Adeney, Katherine. "Does Ethnofederalism Explain the Success of Indian Federalism?". India Review, Vol.16, No.1 (2017): 125-148.

Adeney, Katherine. "Does Ethnofederalism Explain the Success of Indian Federalism?". India Review, Vol.16, No.1 (2017): 125-148.

• Although many post-colonial states had significant linguistic, ethnic, and regional diversity, India was one of the few countries to organize a federal system along these lines to give these different groups national homelands with a multinational federation (125).
• Scholars and policymakers are suspicious of ethno-federalism, seeing the creation of national homelands for ethnic groups as creating the conditions for later separatism and secession by undermining shared national narratives and giving regional elites additional resources to pursue independence (126, 128-129). Minorities within ethnic federal units also tend to be treated poorly, seen as not belonging to the territory of the new national homeland (129).
• Despite these fears, ethno-federations are fairly common, with Belgium, Bosnia, Canada, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Malaysia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Spain, and Switzerland have organized federal territories along ethnic lines (126-127).
• The author argues that, when done correctly, ethno-federalism can actually decrease rather than increase the salience of ethnic identities. While creating an ethnic federal unit certainly increases the resources of ethnic interest parties, it can also make that group feel more included in the nation, resulting in less public support for independence (130-131).
• Demands that India be reorganized into ethno-linguistic states existed during the British Raj, with Congress responding to these requests in 1920 by reorganizing its internal party structure along ethno-linguistic lines (131).
• Jawaharlal Nehru was himself opposed to the organization of ethnic states in India, believing that it would pave the way towards the dissolution of India. Pressure from within Congress forced him to concede to this demands in the 1950s and 1960s, however, as he created new states for defined linguistic groups (131).
• The new states created after 2000 were the result of other facets of Indian politics, especially ethnic and tribal conflicts. In other cases, especially the creation of Telangana in 2014, the new states were the result of historic neglect and marginalization of some areas (131).
• The narrative of India's successful ethno-federalism can be challenged by looking at the degree to which India has had to deploy military force to prevent separatism in many areas. Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and the Northeast states have all been reorganized on ethnic lines, but have still faced waves of intense violence against the Indian government (133).
• The author argues that these conflicts have actually been driven by the failure to implement ethno-federalism in many of these territories. None of the states of the Northeast have an ethnic majority, meaning that actual ethno-federalism has not been implemented in these territories. While Punjab was linguistically unified, its conflict stemmed from a failure to mollify Sikh nationalism, again representing a failure to implement ethno-federalism (134-135).
• A core element of preventing conflict within India has been actually including minority groups in government; without this additional step, additional federalism will no alleviate ethnic or separatist conflicts (138). Violence is particularly connected to the imposition of rule by the center on marginalized groups, often triggered by the invocation of president's rule or martial law (138-140).
• The key to the success of ethno-federations is thus having both devolution of power to ethnic federal units and the inclusion of minority groups in central government. Without this second factor, violence is likely to continue unabated (141-142).
• The central government also needs to take responsible to make sure that minorities are not oppressed within ethnic federal units, as this repression leads to further instability and violence. India has largely failed in this regard, choosing to ignore the repression of minorities by ethnic majorities in its states, lead to continued violence (142).
• When ethnic federal units are created, they should be as homogeneous as possible. Giving one ethnic group its own nominal state with large minority populations tends to pave the road to repression of minorities and future violence and instability (142-143).