The argument for decentralisation in India often hits a wall when it encounters the "social justice critique". Rooted in India’s deep-seated hierarchies of caste, gender, and social exclusion, this perspective suggests that local society is inherently oppressive. Proponents argue that only robust national institutions — Parliament, the higher judiciary, and the All-India Services — possess the moral and legal authority to protect the marginalised.
This view found its most potent expression on November 4, 1948, when Dr BR Ambedkar introduced the Draft Constitution. Rejecting the romanticisation of "village republics," Ambedkar famously asked:
“What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism? I am glad that the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted the individual as its unit.”
However, 76 years into the Republic, the assumption that national institutions act as the sole enlightened correctives deserves a rigorous re-examination.
Long before Independence, pioneering affirmative action and inclusionary reforms were introduced by princely states and provincial governments. These were not mandates from a central authority but responses to regional social movements:
Kolhapur (1902): Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj introduced reservations in public employment for non-Brahmin and backward communities — one of the earliest such measures globally.
Mysore (1918–1921): Following the Miller Committee recommendations, reservations were institutionalised to break entrenched upper-caste administrative monopolies.
Madras Presidency (1921): The Justice Party’s Communal Government Orders formalised proportional representation in public services and education.
Travancore (1936): The Temple Entry Proclamation abolished caste-based exclusion from Hindu temples decades before national legislation followed suit.
These reforms were not imposed by a distant Centre. They arose from regional mobilisation, local social movements, and sub-national governments responding to lived realities.
In contrast, the Union often lagged behind — sometimes by decades. Although Article 16(4) of the Constitution permitted reservations for socially and educationally backward classes, OBC reservations in Union services were implemented only in 1992 following the Mandal reforms. Likewise, despite Article 15(4) being inserted in 1951, OBC reservations in Union educational institutions were introduced only in 2007. The Kaka Kalelkar Commission’s recommendations (1955) on OBC reservations were shelved, and the Mandal Commission’s report (1980) remained unimplemented for nearly a decade. Only when socially progressive States reshaped national politics did the Union finally act.
The historical pattern is clear: the States pioneered social reform; the Union was often a reluctant follower.
Supporters of centralisation invoke the United States, where federal authority abolished slavery and dismantled racial segregation. While instructive, this analogy requires careful qualification.
First, federal institutions in the US were not inherently progressive. The US Supreme Court itself upheld racial discrimination in Pace v. Alabama (1883) and entrenched segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Federal power did not automatically overcome entrenched prejudice.
Second, racial oppression in the United States was geographically concentrated, primarily in the southern states. Many northern and western states had already moved toward greater equality. National civil-rights legislation in the 1860s and 1960s became possible only after progressive regions gained influence within federal politics. Federal authority was the instrument, not the original source, of reform.
The analogy weakens when applied to India. In the US, discrimination was often embedded in state laws. In India, caste oppression is more deeply rooted in social practice — in villages, neighbourhoods, and everyday relations. A distant national authority cannot by itself dismantle such granular hierarchies.
Historical experience suggests that social reform travels outward from pioneering jurisdictions, not downward from national capitals. Slavery abolition began in northern states before national emancipation; civil rights norms consolidated locally before federal codification. Change moves centrifugally, not hierarchically.
The centralist model relies on a “saviour complex” — the idea that a benevolent Union will protect the weak. In this framework, the marginalised appear as beneficiaries of protection rather than as agents of political power. Yet enduring equality requires agency, not merely insulation.
Political theorist Anne Phillips, in The Politics of Presence (1995), argues that the physical presence of marginalised groups in decision-making bodies is superior to having their interests ‘represented’ by elites. Representation becomes meaningful when those affected by power participate directly in exercising it.
This insight was constitutionally operationalised through the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Constitutional Amendments (1992), which mandated reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and women in Panchayats and Municipalities. When a SC woman presides over a village panchayat, power is not mediated through a distant authority; it is exercised directly. Decentralisation attacks hierarchy at its roots rather than merely softening its consequences from afar.
Significantly, many States had already implemented such reservations in local bodies before 1992, reinforcing the consistent pattern of sub-national leadership in social reforms.
The centralist argument also assumes that the Union will always remain enlightened, liberal, and protective of minority rights. History offers no such guarantee. Political majorities shift; ideological capture is possible at any level. When power is highly concentrated and the Union itself turns exclusionary, marginalised groups are left with no refuge. Federalism mitigates this risk by ensuring multiple sites of democratic authority. Sub-national governments can act as institutional sanctuaries, preserving rights even when national politics become hostile.
In Dissenting by Deciding (2005), Heather Gerken notes that federalism allows national minorities to become governing majorities within sub-national jurisdictions. States function as "laboratories of democracy", providing institutional sanctuaries and alternative political visions even when national politics become hostile.
Ambedkar’s critique, properly understood, was directed at the village, not at the state. An Indian state is a large constitutional unit — often larger than many European countries — equipped with legislatures, High Courts, universities, and administrative machinery. It occupies a middle ground: large enough to resist local tyranny, yet close enough to social reality to design context-specific remedies.
Social justice requires local knowledge. The fulfilment of an egalitarian vision may not lie in a paternalist Union, but in a vibrant federal order where empowered states compete to expand dignity and opportunity for the oppressed.
To be concluded
The author is retired IAS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, former Vice-Chancellor of Indian Maritime University, Chennai, and Member, High-Level Committee on Union-State Relations constituted by the Government of Tamil Nadu