Abstract
ABSTRACTIndia’s multinational federation has experienced multiple challenges in the last 25 years, relating to the rise of coalition politics and the process of economic liberalization, both of which have increased the power of some of the states of the federation at the expense of others. The internal borders of India continue to be restructured, with the latest state, Telangana, created in 2014. India is often seen as a successful multinational federation, but it is important to recognize the limitations of this success, as well as the areas where the rise of an aggressive Hindu nationalism poses a powerful threat to India’s multinational federal democracy.
Highlights
Current Challenges to Multinational Federalism in IndiaiSomewhat surprisingly, there have been only three articles on India, the world’s largest federation in Regional and Federal Studies - by Bakke (2009), Bhattacharyya (2015) and Mahapatra (2017)
As well as making alliances with regional and caste based political parties it has made alliances with regionalist political parties in Punjab and Kashmir (Kailash 2014). In this special section Singh and Kim analyse the paradoxical case of Punjab, site of a Sikh secessionist campaign in the 1980s and 1990s, but where the Sikh political party is a coalition partner of the centralist Hindu Nationalist BJP. They use the example of Punjab to argue that while India may be accommodationist along linguistic lines, India is best understood as an ‘ethnic democracy’ in relation to religious identities
All the articles in this special section reveal the importance of looking at the sub-state level in understanding the nature of the Indian multinational federation in the 21st century
Summary
There have been only three articles on India, the world’s largest federation (by population) in Regional and Federal Studies - by Bakke (2009), Bhattacharyya (2015) and Mahapatra (2017). One possible reason is that, with the exception of a few scholars, India is not seen as an example that has relevance for the study of other federations either because of its extreme diversity (with an effective number of linguistic groups (ENLG) of 8.5 at the time of independence) or because it is situated within the developing world and ‘western’ political concepts are not seen as applicable.ii Another explanation could be that India’s federation has been traditionally criticised for being too centralised, with some calling it a quasi federation (Wheare 1963, Riker 1964) because of the constitutional provisions concerning emergency ruleiii and the ability of the centre to change unilaterally state boundaries and create or disintegrate states under Article 3 of the Indian Constitution It may be explained by the targeting of more disciplinary or area studies journals by authors working on the country. Given the changes in India over the last 25 years or so, many of the effects of which are still to be understood, and the constant restructuring of its internal borders, the time is ripe for a special section of Regional and Federal Studies focusing on the nature of this multinational federation, its real achievements in the promotion of a multinational democracy as well as areas where this democracy has been potentially threatened by multinational federalism
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