​Treatise for federalism: On Tamil Nadu and the Kurian Joseph report

A high-level committee on Union-State relations appointed by the Government of Tamil Nadu has mapped the pattern of centralisation of power and the weakening of federal democracy in India over the decades, and suggested comprehensive corrective measures. The three-member Committee, chaired by a former Supreme Court judge, Justice Kurian Joseph, has drawn on scholarship across various disciplines, Constituent Assembly debates, and the findings of three other committees on Centre-State relations, while also critiquing recent governance trends that weaken the authority of States. It concludes that centralisation is increasing — which it notes is not healthy — and calls for urgent remedial measures. The report is an expansive critique of the dilapidation of federalism, threatening India’s progress, and calls for changes to reverse the dangerous course, stating that “Indian federalism now requires a structural reset comparable in ambition to the economic reforms of 1991”. India’s constitutional framework took shape against the backdrop of Partition, and the consolidation of princely States. The context encouraged the founders to tilt towards a centralising constitutional scheme; legislative, administrative, and judicial measures in the ensuing decades further reinforced this line of thinking. The report convincingly takes down the arguments for centralisation, and argues that federalised governance is essential for a country of India’s size and diversity, and that it would in fact be dangerous to overlook this imperative.

The Kurian Joseph Committee report comes amid repeated and deliberate moves by the Union to centralise power. The Constitution can be amended far too easily for a federal polity, and this creates a self-perpetuating cycle of centralisation. The territorial integrity of States is at the mercy of the Centre, most blatantly illustrated by the dismantling of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories in 2019. The misplaced idea that the country needs one national language is being pursued by the Union government, which is particularly assertive on the question. Governors have become instruments of the Centre’s overreach in all areas of governance. The impending inter-State delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies is causing anxiety among States that have stabilised their populations and stand to lose their relative weight in national governance. The Union has overt power in the conduct of elections, and key sectors such as education and health are being increasingly centralised. The GST regime has restructured India’s fiscal landscape in favour of the Union and at States’ expense. This report lays out the logic, facts and common sense about why federated governance should be the path to progress. This report must form the basis for a new national conversation.