India Is a Union of States Under Article 1 Because Ambedkar's Drafting Committee Wanted No State to Have a Right to Secede, and Parliament Can Redraw Any State by Ordinary Law

Article 1 of the Constitution says “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”, and the word Union was chosen on purpose. B. R. Ambedkar, who chaired the Drafting Committee, told the Constituent Assembly on 4 November 1948 that “The Federation is a Union because it is indestructible.”

The Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950. Its First Schedule now lists 28 States, and many entries define a State by naming the Act of Parliament that fixed its territory. Telangana’s entry, for example, points to section 3 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.

Why the drafters wrote “Union” and not “Federation”

Critics had asked for the words “Federation of States”. Ambedkar answered that South Africa, a unitary state, is called a Union, and so is Canada, which is a federation, so the word does no violence to usage. The choice, he said, was deliberate. The Drafting Committee wanted to make clear that the Federation was not the result of an agreement among States to join, and that, because it was not, no State has the right to secede.

He added that the country may be divided into States for convenience of administration but is one whole, with a single people living under a single authority. He pointed to the American Civil War, which the United States fought to settle the same question.

The same speech called the Constitution federal. Ambedkar described a dual polity, meaning two levels of government, the Union at the centre and the States, each holding sovereign powers in the field the Constitution assigns to it. The States, he said, are neither a league nor administrative agencies of the Union.

The Assembly tested the wording on 15 November 1948. Members moved to replace “States” with “Pradesh” and with “Provinces”, and to insert “Federal” before “Union”. All of those amendments were negatived. Lakshmi Kanta Maitra argued that “State” suggests sovereignty and warned that units might one day claim they had been sovereign. Kengal Hanumanthaiya replied that “State” was convenient and suited a legal text.

What Articles 2 to 4 let Parliament do

Article 2 lets Parliament “admit into the Union, or establish, new States on such terms and conditions as it thinks fit.” Article 3 lets it form a new State by separating territory from a State or by joining States or parts of States. It can also increase or reduce a State’s area, alter its boundaries and alter its name. In Article 3 the word “State” includes a Union territory, except in the proviso.

One condition applies. A Bill under Article 3 cannot be introduced in either House except on the President’s recommendation. Where it affects a State’s area, boundaries or name, the President must first refer it to that State’s legislature, for its views within a stated period that the President may extend.

Article 4(2) says that such a law is not an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368. The special procedure described in our explainer on amendments, which for federal changes includes ratification by the state legislatures, does not apply.

The proviso asks for views, not consent. In Babulal Parate v State of Bombay (1960) a five-judge bench held that nothing in the proviso requires Parliament to accept the State legislature’s views, and observed that “two State Legislatures may express totally divergent views.” The 2023 Supreme Court judgment quotes that passage.

The Supreme Court’s 2023 judgment also explains why the Assembly wrote it this way. In 1950 the units were Part A, B and C States, with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands alone in Part D, a classification that mirrored the colonial one and was not meant to last. The States Reorganisation Commission reported in 1955 that the old boundaries were “grounded in imperial interests or the exigencies of a foreign government.” The Seventh Amendment and the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 then replaced the categories with States and Union territories. How the princely states got into those categories is told in our piece on Sardar Patel and the princely states.

Three states in November 2000 and a rename in 2007

Parliament passed three Reorganisation Acts in 2000, and the Centre fixed each appointed day by notification. Chhattisgarh came into being on 1 November 2000 from 16 districts of Madhya Pradesh, under notification S.O. 827(E) of 14 September. Uttaranchal followed on 9 November from 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh, under S.O. 950(E) of 20 October. Jharkhand began on 15 November from 18 districts of Bihar, under S.O. 829(E) of 14 September.

Each Act also divided the House of the People seats. Madhya Pradesh kept 29 and Chhattisgarh took 11. Uttar Pradesh kept 80 and Uttaranchal took 5. Bihar kept 40 and Jharkhand took 14.

Article 3 also covers names. The Uttaranchal (Alteration of Name) Act, 2006, dated 21 December 2006, provided that the State “shall be known as the State of Uttarakhand”. It came into force on 1 January 2007, by notification GSR 779(E) of 29 December 2006.

Telangana in 2014, after the Andhra Pradesh Assembly said no

The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 formed Telangana from ten districts of Andhra Pradesh: Adilabad, Karimnagar, Medak, Nizamabad, Warangal, Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar, Khammam and Hyderabad. According to PRS Legislative Research, the Lok Sabha passed the Bill on 18 February 2014 and the Rajya Sabha on 20 February. The Centre notified 2 June 2014 as the appointed day, by S.O. 655(E) of 4 March.

The Act made Hyderabad the common capital of both States for a period not exceeding ten years. The High Court at Hyderabad serves both until Andhra Pradesh sets up its own, and the Governor of the existing State acts for both States for a period the President decides. Lok Sabha seats were split 25 and 17 between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and Assembly seats were fixed at 175 and 119.

The proviso’s consultation step was carried out. The President referred the Bill to the Andhra Pradesh legislature, and on 30 January 2014 its Assembly rejected it by voice vote and asked the President not to recommend it for introduction. The Tribune reported that the Centre was not bound by the Assembly’s views, because the Bill had been referred under Article 3 to seek views and not to be voted on. Parliament proceeded.

Where Article 1 meets the courts: Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir and the 2023 ruling

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act came into force on 31 October 2019. The State was divided into the Union territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir, and the State was under a Proclamation under Article 356 at the time, so Parliament exercised the powers of its legislature. The Article 356 procedure has its own explainer.

On 11 December 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench held that the legislature’s views under the first proviso to Article 3 are recommendatory. It upheld Ladakh’s status as a Union territory, because Article 3(a) read with Explanation I allows a Union territory to be formed by separating territory from a State. It left open whether Parliament may turn a State into one or more Union territories. The Solicitor General had told the Court that statehood would be restored, and the Court directed that “Restoration of statehood shall take place at the earliest and as soon as possible”, with Assembly elections by 30 September 2024.

The petitioners had argued that the phrase “indestructible Union of destructible States” means States can be reorganised but not extinguished. The Court did not rule on that argument. It did write that Article 1(1) shows the States to be “essential and indispensable to the constitutional structure of the country”, and that “The Union cannot exist without the existence of the States.”

The same judgment records that the Union’s indestructibility is subject to the sovereign power to acquire or cede territory, as recognised in the 1960 Berubari reference, which dealt with handing territory to another country.

How the arrangement differs from the American one

Ambedkar named the differences himself in 1948. The United States has dual citizenship, national and state, and India has one. American States may write their own constitutions, whereas he said that no State, at least in Part I of the draft’s First Schedule, had a right to frame its own, and that the Constitution of the Union and the States is “a single frame”. The United States has separate federal and state court systems, and India has one integrated judiciary, with the High Courts and the Supreme Court forming a single hierarchy. He also proposed a common All-India civil service, to keep administration uniform. The single citizenship is explained in our piece on Indian citizenship.

Two further differences concern territory and emergencies. The American Constitution, Article IV, Section 3, says no State may be formed within another State, or by joining States or parts of States, without the consent of the legislatures concerned as well as Congress. In India the equivalent step needs only the State legislature’s views. And Ambedkar said that, once the President proclaimed an emergency, the Union could legislate on any State subject and direct the States, so that “the State becomes a unitary state”, a power he said no other federation possesses.

He added that amendments touching the division of legislative powers, the States’ representation in Parliament or the powers of the courts need ratification by the States as well, a safeguard the Constitution does not extend to its other articles.

Federal, quasi-federal or both: what the Assembly and the judges said

On 25 November 1949 Ambedkar answered the complaint that the States had been “reduced to Municipalities”. The basic principle of federalism, he said, is that legislative and executive authority is partitioned between the Centre and the States by the Constitution itself and not by any law made by the Centre. “The States under our Constitution are in no way dependent upon the Centre for their legislative or executive authority.” He conceded that the Constitution gives the Centre a larger field and the residuary powers, and said neither feature is the essence of federalism.

Nine judges of the Supreme Court took up the question on 11 March 1994 in S.R. Bommai v Union of India. Justice A. M. Ahmadi quoted the scholar K. C. Wheare’s doubt whether India is strictly and fully federal. He listed features that have led experts to question the label: the absence of the words “federal” and “federation” from the text, Parliament’s powers under Articles 2 and 3, the emergency powers, the single citizenship and the integrated judiciary. “Quasi-federal”, he wrote, is the better description, a mixture of federal and unitary elements leaning towards the latter. He added that “what is there in a name” mattered less than what the provisions do.

Justice P. B. Sawant wrote that Article 1 makes the States “constitutionally recognised units and not mere convenient administrative divisions”, and that they are “neither satellites nor agents of the Centre”. He cited the jurist H. M. Seervai’s view that the federal principle is dominant. Justice K. Ramaswamy held that federalism is a basic feature, that the Union is permanent and indestructible within the limits of Article 1, and that a State has no right to secede. In 2023 the Court summarised the position as a set-up “described as quasi-federal, asymmetric federalism or cooperative federalism.”

Two commissions, one council

The Government of India set up the Commission on Centre-State Relations on 9 June 1983 under Justice R. S. Sarkaria, a retired Supreme Court judge. Its 1988 report made 247 recommendations, including a permanent Inter-State Council under Article 263 of the Constitution. The Government accepted that one and notified the Council by Presidential notification dated 28 May 1990. The Prime Minister chairs it, and its members are the Chief Ministers of the States and of Union territories with legislatures, plus six Union Cabinet ministers.

A second commission followed on 27 April 2007, under Justice M. M. Punchhi, a retired Chief Justice of India. It reported on 31 March 2010 with 273 recommendations. The Inter-State Council’s Standing Committee, chaired by the Union Home Minister, completed its deliberations on all 273 at its 13th meeting on 25 May 2018, and the Press Information Bureau reported that its recommendations would go to the Inter-State Council for decision.