Oxford India Short Introductions. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019. xiv, 152 pp. (Tables.) US$16.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-19-949561-0.
Louise Tillin has done an impressive job on a difficult task: writing a short introduction to a very vast subject. She begins with an Introduction outlining her understanding of “India’s Federal Model” and then develops her argument in four chapters: Constitutional Design; Federalism and Diversity; Governing India: Centre-State Relations, and Federalism and the Economy. The final section of the book contains her conclusion on the future of Indian federalism and a useful list of further readings. I was delighted to read the major thrust of her argument in her review of the literature and trends on Indian federalism, but was also left dissatisfied. My delight stems from her contention (with which I agree) that, from the drafting of the Indian Constitution in the late 1940s up to the unfolding of the political and economic processes under various central governments in post-1947 India, the direction of Indian federalism has been centrally biased and oriented. My dissatisfaction comes from the degree of bias and the driving force behind that bias that she has identified. Her account understates the bias both in quantitative terms (degree of bias) and qualitative terms (driving force behind the bias), although she provides brilliant insights in some places. For example, this is her take on the continued rise in the repressive and authoritarian nature of the Indian state: “The central response to regional demands of these states [Kashmir, Nagaland, Mizoram and Punjab] has also involved coercion and the maintenance of spaces governed by exceptional laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)” (61).
By quantitative bias (or degree of bias), I mean the listing of specific aspects of the Indian Constitution and the institutional functioning of India’s federal political economy that convey a trends towards centralization as well as the limitations to that centralization. If such a listing provides several examples of limitations to centralization, the degree of centralist bias would be relatively low. However, if the listing provides overwhelming examples of trends towards centralization but very few limitations, the degree of centralist bias (quantitative bias) would be relatively higher. The exploration of qualitative bias, in contrast to that of quantitive bias, deals with identifying the logic (or motive force) behind centralization. It is that logic which provides a connecting thread between seemingly disparate examples identified in the quantitative examination.
Quantitatively, the various qualifications Tillin adds to the identification of the centralist bias are meant to demonstrate somewhat positive and accommodative aspects of Indian federalism. Her discussion of the “Concurrent List” of powers between the centre and the states as enshrined in the Indian Constitution could be considered as the chief example of an accommodation. The Concurrent List refers to those spheres where both the centre and the states have the power to legislate, in contrast with the Union List, where only the centre has that legislative power and the State List, where only the states have the legislative power. Tillin characterizes the Concurrent List as representing “interdependence” and “cooperation” (72) and designates this as evidence of the accommodative and flexible nature of the Indian federal structure.
Two aspects of the Concurrent List—structural and actual operation—are worth examining to refute the claim of the interdependence, cooperation, and accommodativeness of Indian federalism. Structurally, the most important aspect is the procedure of resolving a conflict when both the centre and an individual state each pass legislation on an area in the Concurrent List and there is a conflict between the two pieces of legislation. The Indian Constitution clearly provides overriding powers (the residuary powers) to the centre in these conflicts, such that the centre’s decision will prevail. The Concurrent List is, therefore, effectively a centralist list and to claim that it represents a willingness to reach accommodation is to downplay the degree of centralist bias in Indian federalism.
To demonstrate the actual operation of the Concurrent List, we need mention only one area, i.e., education. In 1976, during the period of authoritarian Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, education (which was item number 11 in the State List) was taken out of the State List and included in item 25 of the Concurrent List via an amendment of the Constitution (the Forty-Second Amendment). Since that time, the influence of the centre over education (policies, institutions, curriculum, admission policies, and assessment regimes) has become so pervasive that education has become almost entirely a matter for the centre. The vested interest of the elites that control power at the centre is so embedded that even non-Congress governments that have come to power since 1976 have not even vaguely hinted at undoing this usurpation of power.
Qualitatively, Tillin identifies “the vision of the political elite of newly independent India” (20) as the driving force behind the bias towards centralization in Indian federalism. I like this identification but am dissatisfied that she chooses not to name that vision. My own work on Indian federalism (Federalism, Nationalism and Development: India and the Punjab Economy, Routledge 2008/2019) focuses on the overall architecture of Indian federalism as well as on its actual operation, using the example of the impact of federalism on the structural development of the individual state. In it I argue that the vision of making India a unified nation has been the chief force behind the centralist bias of Indian federalism. One of the glaring weaknesses of studies on Indian federalism has been the refusal to recognize the centrality of “the idea of India” as one nation to the development of Indian federalism. This idea of India negates the multiple nations and nationalities that constitute the territory referred to as India. The majoritarian Hindu bias of the Indian Constitution that imparts a strong centralist bias to Indian federalism (see my article “Hindu bias in India’s ‘secular’ constitution: probing flaws in the instruments of governance,” Third World Quarterly 26, no. 6 [2005]: 909–926) can only be understood if it is recognized that there is an umbilical cord between Hindu nationalism and so-called secular nationalism, as well as between the post-1991 neo-liberal regime and the pre-1991 state capitalist regime.
The repressive nature of the Indian state that has been a continuously growing feature from the Nehru to Modi era of central rule—which Tillin admirably identifies—can only be understood properly as a structural feature of Indian governance if we place conflicts between nationalisms at the centre of Indian federal studies. Merely recognizing multiple linguistic identities in Indian federal governance as a sign of its willingness to be accommodating is both an act of evasion as well as an inadequate theoretical route to take to capture the central driving force behind the centralization bias implicit in Indian federalism.
Tillin’s superbly written and accessible work must be viewed in all its dimensions as a part of her continuously developing scholarly enterprise on Indian federalism. Situating federalism in the larger framework of global and Indian capitalism would be one theoretically fruitful way of going forward. In the concluding lines of this book, her introduction of the subject of global climate change, which is bound to increase the importance of localizing economic governance—working against current centralizing tendencies—provides a clue to a promising, scholarly, and challenging engagement with the subject.
Pritam Singh
Oxford Brookes University, Oxford