Mute Spectator : Bargaining Federalism

January 16, 2020


   

   Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar, is the latest addition to the group of CMs who have shown apprehensions to the NRC exercise and in extension the CAA. It is interesting that even members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) camp and others who voted in favour of the bill are trying to hold back now- seems like they’re dancing to the tune of the present. Is it actually possible for the states to stop the center from conducting the NRC? Is it moral for the parties to backtrack their previous commitment in the parliament?

Legal woes

The answer to the first question is straightforward. No! States cannot stop the central government from conducting the NRC exercise however illogical and un-practical it might be.

Let’s delve into what the constitution has to say about this. On items regarding citizenship, the parliament can amend the constitution with a simple majority, i.e, like it passes an ordinary bill. It does not need the consent of the states nor even a special majority of the total membership of the houses. The NRC process derives its legitimacy from the 2003 amendment to the Citizenship act 1955. Therefore along with the latest amendment to the Citizenship act, the processes specified need not be consented with the states.

Now to the actual problem, article 365 of the Indian constitution explains that if the states fail to comply with the directions of the union government, the president can dissolve the state ministry and take powers in his own hands which essentially transfers power to the central government. History has many such episodes of the center abusing article 365 left and right. It will be interesting to see if things really get that far because the Prime Minister passionately condemned and blamed the previous governments for abusing article 365 and 356 on the parliament floor last year.

Question of Morality

Politics is the act of balancing morality and pragmatic approach. An idealist has no place in electoral politics because negotiations and compromises are at the core of good politicking. Being practical is not always immoral but to be practical at times of intense emotional fervor requires wisdom. One is bound to seem, at least by one side as immoral when emotions blur out rational fault lines in the quake of the political landscape.

Backtracking the earlier commitments can be seen as immoral or as practical necessity. The parties which reversed their opinion on the NRC exercise seem to have taken cue from the spontaneous leaderless protests that has erupted throughout India. The legitimacy or need of those protests is an entirely different question but the fact that there is some visible cloud of ambiguity and fear among the public warrants the government to clear the air.

Here, backtracking is the balance between morality and practical approach because heeding to the public and changing opinions accordingly is the essence of people’s democracy. The state governments which have openly spoken against the NRC therefore have legitimized the wave of dissent which requires the central government to take things more seriously and look for ways to compromise or to at least reach out to the dissenters for a productive dialogue. Now, the states which backtracked seem like they have taken the moral choice of going against the central government which they once held as supreme. Is backstabbing moral? The changing subjective moralism is one to brood over, after all what is morality but a hued prism of changing realities.

Power Game

Veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta opines that the backtracking states are experiencing buyer’s remorse. The parties which voted in favour of the bill are regretting that they couldn’t foresee the magnitude of dissent it warranted. Be it opportunism or well-meaning strategy, the backtracking parties have found their power in the otherwise one sided coalition.

Out of the 336 Lok Sabha seats won by the NDA coalition last year, 303 seats were from BJP itself. This makes the other members of the coalition irrelevant in the national stage. But the federal structure looks much different. BJP does not rule in as much states as it did back in 2018, even in states of NDA coalition, the parties have asserted their stand against the exercise. So there are only six states which would go on with the NRC namely Haryana, Himachal-Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar-Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka with the three northern states having minimal to zero Muslim population. The remaining state governments except the North East (they have their own reasons for NRC) have declared or hinting that they would not conduct the NRC exercise.

All this is plain rhetoric when it comes to constitutional methods of accepting what the center says, but this type of rhetoric is very essential in a quasi-federal state. If the state governments wield power strong enough to bargain their essential and local needs in the same manner, it would provide legitimacy to the federal principles that we say we follow. Asserting strong positions provide confidence and capacity to the states with which they can check the overflowing power of the BJP.

Federal in Spirit

State governments should be vigil of their position in the political landscape to bargain and decentralize as much power required for the federal system to thrive and enhance the lives of the citizens other than a central hand engineering the country like it is some kind of fixed machinery.

Political scientist KC Wheare opined that India is a “Unitary state with subsidiary federal features rather than a federal state with subsidiary unitary features”. This outlook can be changed if states take the initiative in negotiating better sharing of powers among the governments. This can only be done when states can hold back against the pressure of a giant center with a humongous majority thereby asserting themselves as a capable contender of political power dynamics which may in turn provide the necessary mileage for the marathon towards a federal society not just in mere words but also in spirit




Mute Spectator is the primary series of the blog where we express our opinions on current affairs.


  
    




You Might Also Like

0 comments

Popular Posts