FEDERALISM IN INDIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF CRITICAL ISSUES AND INNOVATIVE MECHANISMS

Indian is perhaps one of the most populated federal states in the world today. India has a clearly discernible pattern,wherein socio-cultural diversity draws its strength and sustenance from its composite cultural and civilizational thrust. This culture has evolved over centuries, through a process of assimilation and amalgamation of the diverse cultural influxes coming with the hordes of invaders – the Aryans, the Sakas, the Huns, the Pathans, the Moghuls and the Europeans.it is against this backdrop that this paper examines the practice of federalism in Indian with the desire to bring to the fore of scholarship those unique intra systemic variables that had united the Indian society in spite of the heterogeneity in socio-linguistic and cultural formation. India’s federal reconciliation of regional identity with autonomy has a democratic aspect, operating at two levels: any political demand for statehood, or sub-statehood, must first, demonstrates identifiable popular support of the mass of the people, before such demands could see the light of the day. Second, the political institutions achieved must be elected by universal adult suffrage in every five years, in line with the normal political practice throughout the federation. Also of central importance is the pattern of internal self-determination that has continued to shape and define regional accommodation of identity in Indian. The paper concludes that other lopsided federal systems would do themselves a lot of good to borrow a leave from the Indian institutional and structural mechanisms with the enduring potentials of achieving sustainable unity in the midst of socio-cultural, regional, linguistic and ethno-religious diversity.