{"id":30194,"date":"2018-10-26T14:36:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T09:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=30194"},"modified":"2018-10-26T14:36:25","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T09:06:25","slug":"federalism-and-fairness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/federalism-and-fairness\/","title":{"rendered":"Federalism and fairness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/federalism-and-fairness\/article23419649.ece\">Federalism and fairness<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>What has happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Federalism is once again the focus of political discourse in India. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah set the cat among the pigeons when he highlighted Kannada pride by unveiling an official state flag last month. Then in a Facebook post on \u201cRegional Identity &amp; Federalism\u201d, he advocated the need for States to have both financial and cultural autonomy<\/p>\n<p><strong>Concerns of the South<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dependant Northern states:<\/strong> Taxing the southern States to spend on the northern States<\/p>\n<p><strong>Terms of reference for the 15th Finance Commission: <\/strong>The Centre\u2019s direction to use the 2011 Census instead of the 1971 Census for population data has riled the south. As the population in these States has stabilised, the concern is that their share of tax allocation would reduce<\/p>\n<p><strong>Constitutional context: An indestructible union of destructible States<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Federation is a Union because it is indestructible<\/li>\n<li>Political scientist Alfred Stepan classified India as a \u201cholding together\u201d as opposed to a \u201ccoming together\u201d federation<\/li>\n<li>The units of Indian federation have undergone multiple transformations since 1947. This is because Article 3 of the Constitution empowers Parliament to create new States<\/li>\n<li>While such a provision can be seen as giving the Union too much power, it has arguably been central to holding India together since it allows the federation to evolve and respond to sub-national aspirations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hence, from a constitutional perspective, it would not be accurate to say that India is moving from a union to a federation of States<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Larger question<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whether there is a need to reconsider the distribution of powers between the Union and the States?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Removing Article 356: \u00a0The President\u2019s Rule<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>While the flexible nature of federalism under the Constitution has served India well, the continued existence of provisions such as Article 356 (President\u2019s rule) goes against the grain of federalism<\/li>\n<li>Any serious political movement around federalism should question the necessity of retaining such constitutional provisions which are vestiges of colonial rule.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Shift in political and economic power to States<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>While some have felt that this trend would reverse after the formation of a Central government with a simple majority for the first time in 25 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to assuage such concerns by invoking the idea of \u201ccooperative federalism\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The 14th Finance Commission, in 2015, recommended raising the share of States in the divisible pool of Central taxes from 32% to 42%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, beyond this measure, the Centre has not inspired much confidence regarding its commitment to federalism<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recent Issue with Finance commission<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>States such as Karnataka have asserted their linguistic and cultural rights in the wake of the Centre\u2019s interventions such as a promotion of Hindi.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Skewed terms of reference of FC:<\/strong> Now, the skewed terms of reference for the 15th Finance Commission have brought the south together in making a strong case for fiscal federalism\n<ul>\n<li>The Commission has been using the 1971 Census for population data to ensure that States that have been successful in family planning are not penalised<\/li>\n<li>This came in the wake of the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution which froze the distribution of Lok Sabha seats among States for 25 years, which was extended for another 25 years, in 2001. This prudent political compromise is now being tested<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Deepening fault lines<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Federalism is ultimately based on trust between its various constituent units<\/li>\n<li>If a set of States perceive that their progress is being penalised, the viability of such a federation comes into question<\/li>\n<li>While the southern States contribute to the nation economically, they don\u2019t occupy a central space politically and are further marginalised culturally<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Finally, unless the concerns regarding fairness are addressed from constitutional, financial and cultural fronts, the fault lines developing in our federation could deepen further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federalism and fairness What has happened? Federalism is once again the focus of political discourse in India. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah set the cat among the pigeons when he highlighted Kannada pride by unveiling an official state flag last month. Then in a Facebook post on \u201cRegional Identity &amp; Federalism\u201d, he advocated the need for&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/federalism-and-fairness\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Federalism and fairness<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}