Centre state relations in India/ edited by Bidyut Chakrabarty

Centre-State relations constitute, as it were, the centre-stage of contemporary Indian politics with opposition parties in power in a majority of Indian provinces, the debate on the distribution of powers between the centre and the constituent states, both constitutional and otherwise has assumed tremen dous significance. Drawing on their respective ideologies and political consideration the opposition parties attribute the consistent decline of states power and consequently consolidation of centre's hegemony to the ruling parties desire to grab power for its own benefit. As a result, the polity which is purportedly federal, tends to become overtly authoritarian.

Although it is alleged that the ruling party has amassed enormous power at the cost of the states, the fact remains that India is constitutionally a federal system. How do we account for massive centralization of power in a constitutional set-up aiming at the creation of a body polity based on mutual adjustment between the centre and states. Is centralization of power a post-1947 phenomenon or a colonial hangover? Is the eclipse of state's power typically Indian or India is a representative case of centraliza tion of power at the global level? The book contains articles by eminent social scientist seeking to answer these questions. Not merely a descriptive tract, the book analyses the India's federal structure in its complexity.