At a glance
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EditorialsFederalismNational SecuritySeventh ScheduleArticle 355Article 356Central ForcesCooperative Federalism
India's Constitution makes policing and public order a State responsibility, yet many of its gravest security threats, terrorism, insurgency, organised crime, cross-border infiltration, are national in scope and cross State lines. How does a federal union secure itself when the front-line power lies with the States but the threat and the resources lie with the Centre?
- The Seventh Schedule divides the subjects. Public order (List II, Entry 1) and police (Entry 2) are State subjects. On the Union side, defence (List I, Entry 1) and the armed forces (Entry 2), the deployment of Union armed forces in a State in aid of the civil power (Entry 2A, inserted by the 42nd Amendment, 1976), the CAPFs, and matters such as preventive detention connected with defence and foreign affairs (Entry 9) sit with the Union. Criminal law and criminal procedure are in the Concurrent List.
- Art 355 places a duty on the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance. Art 356 allows President's Rule where the State government cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution, but the S R Bommai (1994) judgment made this power judicially reviewable and constrained its misuse.
- The Union deploys the Central Armed Police Forces in a State on the principle of aid to the civil power, usually at the State's request or with its concurrence, since public order remains a State subject.
- National coordination bodies: the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) under the Intelligence Bureau for intelligence sharing, NATGRID for networked databases, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for terror cases (the NIA Act, 2008, amended 2019 to widen its jurisdiction), and the NCRB for crime data. Federal friction sometimes surfaces when States resist central agency jurisdiction (for example, withdrawal of the "general consent" to the CBI by some States).
- Institutions of cooperative federalism in this space include the Inter-State Council (Art 263), the zonal councils, and periodic Chief Ministers' and DGPs' conferences on internal security.
For a stronger central hand
- Trans-border and trans-State threats cannot be defeated by States acting alone; intelligence, central forces and a national investigation agency provide the scale, coordination and continuity that no single State can.
- During insurgency and terrorism, States are often overwhelmed; the Union's Art 355 duty and its central forces are the backstop that holds the country together.
For protecting State autonomy
- Policing by consent requires local knowledge, local language and local trust; the State police, not a central force seen as an outside presence, is best placed to build that.
- Over-centralisation, the routine use of central agencies, the easy resort to President's Rule, or the imposition of central forces against a State's wishes, strains the federal compact and can be perceived as partisan, eroding the cooperation security depends on.
The workable model is cooperative security federalism: the Centre supplies the strategic backbone (intelligence grids, central forces, a national investigation capacity, funding for modernisation) while respecting that the front line is, and should remain, the State police. Strengthen real intelligence sharing through MAC and NATGRID; use central agencies and forces with State concurrence wherever possible; revive the Inter-State Council and zonal councils as genuine forums; tie central modernisation funds to police-reform conditions; and reserve Art 356 for the genuine constitutional breakdown the Bommai judgment intended. National security is a joint product of the Union and the States, not a contest between them.
India's security architecture rests on a paradox: the threats are national, but the front line is the State constable. A union secures itself not by hollowing out the States but by binding them into a common purpose, supplying the scale they lack while honouring the local trust only they can command.
Thesis to adapt: National security in a federal democracy is a shared enterprise; the goal is a Centre strong enough to coordinate and States empowered enough to police by consent.