authority over the concurrent list and it also has the residuary powers; it has unilateral power to change the area, boundaries of states; Power to amend Constitution under provisions of article 368. Powers states don't have: When emergency provisions are imposed, central government becomes all-powerful and can override the authority of the states; Centre has the power to appoint Governors to states.

Vajpayees chair is made up of bombs in the form of faces and party symbols of his various coalition partners. The main issue with a coalition government is that it is very volatile and can break at any point in time due to conflicts and differences between the coalition partners. There is always a fear that the smaller parties will withdraw support from the government.

Our Constitution did not give the status of national language to any one language. Hindi was identified as the official language. But Hindi is the mother tongue of only about 40 per cent of Indians. Therefore, there were many safeguards to protect other languages.
Unlike Sri Lanka, the leaders of our country adopted a very cautious attitude in spreading the use of Hindi. According to the Constitution, the use of English for official purposes was to stop in 1965. However, many non-Hindi speaking States demanded that the use of English continue. The Central Government responded by agreeing to continue the use of English along with Hindi for official purposes. Many critics think that this solution favoured the English speaking elite. Promotion of Hindi continues to be the official policy of the Government of India. Promotion does not mean that the Central Government can impose Hindi on States where people speak a different language. The flexibility shown by Indian political leaders helped our country avoid the kind of situation that Sri Lanka finds itself in.

Courts have the power to interpret the constitution and the powers of different levels of government. The highest court acts as an umpire if disputes arise between different levels of government in the exercise of their respective powers. 
The judiciary plays an important role in overseeing the implementation of constitutional provisions and procedures. In case of any dispute about the division of powers, the High Courts and the Supreme Court make a decision. 

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prime Minister of India from 1998 to 2004.

Power to run their governments independently without control or interference from the Central government, to get more resources for their states etc.

In a federal form of government, the central government shares its powers with the various constituent units of the country. For example, in India, power is divided between the government at the Centre and the various State governments.
In a unitary form of government, all the power is exercised by only one government. For example, in Sri Lanka, the national government has all the powers.

The federal system has dual objectives: to safeguard and promote unity of the country, while at the same time accommodate regional diversity.

Since the United States is a coming together type of federation, all the constituent States have equal powers and States are strong vis-à-vis the federal government. But India is a holding together type of federation and some States have more power than others. In India, the Central government has more powers.

I agree with Sangeeta's reaction. If the policy of accommodation was not followed, and states were not created on linguistic basis, there would have been further partition of India. For example, imposition of Hindi as the national language would have led the South to break away from the North and Tamil Nadu would have become an independent nation.

Local governments Before 1992	Local governments After 1992
Elections were controlled by the state and not held regularly.	An independent State Election Commission is responsible to conduct elections regularly.
Local governments did not have any powers or resources of their own.	The State governments are required to share some powers and revenue with local government bodies.

Federalism is a system of government in which the power is divided between a central authority and various constituent units of the country.

The 2 features that shows a unitary features are-

Horizontal Power sharing Model have following features :-
A) horizontal distribution of power allows different organs of government placed at the same level to exercise different powers.
B) Power is shared among different organs of government, such as the legislature, executive and judiciary. 
C) Such a separation ensures that none of the organs can exercise unlimited power. Each organ checks the others. This results in a balance of power among various institutions.

key features of Federalism in India:- 

1. The Constitution clearly provided a threefold distribution of legislative powers between the Union Government and the State Governments into 3 lists namely Union, State, and concurrent list.

2. The fundamental provisions of the constitution cannot be unilaterally changed by one level of government. Such changes require the consent of both the levels of government. 

3. The Constitution establishes an independent judiciary headed by the Supreme Court for two purposes: one, to protect the supremacy of the Constitution by exercising the power of judicial review; and two, to settle the disputes between the Centre and the states or between the states. 

The central government was made stronger by the constitution-makers as it was very clear that states cannot be given equal powers as it may lead to conflicts and at the end disintegration of the country. Sometimes central governments have misused this power by using Article 356 of the Indian Constitution by imposing Presidents Rule in some states where the ruling party was different from the one at the center. For e.g.: In 1957, the CPI government in Kerala was dismissed by Congress by using this Article.

This cartoon shows the relations between the center and states when it comes to the division of powers. The central government has a say in the allocation of funds, resources, and powers to the states in India. States feel that this has made the central government more dominant. The center is seen here as very selective in distributing powers to the states.

The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act was passed by the Parliament in April 1993. The Amendment provided a Constitutional status to the PanchayatiRaj Institutions in India through insertion of Article 243 to Part IX of Indian Constitution. The Act was enforced upon all the state governments through Constitutional Amendment in Article 243 M that all states should amend thee Panchayat Acts In conformity with the Constitutional provisions.

Dining the Proclamation of Emergency.

The concept of the coalition government has been shown here in the cartoon. Vajpayees government could not garner enough support after the 1996 elections and his government fell in just 13 days. So to overcome this, after the 1998 elections, BJP formed an electoral alliance before the elections known as NDA: National Democratic Alliance.

A.Union List A-4.Defence
B.State List B- 3.Police 
C.Concurrent List -2.Forest 
D.Subsidiary Matters-1.Computer-related matter 

(a) When there is linguistic and regional diversity, the method of distributing power among the central and the regional government is often adopted. This is known as the Federal System of Government.
(b) Under this method, the Constitution itself creates governments at the regional level and decides the powers of the regional level governments. This makes it possible for people from each region to take decisions as per their needs.
(c) Decisions regarding the region's language, culture or local practices are not imposed on any region.
(d) The decision about the extent of the powers of the regional governments is made by the Constitution of the concerned country. Such distribution of power is an important way of maintaining democracy and diversity simultaneously. India has adopted such Federal System.

One similar feature of federalism between India and Belgium is that both are holding together federations, where the Central Government tends to be more powerful vis-a-vis the states or regions. One different feature of federalism between India and Belgium is that in Belgium, there are three kinds of government. These are
(i) Government at the centre
(ii) Government at the state level
(iii) The community government

  The basic idea behind decentralisation is that there are a large number of problems and issues which are best settled at the local level.