ABSTRACT
The instrumentality of Article 356 and its accompanying provisions have been responsible for toppling popular democratic governments in the states, for discontinuity of governance and for stirring up public outcry against it in India. This chapter argues that inasmuch as Article 356 was inspired by of the Government of India Act, 1935, which laid the basis for a “controlled democracy” the need of the center to intervene in the legitimate process of governance and government formation in the states has only increased of late with the changes in the Indian federal construct brought about by the neoliberal/globalized economy, the upsurge of dalit identity and the assertion of regionalism with the growth of lower caste parties in recent years. Rather than any aberration in the constitutional provision, it is clear that the majority of problems associated with the ignominious Article 356 are the product of competitive party politics and opportunistic power-grabbing practices of the ruling party in the center. It has now been statistically inferred that governors of a nonpartisan background have not been preferred by the center. Successive governments at the center have chosen some 52.3 percent of all governors in the time period from 1950 till 2015 from among candidates who have had an active political background, although the Sarkaria Commission had frowned upon such a practice. Out of this overwhelming percentage, 12.9 percent of all governors appointed had served as chief minister in the immediate past. It may be said that nowadays it is rare that governors are chosen on nonpartisan grounds. Therefore, it is no surprise that most of the governors have increasingly misused their constitutional role. This chapter includes the judicial cases involving the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, which are the most recent amplification of such misuse. In consonance with the idea that Article 356 is crucial for the misuse of the federal architecture in the Constitution and that the center is prone to do so in its current form (despite being watered down by vigilantism of the courts after the S. R. Bommai case, especially the Supreme Court, to a great extent), the chapter argues for reforms in the role of governor and in the provisions giving explicit dominance to the center’s will and intent, which urgently need to be watered down in the light of federal accommodation to escape from the ignominious implications of the provision under this article in future.
