UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 67 of 150

Correct — D, K. C. Wheare. Sir Kenneth Clinton Wheare, the Australian constitutional scholar at Oxford, is the source of the label. In his classic study of federal government he judged the Indian Constitution to be at most 'quasi-federal' — in the formulation quoted in every Indian textbook, a unitary State with subsidiary federal features rather than a federal State with subsidiary unitary features. He was reading the centralising provisions: a single Constitution and single citizenship for the whole country, an integrated judiciary in which the High Courts and the Supreme Court form one hierarchy, All-India Services officered by the Union, Governors appointed by the Centre, Parliament's power to legislate on the State List under Articles 249 and 250, the emergency provisions, and above all Article 3, which lets Parliament alter a State's name, area or boundaries by ordinary law without that State's consent. On Wheare's own test — that in a genuine federation each level must be independent within its sphere and guaranteed its existence — a Union that can redraw or rename its units at will is not fully federal. Hence 'quasi-federal'.

• (a)Lord Bryce — James Bryce was one of the great nineteenth-century students of federal government — 'The American Commonwealth' and 'Studies in History and Jurisprudence' — and Indian writing on federalism borrows his framework. But he wrote long before the Indian Constitution existed and passed no verdict on it. Wrong era, not merely the wrong phrase.
• (b)Ivor Jennigs — Sir Ivor Jennings (the paper misprints the name) did write on the Indian Constitution and advised on constitution-making in South Asia, which is what makes him a plausible-looking option. He is usually quoted for a different criticism of the Indian Constitution — its sheer length and detail — and not for the classification 'quasi-federal'.
• (c)H. J. Laski — Harold J. Laski was a British political theorist at the London School of Economics, known for his pluralist and socialist writing on the nature of the State, notably 'A Grammar of Politics'. He influenced a generation of Indian students of politics, but the description of India's Constitution as quasi-federal is not his.

A federation, on the classical test, requires two levels of government, each supreme within a sphere allotted by a written and rigid constitution, with an independent judiciary to police the line. India has all of that on paper — a written Constitution, a division of subjects in the Seventh Schedule, bicameralism at the Centre and an independent judiciary — but it also has a set of provisions that let the Union override or reshape the States. That mixture is why the Constitution nowhere calls India 'federal': Article 1 says 'India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States'. Dr. Ambedkar explained the word in the Constituent Assembly as conveying that the Indian federation was not the result of an agreement among the units and that no unit has the right to secede from it.

Attribution questions like this reward keeping one label per scholar. Wheare is the one who measured India against the classical federal test and found it wanting — 'quasi-federal'. If you cannot recall the name, reason from the sentence itself: the phrase is a technical verdict from the comparative study of federal government, which points at the writer of the standard book on federal government rather than at a general political theorist such as Laski. Note too that 'quasi-federal' is a description by a scholar, not a constitutional term; the Supreme Court, for its part, has treated federalism as part of the basic structure of the Constitution.

• Sir Kenneth Clinton Wheare (1907–1979), Australian-born Oxford constitutional scholar, described the Indian Constitution as 'quasi-federal' — a unitary State with subsidiary federal features.
• Article 1 does not use the word 'federal': India is 'a Union of States'.
• Centralising provisions Wheare relied on: Article 3 (Parliament may alter State names, areas and boundaries without their consent), single citizenship, integrated judiciary, All-India Services, Articles 249 and 250, and the emergency provisions.
• Federal features that survive the test: a written and largely rigid Constitution, division of powers in the Seventh Schedule, bicameral Parliament with a Council of States, and an independent judiciary.
• Other standard labels for Indian federalism: Granville Austin's 'cooperative federalism' and W. H. Morris-Jones's 'bargaining federalism'.

• Attributing 'quasi-federal' to Dr. Ambedkar or to Granville Austin — Ambedkar's contribution is the explanation of 'Union of States', Austin's is 'cooperative federalism'.
• Assuming the Constitution itself calls India federal. It does not; Article 1 says 'Union of States'.
• Confusing Wheare's scholarly label with the Supreme Court's holding that federalism forms part of the basic structure of the Constitution.

UPPSC asks the attribution outright, or dresses it as an Assertion–Reason on why Indian federalism is called quasi-federal — it did exactly that in 2020; UPSC prefers the substantive angle, asking which provision is or is not a federal feature.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Article 1 of the Constitution of India describes India as

  • (a)a Federation of States
  • (b)a Union of States
  • (c)a Confederation of States
  • (d)a Quasi-federal State

  Answer(b) a Union of States — the Constitution never uses the word 'federal'; 'Union' was chosen to convey that the federation was not an agreement among the units and that no State may secede.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is a unitary, rather than a federal, feature of the Indian Constitution?

  • (a)A written Constitution
  • (b)Division of legislative subjects between the Union and the States
  • (c)Parliament's power to alter the area, boundaries or name of a State without its consent
  • (d)A bicameral Parliament

  Answer(c) Parliament's power to alter the area, boundaries or name of a State without its consent — Article 3, the provision most often cited to show that the States lack the guaranteed existence a true federation gives its units.