SIMONETTA CASCI

Unione indiana: rapporti fra centro e stati  

N. 3/1985

Summary — Whilst being based on a federal structure with strong unitary features, since independence India’s policy has been affected by permanent conflicts between the Centre and the States. This cleavage between local and central interests, which already emerged during the Raj, had to be dealt with both by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Nevertheless, their approaches were different. While Nehru’s democratic attitude greatly contributed to quelling a number of contrasts, Indira’s authoritarian challenge led to controversial political measures and eventually provoked, during the seventies and eighties, the radicalisation of regional movements. In fact since 1980, despite Mrs. Gandhi’s stress on the dominance of a strong Centre on peripheral forces, local subnationalism dangerously destabilized India’s national unity. In Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kashmir as well as in the two more turbolent areas, in Assam and Punjab, panindian opposition parties and regional ones violently challenged the dominant Congress-I of Indira. At the same time, the central government and the States controlled by the Congress-I were weakened by factionalism within the dominant party. In October 1984 at the death of Mrs. Gandhi, who was killed by two Sikh fanatics fighting for an independent Punjab, her San Rajiv became the new Prime Minister. After Indira’s authoritarianism, Mr. Gandhi has until now shown a greater flexibility towards local issues, which wi11, one hopes, enable him to improve the Centre/States relations.