ABSTRACT
Before giving an overview on territorial autonomy in the Indian Union, it is useful to recall a suitable definition of territorial (in Europe also ‘regional’) autonomy as used in the present chapter:
Autonomy can be defined as a means of internal power-sharing aimed to preserve the cultural and ethnic variety, while respecting the unity of a state. It consists in permanently transferring a certain amount of powers suitable for those purposes to a certain territory, giving its population the possibility of self-government, and leaving only residual responsibilities to the central state. 1
