Inter-State Council can help bolster state-centre bond
Adefining feature of the eight-year rule of the Narendra Modi government is its often baffling adherence to secrecy while framing and implementing policies. From demonetisation to the Covid-19 lockdown to the farmers’ bill to the scrapping of Article 370, every major decision of the government was shrouded in mystery. The government has a brute majority in Parliament. It can steamroll the opposition and enforce its will if it so wishes. However, in a country of 130-crore people with cultural, geographical, regional and linguistic diversity, building a broader consensus is the abiding necessity of statecraft.
The unrelenting violence over the Agnipath proposal and the groundswell of anger in the past week are reminders of the need to have robust discussions with all stakeholders, however marginal they are. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin’s letter to the prime minister underscoring the need to strengthen and revive institutional mechanisms such as the Inter-State Council (ISC) for “effective and interactive communication” between the states and New Delhi is a timely wake-up call. The letter said that many bills affecting the rights and interests of the states are passed without proper opportunity being given to the opposition to debate the merits and voice the concern of the states.
States are not an adjunct of the Centre or mere administrative aides to implement the latter’s policies. They are independent and co-equal legal entities with autonomous powers and responsibilities. Though the ISC was established as a permanent body in 1990 by a Presidential order based on the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission, it met only 12 times since then; the last meeting was nearly five years ago.
The council was reconstituted last month with the mandate to create a strong institutional framework to promote cooperative federalism. During the Planning Commission-era in Indian polity, the National Development Council led by the PM, in which chief ministers of all states were members, offered a politico-administrative platform of the highest order to discuss, debate and decide issues. In the era of NITI Aayog, ISC is well-suited to perform that role. The BJP-led Centre can dismiss it at its own peril.