Sambhav-2023

Approach

• Start your answer by giving a brief about Federalism.
• Discuss federal features as well as unitary features of India constitution by giving illustrations.
• Conclude suitably by emphasizing on quasi federal nature of Indian constitution.

Introduction

Federalism is derived from the Latin word foedus, which means agreement. In fact, a federation is an agreement between two types of governments sharing power and controlling their respective spheres. Thus, a federation is a system of national and local governments, combined under a common sovereignty with both national as well as federating units having autonomous spheres assigned to them by the constitution.

India’s constitution does not refer to the country as a federation. Article 1 of the Constitution, on the other hand, refers to India as a “Union of States.” This signifies that India is a union made up of many states that are all equally important. The Indian Union is unbreakable.

Body

Federal features of Indian constitution:

• Division of Powers - The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution contains three lists of subjects which show how division of power is made between the two sets of government.
• Written Constitution - The Constitution of India is written Every provision of the Constitution is clearly written down and has been discussed in detail.
• Supremacy of the Constitution unlike British setup where Parliament is supreme.
• Independent judiciary - The Supreme Court of India is the highest court of justice in India.
• Bi-cameral legislation - The Indian Parliament i.e., the legislature has two houses - the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

Unitary Features of Indian Federalism:

These are some unitary features in the constitution by which we can say that India is a quasi-federal country in nature, and not a pure federal in nature.

• Strong Centre: Constitution provides under article 355 that the central government is duty-bound to ensure that there is no failure of constitutional machinery in the state and the states are protected from internal disturbance, external aggression and war. By which to enforce that duty, article 356 provides to the central government to impose Presidential rule and it is the duty of the governor of the concerned state to make a report to the center about the constitutional failure of the machinery of the state for political or any other reasons.
• Single Citizenship: The constitution provides a single and uniform citizenship for the whole of the country. However, in a federal state like the United States of America, there is dual citizenship in which citizen firstly owes the duty to the states and then to the union. But in the case of India, there is single citizenship even though it also a federal country.
• Integrated Judiciary: In India, the Supreme Court at apex defined the Unified Judiciary which opposed to the federal system of the country having a dual system of courts. In our unitary judicial system, the Supreme Court occupies the highest place. We know that the decisions and verdicts of the Supreme Courts are binding on an inferior court in India.
• Appointment of the Highest Position Machinery: All the appointment on the highest positions is made by the Union Government such as the Chief Election Commissioner, the Comptroller and Auditor General and All India Services such as IAS and IPS have been created which are kept under the control of the Union.
• No Equality of State Representation: Representation in the legislature in a federal state is on an equal basis, which is also not applicable in the case of India. The Representation of the States in Rajya Sabha is not on an equal basis and it depends on state to state and regulated by the centre which is basically a unitary feature of the state.
• Emergency Provisions: The provision of the article 356 provides that the proclamation can be made and once such proclamation is made, the state government can be either dismissed or the Assembly can be kept in suspended animation.

Conclusion

India is not a federation in the traditional sense. It combines the characteristics of a federal government with those of a unitary government, which are referred to as non-federal characteristics. As a result, India is classified as a semi-federal state. It is described as a "quasi-federal state" by Prof. K.C Wheare.