Indian Federalism and Democracy: The Growing Salience of Diversity-claims Over Equality-claims in Comparative and Indian Perspective

Abstract

This article introduces a conceptual distinction between diversity-claims and equality-claims in order to reflect critically on the relation between federalism and democracy in India, which is not adequately problematized and somewhat neglected. Federalism and democracy suggest two different problematics, but in India democracy has often played second fiddle to the claims of diversity. As a result, India's success as a federation has not been paralleled by its record as a democracy in terms of its equality functions. Since the article engages with the issue of accommodation of diversity in the wake of federation-building, and the relation between federalism and democracy, critical references are made to the relevant theoretical literature in order to point out federalism's new problematic and its pitfalls. With the Indian case as a major illustration, it is shown here that the institutional arrangements and governing practices have overwhelmingly been given priority to meet the claims of diversity to the relative neglect of equality-claims.

Key Words:

• Indian federalism
• Indian democracy
• diversity-claims
• equality-claims
• reforms
• regionalism
• localism

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to record his gratitude to the three learned anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestion. He also records his sincere thanks to Jan Erk for having read the draft twice and offering very useful suggestions. Willfried Swenden's editorial interventions with comments and suggestions moved the draft further in the right direction, for which thanks are also due. My son Sahon performed the last rites in matters of technicalities and deserves some thanks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This inequality has been increasing after 1982 including in Poland after the end of communist rule when there was an egalitarian redistribution of income. (Przeworski, 2010: 87).

2 Alexis de Tocqueville (1968) had, however, noted the inconsistency between federalism and popular sovereignty in the case of US federalism. Intrigued by what he called ‘the rules of logic’ being ‘bent’. Tocqueville wrote:

3 “The lawgivers adopted a middle path which forcibly reconciled two theoretically irreconcilable systems … ..The principle of state independence prevailed in the shaping of the Senate, the dogma of national sovereignty in the composition of the House of Representatives” (Tocqueville, 1968: 140).

4 One of the basic purposes of the Swiss federation as per the Constitution of 1874 was to uphold “unity, strength and honour of the Swiss nation” (quoted in Bhattacharyya, 2001: 356).

5 The Preamble to the new Swiss Constitution (2000) mentions that “We, the Swiss People and Cantons … .” and under Article 4 declares all four languages of the federation—German, French, Italian and Romansh—as national languages.

6 The detailed empirical based studies have shown how existing caste, party and class domination have acted as deterrents to popular participation in the functioning of democratic bodies within the States (Baviskar and Mathew, 2009). The Gujarat pogroms (mass killing of the Muslims in Godhra and Post-Godhra in the 1990s) could also be cited as glaring example. West Bengal since 2011 is another story of a heavily politicized administration that has created a near anarchy and rendered the State to the control of the thugs and anti-socials.

7 Bhattacharyya (2010), chapter 5 ‘Federalism and Democracy in Asian federations’, (pp. 97–112).

8 The reason for him and Wallenstein (1988) is the “structural dependence of the state on capital” (quoted in Przeworski, 1999: 41).

9 Sen argues that the European Enlightenment thinkers emphasized the need for establishing “just institutional arrangements for a society” for resolving the problem of social justice and equality. This approach is called “transcendental institutionalism” by Sen (2009: 5).

10 Massive and growing inequalities the world over have remained a central concern in the writings of Sen (Sen 1992; 2005; 2006; 2009).

11 The pre-independence developments and half-hearted and unsuccessful experiments with federalism in British India have been adequately explored and examined. See, for example, Bhattacharyya (2010) chapter 2, pp.20–45.

12 These fundamental rights to religion entail the right to profess, practise and propagate one's religion, and even maintain minority (including religious) educational institutions with state financial support. However, a territory demand (in favour of a state or sub-state, is ruled as going against the spirit of India's secular state. Article 25 2 (a) of the Indian Constitution forbids the conduct of any secular activities “associated with religious practice” (Baxi, 2012: 75).

13 That is, they are called not ‘state-free spaces’ (see, Baxi in Mohanty et al eds. 1998: 335–352).

14 As Robert King (1997) pointed out, Nehru's cynicism about the linguistic provinces was therefore not very surprising.

15 No wonder he has a made a distinction between what he calls ‘citizens’ and ‘denizens’ in respect of the North-East. The proliferation of ethnic homeland demands in the region has also been quite logical.

16 During the same period, the all-India performance was better: 38% in 29% (Sachar Committee 2006: 367).

17 The UNDP Report (2011) states that the loss of value in HDI due to inequality in education is more than the national average (43%) in such States as Karnataka, Haryana, Chhatishgarh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh—the states that came out as a result of the fulfilment of diversity-claims since 1953 (UNDP Report 2011: 10).

18 The other studies on the subject focusing on the period since the early 1990s (when India embraced the Reform process) strongly suggest that inequalities of varied sorts have since increased. (See Pal and Ghosh, 2007; Frankel, 2005; Nayar, 2007; Tendulkar and Bhawai 2007).

19 For a recent examination of federalism and procedural democracy, see Burgess and Gagnon(2010)

20 However, even in the West especially since the 1970s, diversity-claims have found their way into the political system and have been met with significant successes in autonomy and devolution in Italy, Canada, Spain, Belgium and the UK. See, for example, Gagnon and Tully (2001), for some detailed case studies in the Western democracies.

21 However, Guha's subject, though quite interesting, dealt with only episodic violence rather than the daily one, which would have made more theoretical sense. In his episodic sense, the violence in Northern Ireland and those in Kashmir and Sri Lanka (on the Tamils) India would safely claim a comparative position with United Kingdom.