Negotiating Diversity: State Reorganisation And Federal Bargain With Comparative Insight From India And Canada
- IJLLR Journal
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Mrinangini Gurung & Srishti Satish Jadhav, Symbiosis Law School, Pune
ABSTRACT
To reconcile regional autonomy and recognition with unity of a federation becomes a pressing challenge to federalism. In this context, this research examines the institutional mechanisms of state reorganisation in India and Canada, and their sustainability in shaping federal bargain in accommodating linguistic, cultural, and regional demands. It puts India’s Negotiated Parliamentary Model and Canada’s Asymmetrical Referenda-Based model under comparison to study their respective effectiveness in balancing regional pressures with national stability. It argues asymmetric federal arrangements are suitable for diversity management as an equilibrium between secession and accommodation to manage complex plural democracies.
Introduction
State reorganisation is more than merely an administrative convenience and by that means making it a response to political mobilisation, cultural recognition and justice.
“India, is one of the most complex and diverse polities in the world, which, despite its high ethnic fractionalisation and relative poverty, has held together as a democratic state for most of the time since 1947, across most of its territory. Yet, this ‘holding together’ (Stepan et al. 2011) has been accompanied by a gradual shift from a relatively ‘integrationist’ (McGarry, O’ Leary and Simeon 2008) or ‘centric’ (Adeney 2002) territorial strategy at independence towards a more ’accommodationist’ strategy’ in more recent decades.” Grounded in parliamentary negotiation and constitutional amendment, is India’s reorganisation starting the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 to the creation of Telangana in 2014 making it a recurring negotiated phenomena.
Canada follows system of asymmetry and judicial interpretations to manage separatist assertions like the Quebec issue to manage subnational demands highlighting Canada’s rather populist approach to Federal Bargain.
