Rethinking Indian federalism / edited by Rasheeddin Khan
- Shimla India Institute of Advance Study 1997
- 271 p.
In the fiftieth year of our sovereign existence as a modern state, it is critically significant for us to rethink our federal polity and plural society in order to design à Federal India which can successfully combine 'Federalism' and 'pluralism' in the institutional framework of 'self rule plus shared rule. Pluralism and Federalism now appear as the two essential principles for organizing heterogeneous societies into a viable pattern of political sharing of power, by reconciling the twin processes of political unification, and social diversity; of commonality for certain purposes and specificities for others. In its praxis, federalism builds and sustains the unity of polity and simultaneously preserves and promotes the plurality of society. It is from this perspective, and ideological premises of federal nation, participatory democracy, secularism and social justice that we should re-examine our federal polity and plural society.
The book broadly reflects upon the following macro rubrics of Indian Federalism - quest for a new federal identity, and recasting centre-state relations in order to build a more equipoised and cooperative federal polity; socio-cultural pluralism and their accommodation and harmonization within federal polity and society. In this exercise the critical relevance of secularism and composite culture has been examined; and, India being a multi-regional federation, the problems of regionalism and territorialization of federal polity have also been examined. Formulations on macro themes have been supplemented by certain micro-studies (case-studies) of specific issues concerning the problems of federal nation-building.