The government in Tamil Nadu has made a small but significant change in the way it refers to the NDA-led government in Delhi. Since it came to power earlier in May, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led government in Tamil Nadu has stopped referring to the Narendra Modi-led government as the ‘Centre’ (Mathiya Arasu) and has started referring to it as the ‘Union government (Ondriya Arasu). While the DMK has said that it is going by the Constitution in doing so, the move has been questioned by some BJP supporters, with many calling it a ‘political move’ against the Modi government.

So what do the two terms mean, and are they interchangeable? Speaking to The News Minute, constitution expert Subash Kashyap says, “From the point of the usage of the words, 'centre' indicates a point in the middle of a circle, whereas 'Union' is the whole circle. In India, the relationship between the so-called 'Centre' and States, as per the Constitution, is actually a relationship between the whole and its parts. The relation between the whole and its parts is definitely different from the relation between a centre and its periphery,” he says, adding that using the word Centre is not in the Constitution and so using it would not be accurate.

“The word ‘Centre’ is not used in the Constitution; the makers of the Constitution specifically discarded it and instead used the word ‘Union’. 'Centre' is a hangover from the colonial period because the Babus (bureaucrats) in the North and South Block (of the Secretariat Building in New Delhi), who are used to using the word ‘Central Laws,’ ‘Central legislature,’ etc, and so everyone else, including the media, started using the word. Even the Sarkaria Commission report was called a report on ‘Centre-State relations’ which is incorrect because the Chapter in the Constitution of India is on ‘Union and State’ relations and words like Union government, Union legislature, have been used. Centre has not been used in the Constitution,” he explains.

The issue with calling the Union government ‘Centre,’ Subash Kashyap explains, is that the government in Delhi then ends up being viewed as a central and the only authority in India, which leads to the states not having an equal say.

India is a federal government. The power to govern is divided between a government for the whole country, which is responsible for subjects of common national interest, and the states, which look after the detailed day-to-day governing of the state. And using the term ‘Centre’ or ‘central government’, experts say, points to an unequal relationship between the two governments. In short, using the term ‘Centre’ or ‘central government’ would mean state governments are subservient to it — which is not how the relationship between the two entities has been imagined by the Constitution. It’s not the relationship between a boss and an employee, rather, it is similar to the relationship between members of an egalitarian family, where everyone has a say in how finances are spent and how decisions are made. 

“A lot of confusion has been caused because of the use of the word ‘Centre’ because ‘Centre’ indicates the centre of authority and makes states feel like they are in the periphery, which is not the intention of the makers of the Constitution. For them, the Union is the whole circle and the relationship between the states and the union is that between the whole and its parts,” Subash Kashyap says.

The Tamil Nadu government’s usage of ‘Ondriya Arasu’ — or Union government — as a marked departure from ‘Mathiya Arasu’ or ‘central government’ has been questioned by many BJP supporters and right wingers in the country. The nervousness of the BJP and this particular objection may be resting in the fact that BJP has lost elections in multiple states in the recent past, especially in Tamil Nadu and earlier in Maharashtra; further, allies like the Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiv Sena have left the NDA alliance, and that there has been a change in the response of the states to the NDA-ruled Union government as well. 

Writing for Deccan Herald, Professor and Head of the Department of Politics and Public Administration in the University of Madras pegs this shift to the changing ground realities, low trust of the people and the subtle shifts in states' responses to the Union government due to a financial crisis. He writes that these are too intense for the BJP to “hide behind the guise of Hindutva, Hindu nationalism and patriotism.”

“The GST Bill 2017, the New Education Policy 2020 and the Farm Bills 2020 have exposed the depth of isolation of states and the absence of broader national consensus over such critical issues concerning the entire nation. The Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Union has handled these subjects as though states do not matter. There is an element of brutal indifference to the pleas of the states,” Ramu Manivannan adds in the article.

Advocate K Santhakumari, a lawyer in the Madras High Court, tells TNM that the reason the use of term Union government is back in focus, can be because the Union government is facing backlash from states over its discrimination in the implementation of policies. “The Union government is controlling the states and they are controlling many things that are on the State lists, and that is why many states are perturbed,” she says. States are forced to play second-fiddle to the Union government, she says, and this is going against a state's autonomy.

“States should be given their due share. What happened to the financial shares to Tamil Nadu, what about its GST share? If we are to look at Gujarat, funds are immediately released, but in West Bengal, this differs. Crores are given to BJP states but others are left out. The reason is because of the Union government's attitude towards non-BJP governments. Even in the distribution of vaccines, you can see what happened,” she says.