THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL NADU to establish a legal review committee under Justice Kurian Joseph, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India, is not just a policy manoeuvre but echoes the continuous call for reforms. Like its predecessor, the 1969 Rajamannar Committee, the present government’s act reflects a deeper anxiety shared across South India, i.e., that the foundational promises of Indian federalism are being steadily hollowed out. In the last year, the state finance ministers had also raised concerns at the recent South Indian Finance Ministers’ Conclave. So, as is visible, a growing sense of estrangement is taking root, not merely over the national level medical entrance exam (NEET), delay in fiscal transfers, or the threat of delimitation leading to possible dilution of seats from these states in the Parliament of India, but over a simple yet significant question: Do the Indian states have meaningful autonomy in the Indian federation?
A Centre that crowds out the States
India has walked a thin line between constitutional centralism and operational federalism for decades. While the Constitution’s Article 1 defines India as a “Union of States,” the Centre has steadily consolidated its grip on power. The last decade, particularly the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the increasing reliance on cesses, has exposed how this centralising tendency is a lived reality for many States. Notably, the centralisation of power is not just economic but political. The careful framing of balancing powers in the Indian Constitution has gradually been eroded due to government practices, such as formal, informal, or constitutional amendments. The important intergovernmental institutions like the Finance Commission and posts like the Governors and process of intergovernmental consultations in the Zonal Council and Interstate Councils are increasingly sidelined. From experience, there is no dearth of examples in the last five years where the Governors have sat on the bills and not allowed them to be passed by the state assembly, particularly when the bills did not align with the Central policies.
