Right In The Centre: The New Power Structure In Dilli Durbar https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/national/right-in-the-centre-the-new-power-structure-in-dilli-durbar-magazine-182676 An overt centralisation of power is choking India’s federal structure. The remedy lies in redoing the political landscape.
there is a definite institutional movement towards centralisation of national authority in all governing arrangements across the world. In the Indian context, three structural imperatives super-impose themselves on the dynamics of Centre-State relations.
First. The 1991 Economic Reforms. . As the Indian economy got increasingly enmeshed with global forces and players, it was only the Centre that had the constitutional mandate, the competence, and the experts to negotiate and bargain with global institutions like the WTO. The States steadily lost a voice in determining the shape of the political economy within their own jurisdictions.. This dependence on the centre deepened further with the exponential growth in the digitalisation process: the Centre, again, had the resources and the expertise to penetrate and make itself felt all the way down to the taluka level, with or without the consent of the State governments. So, when this digitisation makes the idea of an all-India GST feasible, the States’ dependence becomes almost total. https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/national/right-in-the-centre-the-new-power-structure-in-dilli-durbar-magazine-182676
The other two factors are
The post-9/11 preoccupation with terror, as a global threat impinging on our national security, has irreversibly enhanced the Centre’s powers at the expense of the States. Third. The Covid-19 pandemic has effortlessly allowed the Centre to take over public health.
In the 21st century, centralisation as a governance instrument is resuscitating itself around the world, even in established democracies, with deep-rooted institutions, designed to counterpoise concentration of absolute authority. But in India, the Modi government has added to this governance imperative a political insistence, a kind of ‘my way, or the highway’ arrangement.
Is Indian Federalism Reeling Under Burden Of One-Party Dominance? https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/national/is-indian-federalism-reeling-under-burden-of-one-party-dominance--magazine-182754
The road to authoritarianism is paved with manufactured consent, bullied Opposition, money and muscle power. The federal dream now rests upon people’s movements.
Indian federalism is under strain on several fronts—constitutional, economic, political and electoral—to the extent that Opposition chief ministers have invented the phrase “combative federalism”. The Union government is locked in an unsavoury confrontation with several states; the mutual disdain regularly invites distasteful remarks. Several states complain of being bullied by the Centre, as the electoral process is bulldozed by the BJP’s powerful machinery. It can buy maximum advertisement space in the media; its top leaders can get their interviews telecast on the day of voting, and electoral bonds help the party bag mammoth donations that undermine the electoral process and democracy.