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How is Federalism Practised? (Linguistic States (India was divided into…
How is Federalism Practised?
Cause for Success of Federalism in India
Reason 1: Clearly laid out constitutional provisions
Reason 2: Real reason for success of federalism is the nature of democratic politics in India
Democracy in India has kept up the spirit of federalism - respect for diversity & desire to live together in a united manner
Linguistic States
India was divided into states based on languages
A lot of changes have occurred in the political map of India from 1947 to 2013
New states have come up, boundaries & names of states have changed
Some states were created not on the basis of language but based on culture, ethnicity, geography
Eg: Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Nagaland
Many political leaders feared that formation of linguistic states would lead to break down or loss of unity of the country
But experience has shown that formation of linguistic states has actually made the country more united
It has made administration easier
Language Policy
Our constitution does not give the status of
national language
to any one language
Hindi along with English were made
official languages
Hindi is the mother tongue of only 40% of Indians
To protect other languages, 21 other languages were recognized as
scheduled languages
A candidate taking an examination for central government position can opt to take it in any of these languages
States can have their own official languages & government work mostly is done in the official language of the state
According to the constitution, the use of English as official language was to end by 1965
Language Policy contd..
But many states wanted English to continue as official language
In Tamil Nadu, this movement became violent
The Central government continues to promote Hindi
So the Central government agreed to use English along with Hindi for official purposes
Many critics felt this favored the English speaking elite of the country
But this does not mean Hindi is imposed on people from other states who speak a different language
This flexibility shown by the Indian leaders helped to avoid the kind of situation in Srilanka (which imposed Sinhalese on all the Srilankan people)
Centre -State Relation
In India, in the early years after Independence, the same party ruled at the center and most of the states
When a state was ruled by a different party, the Central government often misused the constitution to dismiss the state government
This weakened the spirit of federalism
But this pattern changed after 1990, as regional parties started becoming powerful
Since no single party got a majority in the Lok Sabha,
Coalition governments
were formed at the centre forming alliances with many parties including regional parties
This led to a new era of power sharing and respect for the autonomy of state governments
A major judgment was also passed by the Supreme Court that made it difficult for the Central government to dismiss a state government without proper reasons
Thus power sharing between center & state is more effective today than in earlier days