There is a huge gap between what the 14th Finance Commission promised to States and what they have received
India is in the midst of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s decade of governance. The previous time one party dominated for nearly 10 years was four decades ago, when the Congress had brute majorities between 1980 and 1989. In that period, the tussle for the rights of States was focused on Article 356. Using pliant Governors, regional party governments were politically destabilised. There was lip service paid to the report of the Justice R.S. Sarkaria Commission on Centre-State relations, but its spirit was twisted.
History is repeating itself but much more cripplingly. The principal tool of combating State governments is no longer Article 356. Once more a well-meaning report, the report of the 14th Finance Commission, is being cited, but it is also being sabotaged step by step. And all this…
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