⦿ Ever since the making of the present Constitution of India discussions have taken place about its nature and controversies have arisen in the attempt at placing it under the one or the other of the time-worn categories of constitutions—Unitary and Federal.
⦿ The usual method of explaining the nature of a constitution or system of government is to put a label on it such as ‘rigid’ or ‘flexible,’ written’ or ‘unwritten’, ‘unitary’ or ‘federal’ by reference to the distinctive characteristics associated with these types in text-books on Political Science—which done, one feels a sense of self-complacency.
⦿ But un-fortunately this is oversimplifying the job, because although there are certain broad distinctions between these types, the line of demar-cation is not so sharp.
⦿ The reason is that in making constitutions the authors are guided more by considerations of expediency, by the con-juncture of circumstances in which the people for whom the constitu-tion is meant are placed, than by those of logical precision and ab-stract, a-priori principles of political theory.
⦿ These shape the con-tours of different constitutions. When finished we may attempt their classification with reference to the different type-forms, but within each such type endless variations and peculiarities are noticed to exist, so that any attempt to reduce constitutions of a particular ‘type such as unitary or federal to flat uniformity is bound to prove futile.
⦿ The conditions of no two peoples are exactly the same. It is qiiite possible’ for a constitution to share some features of opposed types.
⦿ It is against this background that we should try to answer the question that is often posed.
⦿Is the present Indian Constitution unitary or federal? It may be said at once that no categorical answer is possible to the question, But a detailed answer would require an examination of the nature of federalism and of the relevant features of the Indian Constitution and specially the scheme of distribution of powers between the general government and the regional govern-ments.
