How do the constituent states influence the foreign policy making process in India? (2021, 15 Marks)
Foreign affairs are wholly a Union subject (Entries 10–21 of the Union List), and Article 253 lets Parliament legislate even on State List matters to implement a treaty. The states have no treaty power and no formal voice. Yet democratisation, coalition politics, liberalisation and the domestic reach of modern agreements have given them real, if uneven, influence. Panayotis Soldatos called such sub-national external activity paradiplomacy: diplomacy alongside the centre, not instead of it.
Why states gained influence
Amitabh Mattoo and Happymon Jacob (restated in Jacob’s Putting the Periphery at the Center, 2016) trace the rise to four factors:
- the special status once enjoyed by Jammu and Kashmir and parts of the North-East;
- the personal clout of strong regional leaders;
- coalition governments built on single-state parties;
- globalisation, which created new practices without any constitutional change.
Channels of influence
1. Veto over implementation
Where an agreement touches water, land, policing or border management, the state must deliver it. West Bengal under Mamata Banerjee blocked the Teesta water-sharing deal in September 2011 because water is a State List subject and north Bengal would bear the loss. West Bengal’s consent was equally needed for the 2015 Land Boundary Agreement, which ended the Cooch Behar enclaves.
2. Coalition and electoral leverage
Tamil Nadu pressure shaped India’s votes on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in 2012 and 2013, and a coalition partner quit the government in 2013. The Palk Bay fishermen and the Katchatheevu question keep the state engaged. Kerala turned the 2012 Italian marines case into a decade-long strain with Italy.
3. Economic paradiplomacy
After 1991 states compete for investment: Vibrant Gujarat, Magnetic Maharashtra, Invest Karnataka, the Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet. Chief Ministers lead roadshows abroad, as Narendra Modi did in China and Japan as Gujarat Chief Minister. Maharashtra’s 1992 Dabhol deal with Enron showed both the opportunity and the need for the Union’s guarantee.
4. Border and functional diplomacy
Punjab presses for trade through Attari–Wagah, Meghalaya (from 2011) and Tripura run border haats with Bangladesh, and the North-Eastern states are the operating ground of Act East. Kerala engages the Gulf on migrant welfare, and sister-state agreements spread links on skills.
Institutional response and limits
The MEA set up a States Division in 2014, and Chief Ministers now join visit programmes. But there is no statutory framework, no consultation duty and no dispute mechanism. The Sarkaria and Punchhi Commissions urged consultation on treaties affecting state subjects, the latter through the Inter-State Council (Article 263). The risks are fragmentation, outside actors playing states against Delhi, and protodiplomacy (Ivo D. Duchacek’s term for separatist external activity) in sensitive border regions.
Conclusion
States influence Indian foreign policy mainly as veto players in the neighbourhood and as economic actors, not as co-authors of grand strategy on China, the great powers or nuclear policy. The renewal of the 1996 Ganga Waters Treaty, expiring in December 2026, is the test: in August 2026 Bihar’s ruling JD(U) urged New Delhi to let it lapse, and the External Affairs Minister assured that Bihar’s needs would be weighed first. Consultation is becoming practice; it is not yet law.