Apropos the editorial "A more mature federation" (November 28) has brought out the tussle between the Centre and the states in India's continuing battle with the idea of a functioning federalism. India has still to get its act ready for dealing with the right of nationalities for self-determination that is an essential step towards converting an imperial state to a nation-state. The fault squarely lies with the Centre and the Congress, which occupied the central government, which blithely assumed that it was the inheritor of the legacy and rights of Imperial Britain, and the states were mere administrative set-ups. Even the annexations or accessions of Junagarh, Kashmir, Hyderabad, Goa and Sikkim follow the old British ideas of allies, dependencies and protectorates moving to direct control. The same illusion afflicts our foreign policy, which continues to believe that the boundary lines drawn arbitrarily by the British, and reluctantly accepted or observed by the then weaker neighbours still hold good, like with Tibet and Afghanistan. Much like Yugoslavia, the current domains of India came out of World War II, with the US replacing Britain as the expanding capitalist entity. The choices available for the 2014 elections do not fill one with confidence that the new government in New Delhi will either appreciate or be able to deal with the federalist impulses.
P Datta, Kolkata
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