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The year 2012 began for India with a steep decline in the economy, disarray in politics, and paralysis in policy. While there were more immediate causes for this state of affairs, each malady reflected a deeper dilemma created by widespread corruption, a weakening central state, declining discipline within the ruling coalition, a loss of economic momentum caused by an unresolved balance between equity and growth, and a failure to harness popular support for reforms. Each dilemma called for a fundamental change in the power equation between different parts of the state and between state and society.

The year 2011 was marked by several important developments: a massive uprising of the people, spearheaded by a powerful civil society movement for the reform of India's corrupt and criminalized democracy; an attempt by the central government to reform antiquated land acquisition laws for public use; a growing disillusionment with the United Progressive Alliance government; the slowing down of India's eight-year-long run of rapid growth; and a growing convergence of interests between India and other powers in the region, except China.

Responds to comments on the author's "Integration through Internal Reorganization: Containing Ethnic Conflict in India," (Global Review of Ethnopolitics, 2, 1, 44-61).

Examines the importance of the development of Indian federal reorganization as a strategy for nation building & managing ethnic identities, relations, & conflict. The dynamics of federal remapping sheds light on how a particular federal design might impact the cause of democracy in an ethnically plural country. Focus is on three major reorganizations: (1) in 1956, following a nationwide movement for the creation of linguistically compact provinces; Kashmir had already been incorporated within the Indian union based on the special status granted to it by Article 370; (2) in the 1970s, when the Northeast was split up & several new states were created following the establishment of Nagaland in 1963; (3) in 2000, with the creation of Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, & Chattisgarh in the Northern Hindi-Hindu belt provinces of India. At issue is how these reorganizations enhance Indian democracy & the debates they triggered about the shape of India's federal balance. This discourse on federal reorganization reveals how ethnic plurality, federal arrangements, & democracy have taken shape in India. Each phase of reorganization was based on a new balance of political power between the central state & its federal units, with each phase guided by a general theme. Following the 1947 partition, the question was whether India could become a territorially coherent nation-state. In the mid-1950s, linguistic/regional tensions opened a debate on India's cultural antecedents -- ethnic, regional, religious, & linguistic -- & whether these might undermine the union. In the early 1970s, the problems of governance & security shaped contending perspectives on the character of the Indian federation. Discourse on federalism polarized when separatist movements in Punjab & Assam in the 1980s, & then in Kashmir, challenged India's territorial unity. These fears about disintegration & separatism faded in the 1990s. Currently concern over excessive centralization is replaced by concerns about excessive decentralization. 45 References. J. Zendejas