Is federalism in India in danger?

The sequence of events regarding the arrest of BJP leader Tajinder Singh Bagga by a police team from AAP-ruled Punjab, followed by their attempt being foiled en route by Haryana Police acting in tandem with Delhi Police (both reporting under BJP governments) is a cause for serious concern regarding the future of federalism in India.

Similarly, there have been questions regarding the due process of law in incidents from Disha Ravi’s arrest in Bengaluru in 2021 to Jignesh Mevani’s arrest in Gujarat last month have made us wonder about the enforceability of established legal norms.

Of course, the legal issues will be decided by courts (as they have been done previously) while such aberrations may occur more frequently than before-- because the political masters cannot overcome the itch to use police at their command to settle political scores.

But even as the country's attention was riveted on the Bagga episode, another event that raises hopes of cooperative federalism appears to have gone unreported.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has triggered a political storm of sorts by sending his Chief Secretary V P Joy to Gujarat to study the techniques of governance in Gujarat, particularly Chief Minister’s e-governance "dashboard system."

Vijayan's decision to send the Kerala Chief Secretary to study the dashboard system showed that he is willing to cross his party's ideological barrier to realise the merits of the Gujarat model.

We do not know whether he was prompted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to study the Gujarat model--because the two leaders are known to have the best working relationship.

But the controversy created by Vijayan's decision has put the CPI(M) on the defensive. Since Vijayan is undergoing treatment in Minnesota, US, the Marxist leaders have come in support of him.

The "Gujarat CM Dashboard" was developed in 2019 under former CM Vijay Rupani as Modi believes in the use of technology for faster delivery of services.

It is now considered an e-governance marvel with 3,400 indicators of 20 government sectors, 740 web services and APIs and integration of 183 "eGov" applications.

Many chief ministers find it is a highly effective system to monitor the implementation of different projects and allows a CM to access data from all e-Governance applications and monitor the same against defined key performance indicators.

It collects more than 3000 indicators of 20 government sectors from various e-Governance applications on a daily basis and integrates all the key stakeholders on a single platform, which facilitates easy problem-solving.

Interestingly, Kerala Chief Secretary's visit to Gujarat comes in the backdrop of a claim by the AAP government in Delhi that senior officials from Kerala had visited its schools in Delhi to study the ‘Delhi Model of Education.’

However, Kerala Education Minister V Sivankutty has had to publicly counter the claim of AAP, which was made by its MLA Atishi Marlena. She had shared a few pictures of some ‘officials’ visiting from Kerala to study the education model of Delhi.

Finally, Sivankutty declared that the Kerala government had not sent any delegation to Delhi to study the education model of Delhi. He claimed, however, that some officials from Delhi had visited Kerala last month to study the ‘Kerala model’, and all assistance was provided to them.

But, after his Gujarat visit, Kerala Chief Secretary called the dashboard a “first-of-its-kind initiative” and said that it effectively monitored the delivery of public services and gave feedback directly from beneficiaries. Praising the system, he believed the Chief Minister can monitor the implementation of various schemes and basic services such as State transport, street lights and drinking water supply in any part of the State. Joy was also quoted as saying that he was keen on setting up in Kerala a centre similar to the Vidya Samiksha Kendra (Command and Control Centre for Schools) in Gujarat.

This does not mean that Kerala is lagging behind in IT-enabled governance. At present, the State has statistics to monitor the timely delivery of 471 dashboards in 38 departments connected to 53 websites. Many of these are even worth emulating by other states. For instance, Kerala’s COVID-19 dashboard was adopted by many States in India.

What is important to note is that Vijayan, like Modi, believes in the concept of adopting best practices of other states in Kerala --without being hamstrung by ideological baggage.

For reasons of realpolitik, Kerala Chief Minister and his party have often been critical of anyone praising the Gujarat model. In 2013, the CPI(M) had demanded the expulsion of the then Labour Minister in the Congress-led UDF government, Shibu Baby John, who had visited Gujarat for half a day to learn more about its skill development programme. Though the Kerala Congress Minister later declared that Gujarat’s skill development model was inappropriate for Kerala, the CPI(M) refused to back down on its demand.

In 2009, when a CPI(M) MP, A. P. Abdullakutty, spoke highly of Modi who was then Gujarat CM, he was expelled from the party. He then joined the Congress and was elected MLA twice, but was ousted from the Congress for the same reason --for praising Modi. Abdullakutty is now the national vice president of the BJP.

Against this background, Vijayan’s desire to learn new trends in governance from a BJP-ruled State may have turned eyebrows in Kerala by surprise but is a good example of "cooperative federalism."

Of course, the Opposition parties, led by the Congress, in Kerala cannot spare the CPI(M) for what they call its "double standards."

On the other hand, the BJP too may be very happy with Vijayan.  Since 2016 when he came to power, he has had a good rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite their political differences.

Overall, one will have to appreciate Vijayan’s willingness to risk some political capital for sake of better governance in Kerala.

He is no doubt a hardcore Marxist. As one of the longest-serving Kerala CM, he is into his second term in office. He is always ready to adopt more advanced administrative techniques even if these are from a State ruled by an ideologically different regime.

This may be the real federalism. Gujarat has reasons to feel proud. So does Kerala if it can understand Vijayan who wants to make a mark in his record of governance.