Researchers maintain that the nature of the federal covenant or agreement is such that it is based on trust, and if otherwise (based on force), the federation will collapse or disintegrate at some later stage (Riker, 1964 and King, 1982). Nonetheless, there are federations which came into being without any clear covenant or contract amongst the constituent units. Sometimes constituent units were not consulted, but annexed to federations, allegedly through the use of force or intimidation by the leading groups. Here, the best example is Pakistan, where Balochistan was annexed to the Pakistani federation in 1948, and since then, Balochistan has been striving to get either more autonomy or separation from the Pakistani federation. India and Switzerland are other relevant examples. In the
former case, not all of the 555 princely states were ready to join willingly the Indian federation, and in the latter case, the union was based entirely upon the military defeat of the Catholic (Sonderbund) cantons by the Protestant cantons in 1847 (King, 1982: 88-89 & 97). So, it can be seen that every federation has its own particular circumstances of emergence and the contract is not an essential part or characteristic of all federations. It can be argued that instead of covenant, the level of democratization, distribution of powers and resources (amongst the constituent regions and units) play an important role in keeping intact the federal polity (Sarita, 2009; He, Adeney, Kymlicka in He et al, 2007; and Pal & Aggarwal, 2010). We can find examples of successful and unsuccessful federations on the basis of democratization. In this regard, the USA, Canada, India, Belgium and others are the successful stories while Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Pakistan are the unsuccessful ones (Stepan, 1999:19- 34 and Kincaid, 2002).
If we look at Pakistan and India, they emerged as independent sovereign states after the departure of the colonial masters from British India in 1947. Both adopted federalism without any clear-cut covenant amongst their respective dissimilar and diverse populations. However, Pakistan failed to hold its territory and population together under the federal setup, while India remained successful and still works as a federal union comprising 28 units/provinces and 7 union territories. This is because the former remained undemocratic and often ruled by the military junta.15 In contrast, India earned for itself the title of being the world’s biggest democracy. India did not see any military coup. The Indian constitution under Articles 2-3 also empowered the parliament to form a new
15
Pakistan has experienced four eras of martial laws: (a) General Ayub Khan’s era 1958-1962, (b) General Yahya Khan’s era 1969-1971, (c) General Zia-u-Haq’s era 1977-1988, and (d) General Pervez Musharraf’s era 1999-2008.
state/unit/province whenever it thinks fit to avoid dissent. As King (1982: 88) states that federations, by nature, are democratic and non-absolutist (for which he uses the term constitutional). In his view, those federations where the voting population of the constituent regions remained dramatically unequal in size are undemocratic. And, if we look at the structural composition of the Pakistani federation either before 1971 or after 1971, it falls into the undemocratic category because its constituent regions and the population residing in each region was, and is, of an unequal size. Presently, the state of Pakistan has four constituent regions and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and one of the provinces, the Punjab, constitutes a majority of the population (56%) in comparison to the rest of three constituent regions together. This is despite Balochistan being more than 45% of the total land area of Pakistan with having 5% of the total population, mostly rural, and the density of population per square kilometre is the lowest. It has no say in the central parliament due to its lesser number of representations. The following table illustrates the imbalances in Pakistan’s federal structure.
It can be argued that the balance of population, territory, and representation of the units in the central institutions play an important role in the success of federalism. Though, in case of Pakistan and with special reference to Balochistan, the story is quite different. The share of Balochistan in the upper and lower house of the parliament is very meagre. Therefore, owing to such a minor share in the parliement (which is the national decision making body), the Baloch have no say in the affairs of the country.
Further, many researchers also state that a federal agreement is permanent, and not temporary like that of unions and leagues or alliances where a member can withdraw unilaterally; under a federation, unilateral withdrawal is considered not just as a breach of the agreement, but as treason (Freeman, 1893; Wheare, 1946; Dikshit, 1971; and King, 1982). According to King (1982: 109), once a covenant is agreed upon amongst the members, than no state or Lander or province or whatsoever can opt for independence or secession because unilateral withdrawal
is treason, except in cases of civil wars. Here, the best examples are Pakistan and Malaysia. In the former case, Bangladesh became an independent country and seceded from Pakistan after a bloody civil war, while in the latter case, Singapore was excluded in order to avoid a bloody race war (King, 1982: 108-109). For King, there is no federal setup anywhere in the world that allows the constituent regions(s) to opt for separation, except the former USSR.16 Under the Soviet constitution of 1977, the USSR formally reserved the right of secession for every Union Republic under article 71, but this right was only granted in theory, in practice, secession was impossible due to the existence of the predominant power of the communist party and a highly centralized federal structure where ultimate decisions were always taken by the central government. Moreover, besides the political and economic factors, the USSR itself collapsed when the party’s grip became weak and the republics started seceding (Goldman, 1997; Filipov et al, 2004; Gaidar, 2007; and Weiss & McFaul, 2009).
On the formation of federations, Stepan (1999:19-34) uses the words ‘holding together’ and ‘putting together’ for those federations which are not founded on any contract. He states that B.R.Ambedkar, the chairman of the Indian constitutional committee, while presenting the draft constitution before the constituent assembly said that “it was designed to maintain the unity of India....in short, to hold together.” Thus, the Indian federation was created through an act of the constituent assembly to keep a diverse society united. The Indian states were
16
However, the Ethiopian constitution under article 39 also allows that every nation, nationality or people have the unrestricted right to self-determination up to secession. Nonetheless, this right under article 39 is subject to clause 4 and its sub-sections a, b, c, d, and e. The sub-section states that “a) [w]hen a demand for secession has been approved by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Legislative Council of the Nation, Nationality or People concerned; b) [w]hen the Federal Government has organized a referendum which must take place within three years from the time it received the concerned council’s decision for secession; c) [w]hen the demand for secession is supported by a majority vote in the referendum; d) [w]hen the Federal Government will have transferred its powers to the council of the Nation, Nationality or People who has voted to secede; and e) [w]hen the division of assets is effected in a manner prescribed by law.”
not consulted, so there was no agreement at all.17 Spain and Belgium are also examples of holding together federation. By ‘putting together’, Stepan implies a heavily coercive effort by some non-democratic centralizing power to put together a multi-national or multi-ethnic state where previously some of the components have been independent states or territories. In this regard, besides the former USSR, Pakistan is the best example. In Pakistan’s case, Balochistan declared its independence on 11 August 1947, but it was annexed to Pakistan in 1948 through coercion and intimidation (Breseeg, 2004: 233; Baloch, 1987: 172-173; Dehwar, 1994: 308; and Adeney, 2007b: 102).
In the light of the above discussion, what emerges is that although there are diverse ideas regarding the concept and practices of a federal form of government, federalism as a unique concept of modern state system exists with some common characteristics and principles, and it is these which make it different from other forms of governance. However, as a system of government, it works differently in different countries with various models and structures.18
In terms of diversity, Kymlicka (in He et al, 2007) comes up with a multinational model of federalism. According to him (ibid, 2007: 35-26), a multinational or multi-ethnic federalism is one where there are more than two nations or ethnic groups within the boundaries of the state wherein each has valid claim to language rights and self-government powers to maintain itself as a distinct society and culture. He further says that in multinational states, either federal or unitary, some of the national or ethno-national groups are battling against their respective states
17
However, later on, under the Indian constitution of 1950 Articles 2-3 the central government reserved the right to create new constituent units on such terms and conditions as it thinks fit.
18
Burgess points out that there are three models of federations: the Westminster model, the republican presidential model, and the hybrid or mixture of both (for which Wheare uses the term quasi-federalism) (Burgess, 2006 and Wheare, 1946). The Westminster model is based on the principles of a representative and responsible parliamentary democracy such as the federation of Canada, Australia and India, while the republican presidential model is associated with the United States of America (Burgess, 2006: 136). The hybrid or the quasi-federal model is that which combines the elements of the both, the Westminster and the Presidential models. The quasi federal model includes the federations such as Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
over issues such as political representation, language, self-government, control over their natural and other resources, migration within the state, and the desire for preserving their distinct ethnic or national identities. We can find examples like Kurdistan in Iraq, Kashmir in India, and Balochistan in Pakistan. There are also some examples in western democracies, such as Quebec in Canada, the Flemish region in Belgium, and Scotland in the United Kingdom. Kymlicka finds that multinational federations of the west are successful because they are democratic in nature, they respect individual civil and political rights, and they have maintained inter-group equality (where none of the groups dominates others in the spheres of politics, economics, and culture). In contrast, many post-colonial federations, especially Pakistan, strongly object to the very basic notion of empowering national and ethnic groups within the framework of federation, and rather suppressed them. Therefore, it can be held that to suppress diversity simply means to negate the very formation and foundation of federalism. India is an exception in this regard because at least its constitution allows the central parliament to create new states on the basis of linguistic and cultural identities; when it sees fit; this is evident from the fact that initially there were 14 states/provinces in India, but now that number has reached to 28.