Interview: How has Indian federalism has evolved under the BJP?

Why are debates over federalism and centralisation particularly relevant in India’s 2024 general elections? How have quotas for women representatives – which will soon be in place at the national level – altered Indian politics? What are the elements of India’s “techno-patrimonial welfarism”, which has been a key plank of the current government’s success? What do we now know about how misinformation is used by political players in India?

In the first interview of a election series in India in Transition , Rohan Venkat, consulting editor at the Centre for the Advanced Study of India, speaks to Louise Tillin, Professor of Politics at the India Institute, King’s College London, about her research on Indian federalism – including Tillin’s effort to push back against the idea that India is only “quasi-federal”, how economic considerations were a bigger factor in how India’s federal structure was designed, and how the last 10 years of centralisation have shifted our understanding of India’s federal underpinnings.

Rohan Venkat: Tell us about the broader questions that have animated your research over the years.

Louise Tillin: There are two main themes that have run through my work. The first is thinking about the territorial structures of the Indian state, and the second is thinking about the nature of social policy welfare,...

Read more