Indian Federalism: Structure Process and Agency

Indian federalism represents a relative success model of ethnic conflict management and accommodation of cultural diversity for durable political order and stability in a vast and complex country of immense diversity. This post-colonial federal democratic state is the lone case of sustenance of federalism over the last seven decades except some 21-months of Emergency rule. The resilience and effectiveness of Indian federalism lie in innovation in institutional engineering, adaptability and indigeneity, which produced a hybrid model to respond to specific contexts and offered the space for many ethnic identities in favour durable peace. The world’s most populous and largest democracy, India’s 1.4 billion plus population belongs to different languages, religions, social divisions, tribes and other communities and live in 28 States (federal units) and 9 Union Territories each containing distinctive social and cultural ethnic markers of identity. This is the first ever comprehensive book that offers critical discussion of the origin, development, core structures of Indian federalism and their functioning, and centres round issues of ethnicity, territorial politics, tribal identity question, symmetrical and asymmetrical federal elements, special meaning of relation between federalism and democracy and so on in a jargon-free accessible manner.