Stalin pushes for state autonomy — Why? Why now?

While the demand for state autonomy reflects apprehensions of the marginalisation of state governments, it is also a search for a new campaign narrative.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin’s decision to establish a high-level committee to review and recommend measures for safeguarding the state’s autonomy has sparked a national controversy.

Underlying the decision is Stalin’s claim that the Centre has been progressively encroaching on the rights of the state, thereby disrupting the constitutional balance.

The committee, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Kurian Joseph, will examine issues such as the shifting of subjects from the State List to the Concurrent List of the Constitution, education and health.

The formation of the committee comes against the background of apprehensions about the upcoming delimitation exercise. That could reduce Tamil Nadu’s representation in Parliament relative to the more populated north Indian states where family planning measures have been much less successful.

Tamil Nadu’s opposition to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for entry to medical colleges imposed by the Centre adds another layer to the charge of encroaching on the rights of the states. Tamil Nadu has traditionally used 12th-grade results. Besides questions about the integrity of the NEET examination in recent times, there are basic concerns about NEET favouring the already advantaged students who can afford expensive coaching, putting rural and other backward students at a disadvantage.

The Centre’s decision on NEET was made possible by the shift of education from its former allocation to the State List to the Concurrent List. This re-classification has also been used by the Centre to enforce its New Educational Policy (NEP).

The Narendra Modi government's NEP is seen by some of the southern states, especially Tamil Nadu, as a means of tightening central control over education, which they believe will tend to undermine diversity and regional identities.

The NEP’s three-language policy especially plays into this narrative. It is perceived by Tamil Nadu as a surreptitious attempt to introduce Hindi, which the state has resisted for decades. Tamil Nadu follows a two-language formula (Tamil and English).

Some may see Stalin’s move as the renewal of a debate about the balance of power between the Union and the state governments. Given that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the coalition at the Centre, has a strong preference for a unitary government, the debate may be long overdue.

Nevertheless, it was not the BJP that shifted subjects from the State List to the Concurrent List. The last shift occurred during the Emergency under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Her government brought in the 42nd Constitution Amendment Act of 1976, shifting five subjects — education, forests, protection of wild animals and birds, weights and measures, and administration of justice — from the State List to the Concurrent List.

The Supreme Court struck down some aspects of the 42nd Amendment, especially those that gave absolute power to Parliament to amend the Constitution without judicial scrutiny. However, the shifting of state subjects was left untouched. That division of competencies has remained dormant up to now.

What has given the issue new urgency is the Modi government’s reliance on the concurrent powers to centralise control. In education, for example it has coercively withheld Rs 2,152 crore funds allocated to Tamil Nadu because it refused to implement the NEP.

The demand for autonomy for the states has been virtually dead for over three decades, except in the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir. It existed, if at all, only in the obscure pages of party manifestos.

Perhaps this was because an era of coalition governments became the norm from the early 1990s, as no single party could get a majority to form a government at the Centre. Regional parties joined the governing alliance at the Centre and could not have agitated over state autonomy while they held positions in the Union government.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) which rules Tamil Nadu today, became a part of the Union government first under V P Singh (1989-1990) with one Union minister from its ranks. In the H D Devegowda government (1996-1997), the DMK had three Cabinet ministers and one minister of state. In the I K Gujral government (1997-1998), the DMK also had four ministers.

Its participation was immune to the political ideology of its alliance partners. The DMK joined the third Atal Bihari Vajpayee government (1999-1998) with three ministerial posts. Thereafter, it joined the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA-I) government of Manmohan Singh, where it had eight ministerships. Under the UPA-II the DMK bagged seven ministerial berths.

Another regional party which once swore by state autonomy was the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). It passed the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to that effect. Nevertheless, it has continued to be part of the Union government since the days of the Morarji Desai government, through the Vajpayee regime, to the successive governments of Narendra Modi.

When the regional parties were getting a slice of the central cake, there was little incentive to demand state autonomy. Moreover, by sharing the election platform with their major alliance partners, the Congress or the BJP, they had to keep the sensitivities of the two national parties in mind.

Now, with the Congress no longer powerful enough to lead the fight against the BJP, the regional parties that are not with the BJP need a new platform to call their own. Regional autonomy as an electoral platform has the right cachet.

The parties that call themselves regional are essentially family-run parties — whether it is the DMK in Tamil Nadu, the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, or even the SAD in Punjab. However, the voters expect political leaders to present a vision larger than the preservation of their family interests. Regional autonomy, which is an issue independently desirable in the scheme of the Constitution, offers itself as that larger political objective.

There is perhaps another reason why an autonomy platform suits election-going regional parties. The Tamil Nadu Assembly elections are due in April-May 2026. The traditional platform of freebies perfected by the Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu is no longer unique to them. Even the national parties have appropriated it in recent elections with spectacular success in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, and Delhi.

While it would, therefore, seem that the demand for state autonomy reflects apprehensions of the marginalisation of state governments, it is also a search for a new campaign narrative.

Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.