Indian Federalism & Tendency of Regionalism in the Present Scenario

Abstract

Federalism in India is a major output of the 1918 Montague Chemsford Report and the 1929 Simon Commission Report strongly argued for decentralization of authorities among the constituent provinces as perhaps the best administration device in politically – fragmented and strife ridden India. Further, the second serious intervention happened to be the Government of India Act, 1935 that provided for the distribution of legislative jurisdiction with the three fold division of powers into federal, provincial and concurrent lists. The most remarkable feature of this act was that it envisaged a federation of India consisting of the British provinces and Indian states willing to join. Therefore, when the new constitution came into existence, India adopted most of the features of this act. Furthermore, K.C. Wheare called it a quasi federation and thus deviated from the classical model of regional and sub-regional autonomy. That is why; Indian Federation is a union of states which is indestructible. Thus, the present paper aims at to highlight the nature of Indian federalism and the tendency of regionalism at present in it.