Maha Bharat: Episode 30

Why does India have Central, State and Concurrent Lists?

← See all episodes

You know how some things are under the state government’s control, some other things are under the central government’s control and then there are other things that both control in part? well, that is defined in the central, state and concurrent list of our constitution. And this has a very big impact on your daily life in many ways.

This episode tells you what these lists are and how they work, and most importantly, why you should care about them.

Show Notes

All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators

Links to clips used in this episode —

Full Transcript of Episode 30 –

Namashkar Doston, 

Every year, the months of March-April-May are usually a stressful time for students. Board Exams, entrance exams, interviews. Thanks to COVID-19, yeh pehli baar hua hoga, that the exam season is happening in September! 

Recently, two of the country’s biggest national exams were held – N-E-E-T and J-E-E. But friends, many students, who studied all year for these exams, were not able to give them.

[We hear the voice of a NEET student who missed his exam]

Recently, two of the country’s biggest national exams were held – N-E-E-T and J-E-E. But friends, many students, who studied all year for these exams, were not able to give them.

You heard the voice of a N-E-E-T aspirant from Uttar Pradesh, who wasn’t able to take the exam in Guwahati. He was taken to a quarantine centre in Guwahati when he reached. Just like him, students were unable to give N-E-E-T or J-E-E because they could not travel to the examination centres. 

And in a very unfortunate case, this happened:

[We hear a news report about the suicide of a NEET student]

The question a lot of people raised after these unfortunate incidents is: is there a way this could have been avoided?

The answer is yes. As experts and ministers have explained before as well, one way to avoid these situations through policy is to move education to the State list. 

In other words, if states had complete control over education, then they could provide better services like closer examination centres and a customized syllabus. But right now, this isn’t possible, because education is on the concurrent list. 

I know you might be wondering what these are. What I’m talking about is the State List, Central List and Concurrent Lists in our constitution. These three lists mention different subjects of governance, and whether the State of the Central government can make decisions on them.

And doston, what seems like a simple matter of lists actually affects parts of our daily lives in ways that you have probably never realized. And that’s what we’ll talk about today. 

The Central or the Union List, the State List, and the Concurrent List are defined in the seventh schedule of our Constitution. 

These lists consist of different subjects related to the governance of the country. They determine how power is divided between the Centre and state governments. 

The rules here are simple. The central government can make any laws on the subjects mentioned in the Union List. The State government makes laws on the subjects mentioned in the State list. The concurrent list, which is a matter of great debate, is a shared list between both the governments. Both central and state governments can make rules on the subjects in these lists.

What kind of subjects am I talking about?

For instance, the Union List includes subjects that are important and uniform for the whole country. Defence, atomic energy, currency, the constitution – a total of 98 subjects. The state list has 59 items. These are subjects that may differ from state to state; like police, public health, agriculture, markets. And the concurrent list subjects are important to both state and central governments — like, criminal law, marriage and divorce, education, economic planning and so on. It has 52 items. 

Together, these three lists cover most practical situations in our country. – every single subject you can think of. Even things like how movies should be screened, or the laws of fishing find a place in these lists.

And if there’s anything you can think of that is not a part of these three lists, then these subjects have a name too. They are called residual subjects, and the Parliament has the authority to make decisions about these subjects. 

Authority, doston, is an important word in our discussion today. Part Eleven of the Constitution talks about the Union-State relationships, and the authority that comes with these three lists. The state has the authority to make decisions on the state subjects. The Parliament has the authority to do the same on the union subjects. 

But it’s not always so simple. There are often situations, which are officially called “abnormal times”, when the Parliament has the authority to make decisions on even the State List subjects. Abnormal times include those rare situations where the Rajya Sabha passes a resolution saying the Parliament needs to make laws on a state subject, or during a national emergency. When it comes to international agreements of treaties, too, the Centre has power over the state subjects. 

Let me tell you about another such rule. 

The concurrent list consists of subjects over which both the State and the Centre can make laws, as we discussed. But in case there’s a contradiction in the laws made by the state and the centre, it is the centre that has the ultimate authority. If you read the Part Eleven of the constitution, you’ll see something called the Doctrine of Repugnancy (डॉक्ट्रीन ऑफ़ रीपगनॅन्सी) which you could translate to विरोध ke सिद्धांत. This clearly states that in the case of any conflict between the Centre and the State regarding the laws on the concurrent or state lists, the Centre has the last word (aakhri haq). 

This repugnancy, matlab virodh between the state and the central authorities, is not something that’s limited to an article in the constitution. In the course of governance, it often happens that the Central government ends up making laws on something that actually is in the State’s authority. In fact, a recent example is actually the Coronavirus lockdown. The subjects of Public Order and Public health come under the state list. So how did the Centre declare a national lockdown? Some legal experts wondered about the repugnancy here — but the Concurrent List also mentions the prevention of diseases. The centre can make laws on this subject, and thus, its authority overrides the state’s authority, in the case of any conflict. 

There’s one thing clear from all these examples, if you haven’t guessed already. The Centre, in  our country, is more powerful than the state. 

And this is the rule of the Indian Federal system. 

Doston, it is impossible to talk about the Three Lists of the Seventh Schedule without discussing Federalism. In fact, these three lists are nothing but a product of Indian Federalism. 

But what’s Federalism — and how does it give us the three lists?

If you studied in a state-board school, you might have noticed that your syllabus is different from your friend’s syllabus, who lives in another state. But, suppose you go visit your friend in a different state, and look at booking train tickets to come back. You will notice that the process to book your train tickets, the price of the tickets, the trains available — all of these will be the same as it was in your home state.

That’s because education is on the concurrent list. This allows different states to make different laws regarding syllabus and teaching methods. Iska simple matlab yeh hai, ki while the Central government has the power to make laws, governments at the state levels also have a certain amount of autonomy or freedom to act on their own. 

But Railways is on the union list — so every law and procedure related to Railways is the same all over the country. 

And that is Federalism.

If I were to tell you the proper definition, then Federalism is a political system, where powers are divided between the central and state governments. Both levels work with autonomy. 

Federalism is a system that is common in many other countries – the U.S., Canada, Australia, Brazil. Some of these countries are pure federations — matlab, the state and the centre remain separate and powerful. Take the U.S., for example. As an American citizen, you have dual citizenship – one of the countries, and one of the states you live in. And remember our doctrine of Repugnancy? The same doctrine in the U.S. says that if there’s a conflict in laws, the power lies with the individual states, not the centre. For instance, take marriage laws. In the U.S., every state decides laws related to marriage. This is why the minimum age of marriage is 18 in some states, and 21 in some others. If the central government enacts a law that changes the marriageable age and creates a conflict, then it’s the states who win. 

You’ll notice that this is not true for India. There’s a common minimum age of marriage across the country. And even if a state wants to change it, the Central Government can strike down this law — because Marriage is on the Concurrent List in India.

So, though a Federal nation, India is a little different from other countries. We’ll see how.

This is a country where the language, food, clothing — the entire culture of people varies from state to state. So it’s difficult to imagine that all laws can apply uniformly to all states, don’t you think? The idea that states should be independent, with their own power, is not new in India. Though the official system of Federalism actually developed in our country during the British Era, this method of ruling was used long before.

During the vedic period in India, there were tribal communities who lived in territories of their own. We can think of these as states. Though these tribal territories had their own autonomy, they were part of an empire, ruled by a king. The Mauryan and Mughal empires also followed this structure, where small provinces under Subedaars had their own rules and freedom. 

But the British thought they could do things differently. And how wrong they were!

Here’s what I mean. When the British empire first set up a system of governance through the Charter Act of 1833, they were confident that they could rule over the country with one centre of power. This centre was the Governor General of India. The most important states — Bombay, Madras and Bengal—were under him. But they soon realized that all of India cannot be governed from a single place. The British even went on to say that the south of India differs from the North, as much as France differs from Germany! The British failed to understand us, and the result of this was evident soon: 

[We hear a clip about the Revolt of 1857]

This was the Revolt of 1857. After this, the British returned some autonomy to the states of Madras, Bombay and Bengal. 

In 1919, the Government of India Act introduced two lists — one list of reserved subjects and another of transferred subjects. And this was the first time that Federalism, and the concept of division of power, was put on paper. The Reserved Subjects included Law and Order, Police, Land Revenue — only the Governor General had authority over these. The Transferred Subjects included agriculture, education and health – these were open to the ministries at the state level. You probably noticed a few subjects from the State and Union lists of today. You could even say that this is where the subjects of our lists come from. A few years later, when the Government of India Act was passed in 1935, three lists were introduced: The Federal List, The Provincial list and Concurrent list. They were really similar to the lists we know today. 

But, doston, remember how I said India is different from other countries that call themselves a Federation? This difference was added into the constitution itself. Hua yeh tha, that Federalism as a political structure was accepted by most leaders and members of the constituent assembly. So it was only natural that in the constitution, India would be called a “Federation of States”. 

But Dr. Ambedkar opposed this. He said that ultimately, India is a union. Though the country and the people are divided into states for administration, ultimately, they live in a single country. So India is a federation, but it is a federation with a strong centre. But in the constitution, India would be referred to — not as a federation — but as a “Union of States”.

Our discussion today isn’t simply about which topic is on what list. It is, in fact, about the nature of the relationship between the state and the centre, and how these lists have upheld this relationship for many years. 

Yeh centre-state relationship ka jo funda hai, this has been on our mind for a long time. In 1967, Karunanidhi’s government in Tamil Nadu supported state autonomy under the Federal structure in India. It set up the Rajamannar (राजमन्नार)committee, to look into centre-state relations. This committee submitted a report saying that the government should consider “redistribution of subjects” in the union and concurrent lists. Matlab yeh hai ki, more subjects should be moved from the union list to the state list, thereby giving states more autonomy. 

Coming back to where we started today, education was originally on the State List. In 1976, the 42nd Amendment to the constitution included a shift of 5 subjects from the State List to the Concurrent List: Education, Forests, Weights and Measurements, Protection of Wild Animals and Birds and Administration of Justice.

This is what we talked about in the very beginning of this episode, too: the power states have over decisions related to Education. The argument here is that moving education back from the concurrent to the State list would give more students access to education. An entrance exam like N-E-E-T which is an entrance test for medical college seats in many government and some private colleges all across India, has a single syllabus, which may not be taught in schools of all states. Students have to prepare for this exam by themselves.

But since education is on the concurrent list, the states do not have the authority to go against N-E-E-T and set up their own entrance exams. What I mean is, because education is not on the State list, the states do not have enough power to make positive changes to improve education. 

So, what’s the argument for State Autonomy? Should more subjects really be moved to the State list – and will this ever happen? 

Perhaps we can answer this question with this example. 

On 2nd June, 2014, you may remember when this happened:

[We hear a news clipping about the formation of Telengana]

Telegana, a new state, was carved out of Andhra Pradesh.

Doston, the power to make new states or reorganize existing states, lies solely in the hands of the parliament. Even though this seems like something that the states should have a say in, this is not the case. However, as a tradition, the Parliament has always taken consent of the states while reorganizing their borders.

Until 2014, that is. When the Telangana Reorganization bill was passed in the Parliament, this was against the consent of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly. But what could the state do? In this situation, the Centre had 100% power. 

Many experts have said that these decisions in a Federal structure increases Centralization — matlab more power at the centre. This weakens the autonomy of the state. The same weakening of a state can be seen in the case of Jammu & Kashmir — which is now a union territory. Experts who argue for more state autonomy argue that states should at least have a say in reorganization of their boundaries or status. This can be done if this subject is moved to the State List. 

State Autonomy and a demand for more power at the state level has been supported by several Chief Ministers, such as Ashok Chavan, Omar Abdullah and Shivraj Singh Chauhan. The point that these ministers make is, because of the limitation of subjects in the state list, the state governments are not able to bring about systemic changes. Think about it. When there’s an issue with – say, electricity, healthcare, schools or colleges, or development in our cities, who do we think about first? The local or the state governments. When you compare the autonomy our states have with those in other Federal countries, you will realize that it is, in fact, marginal. In the Federal Countries of Europe, the states even have different electoral procedures!

This question – of whether states should have more power – has even come up in courts. And it is in courts that we find our answer, too.

In several legal battles, the court has declared that India is not a Federal State in the traditional sense. This was clear in the Supreme Court Judgment of Pradeep Jain Vs. Union of India in 1984, which dealt with reservation of Medical seats. The Supreme Court also interpreted the word ‘Federalism’ in the constitution in a judgment of the case of Ganga Ram Moolchandani vs State Of Rajasthan in 2001. It said that even though India adopts the features of Federalism—such as the three lists, judiciary and a Parliament with two houses—the states are united as a nation. 

These Supreme Court rulings put a limit to State Autonomy. This makes it clear that while we do have a Federal Structure, the Centre will always have more power. And that’s why, the Central List will always be longer than the State List. 

Sometimes it is the most unprecedented (andekhi) situations that test the government. And this year, the COVID-19 Pandemic has done this for countries around the world. The Pandemic has tested the governments’ healthcare system, economic planning, and scientific temper.

But one thing that we probably didn’t notice is that it also tested the government’s ability to make use of the Federal Structure of our country. 

I know what you’re thinking – where does Federalism figure into a pandemic? 

The truth is, the COVID-19 pandemic has made changes directly and indirectly in so many sectors of our country. In this situation, the government really needs to step up. A report explained how the government used the Federal Structure to respond to this disaster. For instance, the Prevention of diseases is an item on the Concurrent List. The government called for a national lockdown all over the country, regardless of opposition from any states. In May, the government announced a series of relief measures for several industries, including banking — which is a topic on the Union List. It also allowed for interest on loans to be delayed. It could stop travel across states through airlines or railways, because transport is also on the Union List. 

Whether these policies have been useful in fighting the coronavirus battle is a question for another day. But doston, the truth is that if the Federal system of India was different, and these subjects would not have been on the Union list, the government would not have been able to make uniform laws for the country. Different states would have made different laws — and in a country like ours, you can imagine that this would have caused considerable confusion and chaos. 

To answer the question we’ve asked today, the Central, State and Concurrent Lists are products of Indian Federalism. They present a systematic division of power between the State and the Central Government, with a clear message about who has more power. 

With so many subjects on these lists, conflicts between the state and the central government are bound to happen. But as you might know, our constitution is a living constitution. This means that the government can make amendments to parts of it. India’s Federalism is also a living concept: with time, subjects from one list have been shifted to another, and vice versa. I’d suggest you keep an eye out for the subjects on this list — because as we found out today, three simple lists have the power to bring many changes in our country.

That’s all from me today, folks! I hope we were able to answer our question and learn something new today. I’ll be back with another question for you next week, in a brand new episode of Maha Bharat!

Credits

Narrated by – Dhruv Rathee
Producer – Gaurav Vaz
Written by – Anushka Mukherjee and Gaurav Vaz
Edited by – Medha V
Title Track Design – Abhijith Nath
Audio Production – Madhav Ayachit