Federalism in the Indian Constitution

Even before independence, the leaders of India's national movement recognised that governing a country as large as India would require dividing power between the provinces and the central government. There was also a clear awareness that Indian society was marked by deep regional and linguistic diversity, and that this diversity needed to be genuinely recognised — people of different regions and languages would need to share power, and within each region, people should have a real say in governing themselves. This was seen as the only logical basis for a democratic government in a country like India.

The real question was never whether power should be shared, but how much power the regions should actually be given. In the years before Partition, as the Muslim League pressed for greater political representation, a compromise formula that would have handed very large powers to the regions was seriously discussed. Once the decision to partition the country was taken, however, the Constituent Assembly chose a different path: it decided to frame a system of government built on the principles of unity and cooperation between the centre and the States, while still giving States their own separate powers. The single most important feature of the federal system the Constitution adopted is that relations between the States and the centre are meant to be based on cooperation — so while the Constitution recognises India's diversity, it deliberately places the emphasis on unity. …