Context
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The Indian Constitution may face an unprecedented crisis in 2026 when there will be a dramatic change in the composition of the Lok Sabha. Since 1976, seats in the Lok Sabha have reflected the 1971 census and have not taken into account changes in the population.
The primary reason for this has been unequal population growth among States. India’s most highly developed and prosperous States have been successful at family planning, while the poorer States continue to expand. The freeze was thus a chance to ensure that India’s most successful States are not punished politically for their success.
Post 2026, when this compact ends, there will be a seismic shift in national power towards India’s poorest and most populated States, which is sure to generate much resentment among the States that will lose political and economic power and influence. This calls for a realignment in the balance between the democratic principle and the federal principle in the Indian Constitution.
The essence of the Union
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As Article 1 of the Indian Constitution says, India is a Union of States. The choice of words is deliberate: it is the several States that, together, make up the Indian Union.
Admittedly, unlike in other federations, there is no separate State citizenship or State Constitutions. However, one need only study the history that led up to the linguistic reorganisation of States in 1956, and to subsequent movements for Statehood afterwards, to understand that States are distinct associative communities, within the federal structure of the Indian Union. Indeed, in a polity as plural as ours – linguistically, culturally, and ethnically – it could not be any other way.
Big versus small States
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Having established, thus, that States are important, self-contained units within the Indian constitutional scheme, we must turn to an inherent contradiction between the principles of democracy and federalism, when federal units are unequal in size, population and economics.
This is easy to comprehend. In a democratic set up, all citizens are equal and are thus entitled to equal representation in governance. But this would imply that bigger States are likely to dominate the national conversation over smaller States. Small States fear that they would get a smaller share of the pie economically, a much reduced say in national issues, and be irrelevant in the political governance of the country.
In order to assuage this legitimate fear, federal democracies have incorporated into their governing structures various kinds of compromises to ensure a balance between democratic principles and federal ones.
For example, when the Americans adopted their Constitution, they protected smaller States in four ways.
- First, national powers over the States were limited.
- Second, each State regardless of size had two seats in the Senate, giving smaller States an outsized role in national governance.
- Third, Presidents are elected by electoral votes, which means they must win States rather than the total national population.
- Fourth, and deplorably, the slave-owning States which did not confer citizenship on slaves were allowed to count the slaves for purposes of representation, with each slave being counted as three-fifths of a person.
This essential structure remains the bedrock of the American Constitution today, though the Americans have rid themselves of slavery (fortunately) and have dramatically increased the scope of federal intervention. This federal structure has led to the severing of causational links between the national vote and presidential elections. Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump won without winning the popular vote.
The current movement to remove the power of a minority to filibuster legislation is based on democratic principles seeking to mitigate the pathology of excessive federalism: indeed, the American structures of government go so far in the other direction, that they have been accused of essentially facilitating and entrenching minority rule through the Senate, which favours rural, sparsely populated States that are also predominantly white.
The Indian structure
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Other federations (Switzerland and Belgium come to mind) have adopted other — less extreme — forms of reconciliation. However, India’s quasi-federal structure has always been sui generis.
Our founders knew that India’s diversity made federalism inevitable, but, fearing fissiparous tendencies among States that had never been a single political unit, they also created a strong centre.
While history has been chequered, the fears for Indian national unity simply on the basis of giving States greater powers have proven to be unfounded — and if at all, it has been the other way.
The 1956 reorganisation of States on linguistic lines was a popular recognition of federal principles and yet did not result in separatist tendencies. Since then, new States within the Union have been created in response to the demands of people for greater autonomy.
In India, any clash between federal principles and democracy will inevitably also have linguistic, religious and cultural implications and may result in new forms of sub-regional chauvinism. Thus, there is an urgent need to reimagine our national compact — another freeze will only kick this thorny issue down the road and will continue to perpetuate an increasingly undemocratic set up.
Fine-tune these elements
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We have the components of such a new balance that need to be fine-tuned to Indian realities. First, the powers of States vis-à-vis the Centre contained in the Lists and in the provisions dealing with altering boundaries of States must be increased to assuage the fear of smaller States that they will be dominated by bigger ones.
There is no reason to believe that empowering our States would cause national disintegration. On the contrary, more localised decision-making is bound to increase national prosperity. Indeed, this was the entire goal of the creation of Panchayat governance through the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution, whose promise remains — unfortunately — unrealised.
Second, the role and composition of the Rajya Sabha, our House of States, must be expanded. This would allow smaller States a kind of brake over national majoritarian politics that adversely impact them.
Third, constitutional change and the change in financial redistribution between the States must require the consent of all or nearly all States (the fate of the Goods and Services Tax, or GST, serves as a salutary warning in this regard). Constitutional provisions dealing with language and religion must also be inviolate. If India is a joint venture between majority and minority shareholders, the minority must be protected by a comprehensive list of “consensus items” that require unanimity — or at least, a super-majority — and not simple majority.
Fourth, serious thought must be given to breaking up the biggest States into smaller units that will not by themselves dominate the national conversation.
Competing claims
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The unity of India is, of course, the fundamental premise underlying this discussion; but this unity does not depend on an overbearing Centre for its survival. National bonds of affection and patriotism will not be severed by devolution of powers though they will be at least severely strained when one part of the country is empowered over another.
Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo contains the memorable quote, Everything must change for everything to remain the same. This includes the question of how we are to balance the competing claims of democracy and federalism, in the years to come.
Recent Posts
- In the Large States category (overall), Chhattisgarh ranks 1st, followed by Odisha and Telangana, whereas, towards the bottom are Maharashtra at 16th, Assam at 17th and Gujarat at 18th. Gujarat is one State that has seen startling performance ranking 5th in the PAI 2021 Index outperforming traditionally good performing States like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, but ranks last in terms of Delta
- In the Small States category (overall), Nagaland tops, followed by Mizoram and Tripura. Towards the tail end of the overall Delta ranking is Uttarakhand (9th), Arunachal Pradesh (10th) and Meghalaya (11th). Nagaland despite being a poor performer in the PAI 2021 Index has come out to be the top performer in Delta, similarly, Mizoram’s performance in Delta is also reflected in it’s ranking in the PAI 2021 Index
- In terms of Equity, in the Large States category, Chhattisgarh has the best Delta rate on Equity indicators, this is also reflected in the performance of Chhattisgarh in the Equity Pillar where it ranks 4th. Following Chhattisgarh is Odisha ranking 2nd in Delta-Equity ranking, but ranks 17th in the Equity Pillar of PAI 2021. Telangana ranks 3rd in Delta-Equity ranking even though it is not a top performer in this Pillar in the overall PAI 2021 Index. Jharkhand (16th), Uttar Pradesh (17th) and Assam (18th) rank at the bottom with Uttar Pradesh’s performance in line with the PAI 2021 Index
- Odisha and Nagaland have shown the best year-on-year improvement under 12 Key Development indicators.
- In the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu and, the bottom three performers are Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers were Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram; and, the bottom three performers are Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya.
- Among the 60:40 division States, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the top three performers and Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Delhi appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland; and, the bottom three performers are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh
- Among the 60:40 division States, Goa, West Bengal and Delhi appear as the top three performers and Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura were the top three performers and Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh were the bottom three performers
- West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were the top three States amongst the 60:40 division States; while Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan appeared as the bottom three performers
- In the case of 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura were the top three performers and Nagaland, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand featured as the bottom three
- Among the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and the bottom three performers are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Goa
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland and the bottom three performers are Manipur and Assam
In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)