Indian Constitution exhibits centralising tendencies to maintain unity and integrity of the nation. Elucidate in the perspective of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897; The Disaster Management Act, 2005 and recently passed Farm Acts.

The Constitution creates a federation with a deliberate unitary bias — an “indestructible Union of destructible states”. Union supremacy under Article 246, residuary powers (Article 248), emergency provisions, Article 356, All-India Services and single citizenship all tilt power toward the Centre in the name of unity and integrity. Three statutes illustrate how this tendency operates in practice.

Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897

• Public health is a State subject (Entry 6, List II) and the Act chiefly empowers states (Section 2); yet Section 2A reserves powers over ports and international traffic to the Centre, and the 2020 amendment enlarged central authority to regulate inspection of transport and protect healthcare workers nationwide.

Disaster Management Act, 2005

• Invoked nationally for the first time during COVID-19, it enabled a Centre-decreed lockdown: NDMA and Home Ministry guidelines bound the states, which needed central concurrence even to relax restrictions. Sections 35 and 62, with the overriding effect of Section 72, gave central directions primacy over state laws — centralising a public-health response that constitutionally belongs to the states.

Farm Acts, 2020

• Agriculture and markets are State subjects (Entries 14 and 28, List II); the Centre nevertheless legislated through Entry 33, List III (trade and commerce in foodstuffs) to override state APMC systems. Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh passed counter-legislation, and sustained protests forced repeal in November 2021.

Assessment

• Centralisation delivered pandemic coordination and sought a unified national market — but one-size-fits-all lockdowns, the migrant crisis and the farm-law backlash reveal its costs when states are bypassed.

The Constitution intends a strong Centre, not a unitary state. Institutionalised consultation — an active Inter-State Council (Article 263), GST Council-style sectoral bodies for health and agriculture, and the Punchhi Commission's counsel of restraint — can reconcile national unity with federal self-government.