Federalism Under Strain: Centre-State Relations in an Era of One-Party Dominance

India’s Constitution describes a federal structure with unitary features — a deliberate compromise that gives the central government significant authority while preserving meaningful autonomy for states. That balance has shifted visibly in recent years, and the shift is best understood not through dramatic confrontations but through a series of administrative mechanisms that rarely make front-page news individually, yet collectively redraw the federal map.

The Governor as Political Instrument

The office of Governor was designed as a constitutional figurehead, appointed by the Centre but expected to act as a neutral custodian of the state’s constitutional process. In states governed by opposition parties, Governors have increasingly become flashpoints — delaying assent to state legislation for months or years beyond any reasonable administrative timeline, withholding approval for bills passed by elected state assemblies, and in several instances triggering open conflict with state governments over university appointments and policy decisions that fall squarely within state jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court has intervened repeatedly to set explicit timelines for gubernatorial action on state bills, an unusual judicial step that implicitly acknowledges the office has been used in ways the Constitution’s framers likely did not anticipate.

Fiscal Federalism and Fund Disbursement

Centrally sponsored schemes now represent a substantial share of total government spending reaching citizens, and the conditions attached to these funds give the Centre considerable leverage over state priorities. States governed by opposition parties have repeatedly alleged delayed or reduced disbursement of funds that should flow as a matter of constitutional entitlement rather than political discretion — a claim that is difficult to verify with precision given the absence of fully transparent fund-flow data, but one that several opposition-ruled states have raised with striking consistency.

The GST Council Compromise

The Goods and Services Tax Council, designed as a genuinely federal body where states and the Centre negotiate tax policy jointly, has functioned with relative success on technical matters but has also become a site of recurring friction over compensation payments owed to states for revenue shortfalls following the GST transition. States have periodically accused the Centre of delaying compensation, while the Centre has cited fiscal constraints — a dispute that, regardless of which side is more persuasive in any given year, illustrates how even India’s most celebrated federal institution remains vulnerable to the asymmetry of power between Centre and states.

Federalism in India is not being abolished through any single dramatic act. It is being renegotiated, quietly, through governors, funds, and councils — one administrative decision at a time.

None of this amounts to a constitutional crisis in the conventional sense. But the cumulative direction of travel — toward greater central discretion and reduced state autonomy in practice, even where state autonomy remains intact in constitutional text — deserves more sustained public scrutiny than the issue-by-issue news coverage it currently receives.