5. Mixture of Federal and Unitary Features

Article 1 of the Constitution of India says: "India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States." Though the word 'federation' is not used, India is a federal republic.

A state is federal when:

b) There are two sets of governments and there is distribution of powers between the two;

c) There is a written Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land; and

d) There is an independent judiciary to interpret the Constitution and settle disputes between the centre and the states.

All these features are present in India. There are two sets of government, one at the centre, the other at state level and the distribution of powers between them is quite detailed in our Constitution. The Constitution of India is written and is the supreme law of the land. At the apex of a single integrated judicial system, stands the Supreme Court, which is independent from the control of the executive and the legislature.

But, in spite of all these essential features of a federation, the Indian Constitution has certain unitary tendencies. While other federations like USA provide for dual citizenship, the India Constitution provides for single citizenship. There is also a single integrated judiciary for the whole country. The provision of All India Services, like the Indian Administrative Service, the Indian Police Service, and Indian Forest Service prove to be another unitary feature. Members of these services are recruited by the Union Public Service Commission on an all-India basis. Since these services are controlled by the Union Government, to some extent this constitutes a constraint on the autonomy of States.

A significant unitary feature is the emergency provisions in the Indian Constitution. During the time of emergency, the Union Government becomes even more powerful and the Union Parliament acquires the power of making laws for the states. The Governor, placed as the Constitutional head of the State, acts as the agent of the Centre and is intended to safeguard the interests of the Centre. These provisions reveal the centralizing tendency of our federation.

Prof K.C. Wheare has remarked that Indian Constitution provides, "a system of government which is quasi-federal, a unitary state with the subsidiary unitary features".

The framers of the Constitution expressed clearly that there existed a harmony between federalism and unitarism. Dr. Ambedkar said, "The political system adopted in the Constitution could be both unitary as well as federal according to the requirement of time and circumstances".

The Unites States was the first nation to have a truly federal Constitution and its federal structure is still taken as the reference to judge whether any Constitution is federal or not. However, the conditions under which different constitutions, especially the Indian Constitution, were framed were much different from the conditions in America in 1787. India, at the time of independence had already witnessed a messy partition and fissiparous tendencies existed throughout the breadth of the country. Hence, a strong centre was the need of the day to keep the state existing as a single unit and ultimately wield its people together into a nation.

There are some centralising tendencies, but the Indian states also enjoy a fair degree of power and autonomy. The Law Commission of India has also observed that there is no dichotomy between a strong Union and strong states.

In S R Bommai case (1994), SC laid down that Constitution is federal and characterised federalism as its ‘basic feature’. It observed that conferring greater power upon Centre does not mean that states are mere appendages of Centre. They have an independent constitutional existence. They are not satellites or agents of Centre. Within the sphere allotted to them, the states are supreme. Federalism in the Constitution is not a matter of administrative convenience but a matter of principle.

The above debate is probably best summarized in Prof. Alexanderowicz’s words that “India is a federation but a federation sui generis”, i.e. a federation in a class of its own or a unique federation.

To conclude, India has "Cooperative federalism" with central guidance and state compliance. In recent times, the concept of “Competitive Federalism” has emerged where the centre competes with states and vice-versa, and states compete with each other in their joint efforts to develop India.