How much power should the Union government have?

The Constitution gives the Union government the upper hand: control over residuary subjects, the power to legislate on state matters in some circumstances, and the ability to impose President's Rule. The question is whether that balance, designed for a fragile new nation, still fits a confident, diverse country whose states deliver most public services.

Article 356 (President's Rule) was used dozens of times to dismiss state governments until the landmark S. R. Bommai judgment (1994) made such dismissals judicially reviewable and curbed the practice. The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) pushed power downward to panchayats and municipalities, at least on paper.

The biggest recent shift was GST (2017), which pooled the taxing powers of centre and states into a joint GST Council, gaining coordination but, critics say, costing states fiscal autonomy. Disputes over the role of Governors, central agencies, and the sharing of tax revenue have since become routine flashpoints.

• National unity, security, and a single market need coordinated central authority in a country of India's scale and diversity.
• The centre redistributes resources from richer to poorer states, which pure state autonomy would weaken.
• Uniform standards, in taxation, infrastructure, and crises like pandemics, are easier to set centrally.

• States are closer to citizens and run health, education, police, and agriculture; they argue fiscal centralisation has outrun their responsibilities.
• Opposition-ruled states say Governors and central agencies are used as political instruments against them.
• India's linguistic and cultural diversity is better managed by devolution than by a one-size centre.

The contrast is instructive. In the United States, residuary powers rest with the states, the reverse of India. Germany's Bundesrat gives states a direct voice in national legislation, and its fiscal-equalisation system redistributes revenue much as India's Finance Commission does. India is a 'holding-together' federation, with power devolved from a strong centre to keep a diverse nation united, which explains its built-in central tilt.

Regional parties, the DMK, Trinamool, and others, campaign hardest for states' rights, while national parties tend to favour central authority when they hold it. The looming delimitation of Lok Sabha seats, which could shift power toward the populous north, has made federal balance one of the most charged issues of the decade.

Favouring devolved power reads on the Nation axis as federalist; favouring a dominant centre reads as centralist-nationalist. It also touches the Authority axis, since a strong centre concentrates coercive power.