Federalism and Coalition Party System in India

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Independent India’s federal project was as much a product of its colonial legacy as response to the exigency of nation building. The founding fathers expected their institutional framework to address simultaneously the complex diversity of the country and the building of a new nation. State formation was to be accompanied by nation formation. The state would play a decisive role in the construction of a political community, a particularly complex task given the myriad embedded loyalties of individuals to regions, religions, castes and languages. Accordingly, tendencies towards pluralism and decentralization have co-existed with centralizing features, leading some to qualify Indian Federalism as quasi-federalism. But discussions of federalism in India would be better served were thay not confined to the Indian system as quasi-federalism is consistent with the western discourse on federalism that considers federalism in largely territorial terms. The coalitions are product of politics in a parliamentary democracy. The term as it is generally used in political science is a direct descendent of the exigencies of a multiparty system in a democratic set up. It is a phenomenon of a multi-party government where a number of minority parties join hands for the purpose of running the government, which is otherwise not possible in a democracy based on party system. A coalition is formed when many splinter groups in a hose condescend to come together on a common platform sinking their broad differences and thereby form a majority in the House. It is an astonishing chorus of discards. Though outwardly a coalition appears to be one solid mass, inwardly it is ridden by party foibles and frantic party fervours bickering and it is for this reason that coalitions prove to be ephemeral.

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