Cooperative federalism is when the Union government wants the states to cooperate with it. Coercive federalism is when the Union government denies benefits or allocation by linking them to conditions imposed by it.
Published Mar 10, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Mar 10, 2025 | 9:00 AM
Federalism in India.
Synopsis: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin is upset over the “weaponisation” of delimitation, saying states that efficiently controlled their populations would potentially be punished for what they achieved. India’s political system is described as “federal with a unitary bias” to suggest that the Union government often wields powers disproportionate to the states. There is a need to shift the political centre of gravity away from the Union government so that federalism shifts from the coercive to the collaborative or at least, the conciliatory variety.
Much has happened over the past month in India to suggest that we need to rethink and restructure federalism and what it means for the country. Understandably, the Southern states, especially Tamil Nadu, are provoking new thoughts on the issue of what federalism is — or ought to be.
First up, we have had the eruption of a new wave of protests against what Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK and its supporters call Hindi imposition through a three-language policy that in turn, is linked to the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
However, we have only just begun scratching the surface regarding discussions on the delimitation of seats in the lower house of the Parliament, the Lok Sabha.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin is upset over the “weaponisation” of delimitation, that is yet to take off, because states that efficiently controlled their populations would potentially be punished for what they achieved — by curbing their influence in Parliament — if the constituencies are redrawn based on the current population statistics.
Smaller incidents offer more clues on how regionalism and federalism are joined at the hip. In Karnataka’s Belgavi, where there is a significant Marathi-speaking population, a bus conductor was slapped by a passenger because he could not speak Marathi!
Then we hear of how senior RSS leader Bhaiyyaji Joshi is in trouble in Mumbai after he said that knowing Marathi is not necessary to live in Mumbai.
He said this at an event held in the Gujarati-dominated Ghatkopar area. Maharashtra Chief Minister Dev Fadnavis responded by saying that anyone living in Maharashtra should learn and speak Marathi.
If his rules are to be applied, then Marathi speakers in Belgavi, which has even had a minor political party wanting the town to be part of Maharashtra, should certainly learn Kannada – but Fadnavis has not said anything on those lines, has he?
That is why we need to revisit federalism and regionalism to have a sense of fair play. Incidents in the past month show that linguistic identity and regional aspirations are key to the idea of federalism.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP denies undermining regional or linguistic identities, its words smack of sophistry, which the dictionary defines as “the use of clever but false arguments, especially to deceive”.
Arguments are flying to and fro against the BJP’s efforts to link the disbursement of funds under its new education policy in a manner that may undermine regional autonomy and/or linguistic aspirations. But that is only a part of a larger debate on federalism.
Speaking in a recent television debate, I said “delimitation has limitations” and also countered an argument for “cooperative federalism” by saying that if there is an implied threat in the Union government’s methods, it would amount to “coercive federalism.”
I decided to classify federalism in its various forms and label them so that we learn how to assess or judge arguments — whether they are on delimitation, education/language policy or sharing of tax collections between the Union government and the states.
In general, India’s political system is described as “federal with a unitary bias” to suggest that the Union government often wields powers disproportionate to the states.
The DMK points out that the powers-that-be in New Delhi form the “Union” government and not the “Central” government to emphasise the federal character of the Constitution.
However, in finances, education, and tax collections, there seems to be a clear unitary bias — something in which unity seems more important than fair play or justice.
My definitions of various kinds of federalism may help us weigh arguments on the issue.
Cooperative federalism is when the Union government wants the states to cooperate with it — instead of the other way around. Collaborative federalism is when the Union government and states both discuss and arrive at a consensus on how things should work — which means no proposal would be unilateral.
Coercive federalism is when the Union government denies benefits or allocation by linking them to conditions imposed by it. Conciliatory federalism is when the Union government listens to protests or petitions from states and modifies its proposals or ideas.
In a “south first” approach to federalism, the states must be heard and persuaded, not by words but by deeds, with more autonomy than less. That is not happening in the case of the three-language policy or other spheres of education, which was shifted from the State List to the Concurrent List of the Constitution in 1976 during the Emergency through what now seems like a controversial amendment.
We saw an instance of conciliatory federalism in 1959 when the then-prime minister Jawarharlal assured the Parliament that non-Hindi states could decide for themselves on how long English would be the official language of India and that both Hindi and English would continue to be administrative languages.
In hindsight, both the assurance and, indeed, the Constitution did not go far enough in addressing linguistic and regional aspirations. The Constitution still names Hindi as the country’s official language.
Article 343 says the official language of the “Union” is Hindi in the Devanagari script and Article 351 adds that “it is the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language.”
Excuse me! Article 351 clearly argues in favour of Hindi imposition! But the same article also talks of Hindi “not interfering” with other languages.
When we add that to controversies over other languages, sharing of GST revenues, delimitation of Lok Sabha seats, and tax sharing issues related to the finance commission, it is time to realise that federalism needs a full-fledged debate.
But more than debate, it needs action. In the end, politics is about who wields power and who accumulates enough of it to set terms to others.
We need to shift the political centre of gravity away from the Union government, aka, “the Centre” so that federalism shifts from the coercive to the collaborative or at least, the conciliatory variety.
For this, states need to talk to each other and not to the Union government or its main ruling party. Stalin’s letter to a clutch of non-BJP chief ministers on the delimitation of constituencies is getting us started. But he is up against odds, because India is going through a delicate power balance in which it seems to be “every state for itself” like every man for himself.
The blundering, bumbling approach displayed by the Congress-led INDIA bloc in the last parliamentary elections shows us how things should not be, if federalism is meant to be collaborative rather than coercive.
However, it must be remembered that it was the current Opposition leader Congress that practised coercive federalism from the 1950s for four decades. I would even call it combative federalism.
The BJP is now enjoying itself in a house that Congress built, in more ways than one. India’s regional parties now need to rethink and rewrite the rules of federalism, for which they need to regroup.
If you read the Constitution carefully enough, some things are shrewdly worded so as to be discussed in the Supreme Court, but in the end, they have to be smartly settled in the court of the people!
(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator who has worked for Reuters, The Economic Times, Business Standard, and Hindustan Times. He posts on X as @madversity. Views are personal. Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
