Asymmetric Federalism in India

This book provides a critical account of federal asymmetry in India - its origins, context, forms and functioning - by taking into account the institutional effectiveness of asymmetric institutions in the regions for identity fulfillment, development and governance. It argues that while some asymmetry, de jure/ or de facto, is part of all federations for meeting some special circumstances, in India, which has followed a different path of federation building, asymmetric institutional solutions especially in the border areas have played a crucially important role in accommodating ethno-cultural diversity, ensuring law and order, a level of development and governance in a process that has turned the ‘rebels into stakeholders’. India’s federal asymmetric designs and their working has been a key to holding the peripheries within the Union of India. The book utilizes both archival research and empirical survey data, as well as elite interviews.

“The scholarly contributions of Professor Harihar Bhattacharyya have provided a valuable counterpoint over the past many years to the skepticism about the strength and viability of Indian democracy voiced by the western liberal establishment and its Indian acolytes. In this new book – redolent of the analytical rigour and meticulous fieldwork that one has come to expect from him – Bhattacharyya has taken his core argument about the Indian state at the heart of which lies a dynamic neo-institutional model of state-society relations further, by the way of India’s asymmetric federalism. As he cogently argues, in a country of continental dimensions, this specific feature of the federal system has functioned as an institutional nexus to link regional and subregional units of vastly different size and institutional depth into a web of power-sharing, empowerment and accountability. This is how the post-colonial state successfully transformed subjects into citizens, rebels into stakeholdersand pulled peripheral units into the national mainstream. This important book is destined to become a vital addition to the growing literature on federalism and democratisation in India.” (Subrata K. Mitra, Professor Emeritus, University of Heidelberg, Germany)

“This book by Harihar Bhattacharyya addresses the issue of asymmetrical federalism in the Indian context in a perspective which is extremely provocative and stimulating for researchers. He makes it abundantly clear that India has, for historical as well as political reasons, made a clear break with the traditional understanding of federalism over the years and with the emergence of new identities the question of recognition has come to the forefront. He has very ably shown how the Indian polity seeks to face the challenge of asymmetrical federalism at the institutional level by focusing on the problem of governance.” (Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, Former SurendraNath Banerjee Professor of Political Science, University of Calcutta, India)

“Professor Harihar Bhattacharya’s book is the first full-length comprehensive study of various aspects of asymmetrical federalism to take into consideration sub-national levels and made critical examination of institutional performance and relative effectiveness so far generally neglected. It is innovative and thought-provoking.” (M.P. Singh, former Professor of Political Science,  an erstwhile  Resident National Fellow of Indian Institute of Advanced Study, India)

Harihar Bhattacharyya is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Burdwan, India. He holds a PhD in Government from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He taught at the South Asia Institute a the University of Heidelberg, Germany, Hull University, UK, Institute of Federalism, Fribourg, and Delhi University, India.