WHAT MAKES INDIA A FEDERAL COUNTRY?HISTORY—India has emerged as an independent nation after bloody partition .
After independence princely states became part of the country.
The constitution declared India as union of states, it was based on the principles of federalism.
The constitution originally provided two-tier system of govt.—the union or central govt.,representing the union of India and the state govt.
Third tier of federalism was added in the form of Panchayat and Municipalities- These tiers enjoy separate jurisdictions and constitutions provided three fold distribution of Legislative power between the union government and the state government in the form of three lists.
UNION LIST:a) Has subjects of national importance.
b)Subjects--Defence, Foreign affairs, Banking, Communication and Currency.
c)They are included because we need a uniform policy on these throughout the country.
d)Union govt. can alone make laws on this list.
STATE LIST:a) Contains subjects of state and local importance.
b)Subjects- Police,Trade, Commerce, Agriculture and Irrigation.
c)State govt. can alone make laws on the list.
CONCURRENT LIST:Include subjects of common interests to both union govt. and state govt.
--contains subjects as education , forests, trade unions, marriage, adoption and succession.
--both union as well as state govt.s can make laws in it.
--but in case of conflict the laws made by the union govt. prevails.
RESIDUARY SUBJECTS:Subjects which do not fall in any of these three lists.
--new subjects like computer software that came up after constitution.
--according to the our constitution the union govt. has the power to legislate on these residuary subjects.
HOW HAS POWER BEEN DIVIDED IN THE INDIAN FEDERATION?
Our constitution has not given equal power to the constituent units.Thus all states in the Indian union do not have identical powers.
1.--some states enjoy special status--J&K has its own constitution; many provisions of the Indian constitution are not applicable to this state with the approval of state Assembly.
--Indians who are not permanent residents of this state can not buy a house or land here.
2.There are some states which enjoy very little power.
--these are the areas which are too small to become an independent states but could not be merged with any of the existing states.
--These areas are like Chandigarh, or Lakshadweep or the capital city of Delhi, are called Union Territories.
--these territories do not have the powers of state.
--the central govt. has special powers in running these states.
Q How can we change the power sharing arrangement?
A. Power sharing of the govt. between union & state govt. is basic to the structure of constitution.It is not easy to make changes in the power sharing arrangement.
--Parliament can not on its own change this arrangement.Any change has to be first passed by both houses of parliament with at least two-third majority.Then it is to be ratified by the legislatures of at least half of the total states.
--IN CASE OF DISPUTES--JUDICIARY, plays an important role in overseeing the implementation if the constitutional provisions& procedures.
--in case of any dispute about the division of power, High courts &Supreme court makes a decision.
SOURCE OF INCOME--the union &the state govts. have the power to raise resources by levying taxes in order to carry on the govt. & the responsibilities assigned to each of them.
HOW IS FEDERALISM PRACTICED?
Constitutional provisions are not the only key to the success of federalism in India but we have succeeded in this experiment because of the nature of democratic politics in our country. Respect for diversity and desire for living together became a shared ideal in our country.
HOW WE ENSURED FEDERALISM?
LINGUISTIC STATES
It was the first & major step towards the democratic politics in our country.
--Since 1947 there have been many changes in the political map of India.
--many old states have vanished & new have been created.
--areas, boundaries and names of the states have been created.
Many old states have vanished & new states have been created.
--Areas, boundaries & names of the states have been changed.
--In 1947, the boundaries of several states were changed in order to create new states. This was done to ensure that people who spoke same language lived in the same state.
--Some states were created to recognize differences based on culture, ethnicity or geography. These included states like—Nagaland, Jharkhand & Uttarakhand.
Q. What has been the advantage of creating linguistic states?
When the demand for the formation of states on the basis of language was raised some leaders feared that it would lead to the disintegration of the country. Though central govt. resisted the linguistic states for some time but the experience has shown that linguistic states have actually made the country more united and it has made the administration easier.
LANGUAGE POLICY—
Our constitution has not given the status of national language to any one language
--Hindi was identified as an official language but Hindi is the mother tongue of only 40% of Indians, therefore there were many safeguards to protect other languages.
--Besides Hindi , there are 21 other languages recognized as Scheduled Languages by the constitution.
A candidate in an examination conducted for the central govt. position may opt any of these languages.
-- the states too have their own official languages and much of the govt. work takes place in official language of the concerned state.
ENGLISH AND ITS USE—
Unlike Sri Lanka, the leaders of our country adopted a very cautious attitude in spreading the use of Hindi.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE POLICY-According to the constitution the use of English for official purposes was to stop in 1965.
-- many non Hindi speaking states demanded the use of English to continue.
--in TamilNadu, this movement took a violent form and the Central government agreed to continue the use of English along with Hindi for official purposes.
--many critics think that this solution favoured the English speaking elite.
--promotion of Hindi continues to be the official policy of the government of India, but this does not mean that Central government can impose Hindi on states where people speak a different language.
Q. How our language policy is different from that of Sri Lanka?
A. Sri Lankan government followed a preferential policy towards Sinhalese language, disregarding Tamil. This resulted in lot of tensions and struggles in Sri Lanka.
Unlike Sri Lanka, our leaders adopted a flexible language policy to promote Hindi and continue English which has avoided the kind of situation Sri Lanka had.
STATE- CENTRE RELATIONS IN INDIA:
Restructuring of state- centre relations depend upon the federalism i.e., sharing of power between state and centre. How the constitutional arrangements for power sharing works in reality depends upon to a large extent on how ruling parties and leaders follow these arrangements.
--In India for a long time, same party ruled both at centre & states. This meant that state govts. did not exercise their rights as autonomous federal units .
--When ruling party at state level was different, the parties that ruled the center tried to undermine the power of states. In those days central govt. would often misuse the constitution to dismiss the state govts. that were controlled by rival parties. This undermined the spirit of federalism.
--All this changed significantly after 1990. There was a rise of regional political parties in many states of the country & this was also the era of the Coalition Govts. at the center.
--Since no single party got clear majority in Lok sabha the major national parties had to enter into an alliance with many parties including many several regional parties to form govt. at the center.
--This led to a new culture of power sharing & respect for the autonomy of the state govt. This trend was supported by the supreme court’s judgement which made it difficult for the Central govt. to dismiss state govts. in an arbitrary manner. Thus power sharing is more effective today than it was in the early years after the constitution came into force.
LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY OF INDIA
Q. India is the most diverse country of the world in terms of languages. Discuss.
According to the census held in 1991:
--the census recorded more than 1500 distinct languages which people mentioned as mother tongues. These languages were grouped under some major languages (.For example-Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Bundelkhandi, Chattisgarhi, Rajasthani, Bhili and many others were grouped under Hindi).
--even after this grouping census found 114 languages.
--22 languages are included in the Eight Schedule of the constitution & are called Scheduled Languages and others are called Non-Scheduled Languages.
Status of Hindi:
The largest language, Hindi is the mother tongue of only about 40% Indians
--all those who knew Hindi as their second or third language, the total number was still than less than 50% in 1991.
Status of English:
Only 0.02% of Indians recorded it as their mother tongue.
--other 11% knew it as a second or third language.
Q1. Define Federalism, jurisdiction, coalition govt.
Q2.Write key features of federalism.
Q3.There are two kinds of routes through which federations have been formed.Write about them and give examples….(Hint-coming together & holding together federations)
Q4.Federal system has dual objectives .What are these?
(Hint—unity & accommodating diversity)
Q5.Our constitution has clearly provided three-fold distribution of legislative powers between the union & state govts. Explain how it has been done?
(Hint-three lists)
Q6.How we make change in the power sharing arrangement?
Q7.How is dispute related to power sharing solved?
Q8.What is the source of income of the Union and State govt.?
Q9.What differences do you see in the political map of 1947 and that of 2006?
Q10.Some states were created not on the basis of language but to recognize the differences based on culture, ethnicity or geography. Name them.
Q11.What is the language policy as has been laid down by our constitution?
Q12.How is Indian language policy different from that followed in SriLanka?
Q13. How many languages have been recognised as Scheduled languages/
Q14. Write about Centre-State relations before & after 1990.
Q15.There has been a new trend, a new culture of power sharing. What is it & what has led to it? ORFederal power sharing is more effective today than it was in early years after the constitution came into force. How can we say that?
Q16.How can we say that India is the most diverse country in terms of language, in the world?
Q17. What is decentralization ? what is the basic idea behind it?
Q18. Why do we need decentralization in India?
Q19.Describe decentralization of power in rural and urban areas.
Q20. What are the advantages of system of the local govt. in India?
Q21.Write the difficulties faced in the functioning of the local self govt.
Q22.Write about the power sharing experiment undertaken in Brazil
Useful Link:
After independence princely states became part of the country.
The constitution declared India as union of states, it was based on the principles of federalism.
The constitution originally provided two-tier system of govt.—the union or central govt.,representing the union of India and the state govt.
Third tier of federalism was added in the form of Panchayat and Municipalities- These tiers enjoy separate jurisdictions and constitutions provided three fold distribution of Legislative power between the union government and the state government in the form of three lists.
UNION LIST:a) Has subjects of national importance.
b)Subjects--Defence, Foreign affairs, Banking, Communication and Currency.
c)They are included because we need a uniform policy on these throughout the country.
d)Union govt. can alone make laws on this list.
STATE LIST:a) Contains subjects of state and local importance.
b)Subjects- Police,Trade, Commerce, Agriculture and Irrigation.
c)State govt. can alone make laws on the list.
CONCURRENT LIST:Include subjects of common interests to both union govt. and state govt.
--contains subjects as education , forests, trade unions, marriage, adoption and succession.
--both union as well as state govt.s can make laws in it.
--but in case of conflict the laws made by the union govt. prevails.
RESIDUARY SUBJECTS:Subjects which do not fall in any of these three lists.
--new subjects like computer software that came up after constitution.
--according to the our constitution the union govt. has the power to legislate on these residuary subjects.
HOW HAS POWER BEEN DIVIDED IN THE INDIAN FEDERATION?
Our constitution has not given equal power to the constituent units.Thus all states in the Indian union do not have identical powers.
1.--some states enjoy special status--J&K has its own constitution; many provisions of the Indian constitution are not applicable to this state with the approval of state Assembly.
--Indians who are not permanent residents of this state can not buy a house or land here.
2.There are some states which enjoy very little power.
--these are the areas which are too small to become an independent states but could not be merged with any of the existing states.
--These areas are like Chandigarh, or Lakshadweep or the capital city of Delhi, are called Union Territories.
--these territories do not have the powers of state.
--the central govt. has special powers in running these states.
Q How can we change the power sharing arrangement?
A. Power sharing of the govt. between union & state govt. is basic to the structure of constitution.It is not easy to make changes in the power sharing arrangement.
--Parliament can not on its own change this arrangement.Any change has to be first passed by both houses of parliament with at least two-third majority.Then it is to be ratified by the legislatures of at least half of the total states.
--IN CASE OF DISPUTES--JUDICIARY, plays an important role in overseeing the implementation if the constitutional provisions& procedures.
--in case of any dispute about the division of power, High courts &Supreme court makes a decision.
SOURCE OF INCOME--the union &the state govts. have the power to raise resources by levying taxes in order to carry on the govt. & the responsibilities assigned to each of them.
HOW IS FEDERALISM PRACTICED?
Constitutional provisions are not the only key to the success of federalism in India but we have succeeded in this experiment because of the nature of democratic politics in our country. Respect for diversity and desire for living together became a shared ideal in our country.
HOW WE ENSURED FEDERALISM?
LINGUISTIC STATES
It was the first & major step towards the democratic politics in our country.
--Since 1947 there have been many changes in the political map of India.
--many old states have vanished & new have been created.
--areas, boundaries and names of the states have been created.
Many old states have vanished & new states have been created.
--Areas, boundaries & names of the states have been changed.
--In 1947, the boundaries of several states were changed in order to create new states. This was done to ensure that people who spoke same language lived in the same state.
--Some states were created to recognize differences based on culture, ethnicity or geography. These included states like—Nagaland, Jharkhand & Uttarakhand.
Q. What has been the advantage of creating linguistic states?
When the demand for the formation of states on the basis of language was raised some leaders feared that it would lead to the disintegration of the country. Though central govt. resisted the linguistic states for some time but the experience has shown that linguistic states have actually made the country more united and it has made the administration easier.
LANGUAGE POLICY—
Our constitution has not given the status of national language to any one language
--Hindi was identified as an official language but Hindi is the mother tongue of only 40% of Indians, therefore there were many safeguards to protect other languages.
--Besides Hindi , there are 21 other languages recognized as Scheduled Languages by the constitution.
A candidate in an examination conducted for the central govt. position may opt any of these languages.
-- the states too have their own official languages and much of the govt. work takes place in official language of the concerned state.
ENGLISH AND ITS USE—
Unlike Sri Lanka, the leaders of our country adopted a very cautious attitude in spreading the use of Hindi.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE POLICY-According to the constitution the use of English for official purposes was to stop in 1965.
-- many non Hindi speaking states demanded the use of English to continue.
--in TamilNadu, this movement took a violent form and the Central government agreed to continue the use of English along with Hindi for official purposes.
--many critics think that this solution favoured the English speaking elite.
--promotion of Hindi continues to be the official policy of the government of India, but this does not mean that Central government can impose Hindi on states where people speak a different language.
Q. How our language policy is different from that of Sri Lanka?
A. Sri Lankan government followed a preferential policy towards Sinhalese language, disregarding Tamil. This resulted in lot of tensions and struggles in Sri Lanka.
Unlike Sri Lanka, our leaders adopted a flexible language policy to promote Hindi and continue English which has avoided the kind of situation Sri Lanka had.
STATE- CENTRE RELATIONS IN INDIA:
Restructuring of state- centre relations depend upon the federalism i.e., sharing of power between state and centre. How the constitutional arrangements for power sharing works in reality depends upon to a large extent on how ruling parties and leaders follow these arrangements.
--In India for a long time, same party ruled both at centre & states. This meant that state govts. did not exercise their rights as autonomous federal units .
--When ruling party at state level was different, the parties that ruled the center tried to undermine the power of states. In those days central govt. would often misuse the constitution to dismiss the state govts. that were controlled by rival parties. This undermined the spirit of federalism.
--All this changed significantly after 1990. There was a rise of regional political parties in many states of the country & this was also the era of the Coalition Govts. at the center.
--Since no single party got clear majority in Lok sabha the major national parties had to enter into an alliance with many parties including many several regional parties to form govt. at the center.
--This led to a new culture of power sharing & respect for the autonomy of the state govt. This trend was supported by the supreme court’s judgement which made it difficult for the Central govt. to dismiss state govts. in an arbitrary manner. Thus power sharing is more effective today than it was in the early years after the constitution came into force.
LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY OF INDIA
Q. India is the most diverse country of the world in terms of languages. Discuss.
According to the census held in 1991:
--the census recorded more than 1500 distinct languages which people mentioned as mother tongues. These languages were grouped under some major languages (.For example-Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Bundelkhandi, Chattisgarhi, Rajasthani, Bhili and many others were grouped under Hindi).
--even after this grouping census found 114 languages.
--22 languages are included in the Eight Schedule of the constitution & are called Scheduled Languages and others are called Non-Scheduled Languages.
Status of Hindi:
The largest language, Hindi is the mother tongue of only about 40% Indians
--all those who knew Hindi as their second or third language, the total number was still than less than 50% in 1991.
Status of English:
Only 0.02% of Indians recorded it as their mother tongue.
--other 11% knew it as a second or third language.
Q1. Define Federalism, jurisdiction, coalition govt.
Q2.Write key features of federalism.
Q3.There are two kinds of routes through which federations have been formed.Write about them and give examples….(Hint-coming together & holding together federations)
Q4.Federal system has dual objectives .What are these?
(Hint—unity & accommodating diversity)
Q5.Our constitution has clearly provided three-fold distribution of legislative powers between the union & state govts. Explain how it has been done?
(Hint-three lists)
Q6.How we make change in the power sharing arrangement?
Q7.How is dispute related to power sharing solved?
Q8.What is the source of income of the Union and State govt.?
Q9.What differences do you see in the political map of 1947 and that of 2006?
Q10.Some states were created not on the basis of language but to recognize the differences based on culture, ethnicity or geography. Name them.
Q11.What is the language policy as has been laid down by our constitution?
Q12.How is Indian language policy different from that followed in SriLanka?
Q13. How many languages have been recognised as Scheduled languages/
Q14. Write about Centre-State relations before & after 1990.
Q15.There has been a new trend, a new culture of power sharing. What is it & what has led to it? ORFederal power sharing is more effective today than it was in early years after the constitution came into force. How can we say that?
Q16.How can we say that India is the most diverse country in terms of language, in the world?
Q17. What is decentralization ? what is the basic idea behind it?
Q18. Why do we need decentralization in India?
Q19.Describe decentralization of power in rural and urban areas.
Q20. What are the advantages of system of the local govt. in India?
Q21.Write the difficulties faced in the functioning of the local self govt.
Q22.Write about the power sharing experiment undertaken in Brazil
Useful Link:
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