"The Indian Constitution is federal in form but unitary in substance". Comment.

Federal Features of the Constitution

The Constitution does possess the basic hallmarks of a federation. There is a dual polity, with the Union and the States deriving their respective powers not from each other but independently from the Constitution itself, and there is an elaborate scheme in Article 246 read with the Seventh Schedule dividing legislative powers between Parliament and the State Legislatures through the Union, State and Concurrent Lists. The Constitution is also the supreme law of the land, both governments function within their own defined spheres, there is an independent judiciary to adjudicate disputes between them, and the process of amending the federal provisions under Article 368 requires not just a special majority in Parliament but ratification by at least half of the State Legislatures, meaning the Centre cannot unilaterally alter the federal structure. It was on this basis that the Supreme Court, in S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (AIR 1994 SC 1918), held that federalism is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution, with Justice Sawant observing that "democracy and federalism are essential features of our Constitution and are part of its basic structure".

The Unitary Bias

Yet, the framers deliberately built a strong Centre into this federal skeleton, and this becomes evident the moment one examines the actual distribution of powers and vocabulary chosen for the Constitution. The framers consciously avoided the word "federation" and instead called India a "Union of States," a choice explained on the ground that the Indian Union is not the result of an agreement between sovereign states and that no constituent State has the freedom to secede from it, unlike federations such as the United States which were formed by independent units coming together. This is because India's federal structure did not emerge through a coming together of separate sovereign units but through the conversion of what was, until 1935, a thoroughly unitary system of government under British rule into a federal one; as the author notes, "the federal system had a unitary bias" precisely because of this lineage.

This unitary bias is visible in several concrete constitutional provisions. Parliament possesses exclusive legislative competence over the Union List and predominant authority over the Concurrent List, since under Article 254 a State law repugnant to a Central law on a Concurrent subject is void to the extent of the repugnancy, unless it has received the President's assent. There is only single citizenship throughout India, unlike the dual citizenship found in the United States, and Article 5 recognises only one domicile, that of India, a position the Supreme Court affirmed in Pradeep Jain v. Union of India by rejecting the very notion of a separate State domicile. India also has a unified judicial system, with the Supreme Court and High Courts exercising jurisdiction over matters arising from both Union and State laws, rather than the dual court structure seen in the United States, and Parliament even retains the power to reorganise State boundaries and create new States under Article 3 without requiring the concerned State's consent, merely its views being sought.

Emergency Provisions and Judicial Interpretation

The most dramatic illustration of the unitary character surfaces during emergencies, when the entire federal fabric can be transformed into what functions as a virtually unitary system. Under Article 356, if the President is satisfied that the government of a State cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, he may assume to himself the functions of the State government, effectively displacing the elected State machinery, and this power became the central point of contention in S.R. Bommai v. Union of India. Chief Justice Beg had earlier, in State of Rajasthan v. Union of India, gone so far as to characterise the Indian Constitution as "more unitary than federal," observing that the extent of federalism is "largely watered down by the needs of progress and development of a country which has to be nationally integrated, politically and economically co-ordinated". In Bommai, though the Bench ultimately placed significant checks on the misuse of Article 356 by making Presidential satisfaction justiciable and subject to judicial review, several judges nevertheless described Indian federalism using terms such as "quasi-federal," a description Ambedkar himself anticipated when he explained that the Constitution "can be both unitary as well as federal according to the requirements of time and circumstances," functioning federally in normal times but capable of working "as though it was a unitary system" during war or other emergencies.

A Balanced Assessment

The following table captures the core tension between the two characterisations:

It would nonetheless be a mistake to conclude that India lacks genuine federalism altogether, because the States are not mere delegates or agents of the Centre; they possess an independent and substantial legislative domain, control most nation-building functions, have their own constitutionally mandated parliamentary form of government, and the federal amending process cannot be altered by the Centre alone. The truest characterisation, therefore, is that India presents a functional and pragmatic federalism, tailored deliberately by the framers to serve the practical needs of a large, diverse and newly partitioned nation requiring unity and rapid development, rather than a rigid, textbook classical federalism of the American or Australian variety, and it is this deliberate design that lends substance to the description "federal in form but unitary in spirit."