ARTICLE 356

Today's Times of India has an editorial on proposed revisions of Article 356, a controversial provision in the Indian Constitution that allows the central government to take over the reigns of power in a state during an emergency (supposed to be defined with respect to a breakdown in the functioning of the constitution itself, in that state). Last week representatives from the state governments had proposed some safeguards with respect to the use of Article 356, including that parliament should be required to debate any proposal to invoke it. The central government seems to have agreed to that proposal in principle, although there are still some details to be worked out (scroll down) with respect to how much factual information should be part of the text of future proposals to invoke Article 356.

One recent example of a situation in which Article 356 has been contemplated, but not invoked (as far as I know) also occured last week in the state of West Bengal, where there was widespread election violence. For some more background on Article 356, read the articles here and here. The general heading under which Article 356 should be discussed is that of constitutional emergency powers. Whereas the U.S. constitution does not contain any reference to emergency powers (and hence clouds their use by the executive in doubt and political contestation), the Indian constitution attempts to be textually explicit. It's not clear to me that either text, as such, is better: contestation will occur no matter what the text says. But obviously the details matter.