Power-sharing: Majoritarianism versus Accommodation

1. Belgium: a linguistically divided society

Read the detailed note →

• Size and people: Belgium is smaller than Haryana. It borders France, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg. (NCERT: "a little over one crore" people; now about 1.18 crore, verify current.)
• Language split: 59% live in the Flemish region and speak Dutch. 40% live in Wallonia and speak French. 1% speak German.
• Brussels problem: the capital is 80% French-speaking and 20% Dutch-speaking. So Dutch speakers are a majority in the country but a minority in the capital.
• Ethnic group: a social group with a shared culture. Its members believe they have a common descent because they look alike, share a culture, or both. They need not share a religion or nationality.
• Source of tension: the French-speaking minority was richer and more powerful. Dutch speakers got the benefits of economic development and education later. Tension grew in the 1950s and 1960s and was sharpest in Brussels.
• Beyond NCERT: French was the language of the elite after independence in 1830. The language border was fixed in 1962-63, and Leuven University split by language in 1968. Later the Walloon coal and steel industries declined while Flanders grew rich. Today the friction is about money transfers from north to south and about Flemish nationalism (N-VA, Vlaams Belang).
• NCERT's "just imagine": if the Dutch majority had forced its will, the country could have split messily, with both sides claiming Brussels.

2. The Belgian model: accommodation through constitutional design

Read the detailed note →

• Four amendments, 1970-93 (NCERT). The Belgian model has these parts:
• The central government has equal numbers of Dutch- and French-speaking ministers (Art. 99; the Prime Minister may be an exception).
• Special laws need a majority within each language group as well as two-thirds overall, so no community can decide alone. Beyond NCERT, the "alarm-bell" procedure (Art. 54) lets three-quarters of one language group suspend a bill it sees as a threat.
• Regional governments hold many powers taken from the Centre and are not subordinate to it.

• Brussels has its own government with equal representation of both communities. French speakers accepted this because Dutch speakers accepted parity at the Centre.

• Community government: a third kind of government. It is elected by the people of one language community (Dutch, French or German) wherever they live, and it handles cultural, educational and language matters. A community is not a territory; a region is.

• Federal since 1993: Art. 1 calls Belgium "a federal State composed of Communities and Regions". It has three Regions (Brussels-Capital since 1989), three Communities and four language areas (Art. 4).
• Results: there was no civil strife and no split. Brussels became the EU headquarters.
• Costs (beyond NCERT): Belgium has had six state reforms (NCERT counts four). The system is complex and has many veto points. Forming a government took 541 days in 2010-11. A coalition under Bart De Wever took office in 2025 (verify current).
• Exercise 4: the Merchtem mayor's ban on speaking French in town schools goes against the spirit of accommodation.

3. Sri Lanka: majoritarian state-building after 1948

Read the detailed note →

• People: Sri Lanka is an island a few kilometres off Tamil Nadu. (NCERT: about 2 crore people; now about 2.2 crore, verify current.) Sinhala speakers are 74% and Tamil speakers 18%.
• Sri Lankan Tamils (13%) are the native Tamils. They live mainly in the north and east.
• Indian Tamils descend from plantation workers brought from India in colonial times.

• Most Sinhalas are Buddhists, and most Tamils are Hindus or Muslims. About 7% are Christians from both groups.

• Majoritarianism: the belief that the majority community may rule however it wants and ignore what minorities want and need.

• Majoritarian steps after independence (4 February 1948):
• The Sinhala Only Act, 1956 (Official Language Act, under S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike) made Sinhala the only official language and ignored Tamil.
• Preferential policies favoured Sinhala applicants for university places and government jobs.

• The 1972 Constitution required the state to protect and foster Buddhism.

• Beyond NCERT: the Ceylon Citizenship Act 1948 left most Indian Tamils stateless. The Bandaranaike–Chelvanayakam Pact (1957) promised regional councils but was scrapped, and riots followed in 1958.

• Result: Tamils felt that no major party, all led by Sinhala Buddhists, cared about their language and culture. They felt denied equal rights and jobs, and relations between the communities soured.

4. From Tamil alienation to civil war and the 13th Amendment

Read the detailed note →

• Tamil demands (NCERT): recognition of Tamil as an official language, regional autonomy, and equal chances in education and jobs. Requests for autonomy for Tamil provinces were refused again and again.
• Tamil Eelam: from the 1980s, several Tamil groups demanded an independent Tamil state in the north and east. Beyond NCERT: the TULF's Vaddukoddai Resolution (1976) and the LTTE under V. Prabhakaran.
• Sri Lankan civil war (1983-2009): it was a war between the state and Tamil militants, mainly the LTTE. It began after the "Black July" riots of 1983. Thousands died, families fled as refugees (including to Tamil Nadu) and people lost their livelihoods. It ended in May 2009 with the LTTE's defeat. The UN Panel of Experts (2011) raised concerns about civilian deaths.
• 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution (1987): it followed the India–Sri Lanka Accord (Rajiv Gandhi and J.R. Jayewardene, 29 July 1987). It created elected provincial councils with devolved powers and made Tamil an official language. The IPKF served from 1987 to 1990.
• Gaps: police and land powers were never handed over, and council elections have not been held since the councils' terms ended (verify current). India still presses for full implementation (PIB joint statements, 2024-25).
• Annette vs Selvi: Annette in Belgium is more likely to succeed, because Belgium's community governments control education.

5. Majoritarianism versus accommodation: lessons from two democracies

Read the detailed note →

• NCERT's lesson: both countries are democracies but chose different paths.
• Belgium understood that unity needs respect for every community's feelings and interests.

• Sri Lanka shows that a majority that forces its rule and refuses to share power undermines unity.

• Tyranny of the majority: a majority uses its numbers to oppress minorities. NCERT notes that it often hurts the majority too, through conflict, instability and economic loss. The cartoon line is "sharing of power makes us more powerful".

• Roots: Tocqueville (1835) and Mill (1859) warned against the tyranny of the majority. Majority rule means majorities that shift from issue to issue. Majoritarianism means a fixed majority based on identity (pointer: democracy-forms-outcomes).
• Accommodation of diversity: recognising differences and sharing power so that all groups can live in one country. It is the opposite of majoritarianism.

Issue	Sri Lanka	India
Language	Sinhala Only (1956)	Hindi under Art. 343, with English continuing (Official Languages Act 1963, amended 1967); 22 Eighth Schedule languages
Region	Autonomy denied	Linguistic states: Andhra (1953), States Reorganisation Act 1956
Religion	Buddhism given the foremost place	Secular state

• Caution: accommodation can also freeze group identities (see Section 7).

6. Why power-sharing: prudential and moral reasons

Read the detailed note →

• Power-sharing: spreading power among organs of government, levels of government, social groups, and parties and pressure groups, so that no one holds undivided power.
• The old belief was that all power should sit with one person or group in one place, so that decisions are quick. Democracy instead says the people are the source of all political power.
• Prudential reasons for power-sharing: reasons based on weighing gains and losses.
• Power-sharing lowers the chance of conflict between social groups, and so of violence and instability.
• Majority imposition may look attractive in the short run but undermines unity in the long run.

• Indian examples: the Punjab (1985), Assam (1985) and Mizo (1986) accords.

• Moral reasons for power-sharing: sharing is the very spirit of democracy. Those affected by power have a right to be consulted. A legitimate government is one in which citizens gain a stake by taking part. Indian example: the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992).

• The difference: prudential reasons stress better outcomes, while moral reasons value the act of sharing itself.
• Exercise answers:
• Exercise 5: the prudential reasons are less corruption and better administration; the moral reason is "power… in the hands of the people".
• Exercise 6: (a), statements A, B, D and F.
• Exercise 3: Ouseph is right.
• Exercise 9: (b), both statements are true.

7. Lebanon and consociational democracy

Read the detailed note →

• Khalil's dilemma: Beirut is a mixed city that went through a civil war (1975-90). Khalil's father is an Orthodox Christian and his mother a Sunni Muslim.
• Lebanon's confessional power-sharing: top posts are reserved by religious community:
• President: Maronite Christian
• Prime Minister: Sunni Muslim
• Deputy Prime Minister: Orthodox Christian

• Speaker: Shi'a Muslim

• The bargain: Christians gave up seeking French protection, and Muslims gave up seeking union with Syria. The deal was made when the two groups were nearly equal in number; Muslims are now a clear majority.

• NCERT mixes two dates:
• The National Pact (1943) set up the post allocation.

• The Taif Agreement (1989) ended the war and kept the allocation. It moved power from the President to the Council of Ministers and made Parliament 50:50 Christian–Muslim (it had been 6:5).

• Consociational democracy (Lijphart, 1977): power-sharing for deeply divided societies. It has four features: a grand coalition of all major groups, mutual veto, proportionality, and segmental autonomy (each group runs its own affairs). Examples are Belgium, Switzerland, Northern Ireland (1998) and Bosnia (1995).

• Critiques:
• It hardens identities and shuts out people like Khalil.
• It is rigid: Lebanon has had no census since 1932.
• It causes paralysis: the presidency was vacant for two years until January 2025 (verify current).

• Horowitz (1985) prefers incentives that cut across groups.

• India: Lijphart (1996) called India consociational. Critics answer that India never reserves executive posts by community.

8. Horizontal and vertical power-sharing

Read the detailed note →

• Horizontal distribution of power: sharing among organs at the same level, namely the legislature, executive and judiciary. No organ has unlimited power, and each checks the others. This is called checks and balances.
• Ministers answer to the legislature.

• Judges are appointed by the executive but can check it and can strike down laws.

• India: Art. 50 (judiciary separate from the executive), Art. 75(3) (collective responsibility to the Lok Sabha), and judicial review under Arts. 13, 32 and 226. Pointer: state-government-governance.

• NCERT examples:
• The Bombay High Court ordered Maharashtra to improve seven children's homes.

• The 2005 Russia cartoon shows that concentrating power erodes democracy.

• Vertical division of power: sharing between higher and lower levels of government, with each level's powers set by the constitution. Belgium did this; Sri Lanka refused. It reaches down to panchayats and municipalities.

• India: the Seventh Schedule's three lists, with residuary power in the Union (Art. 248); the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992); the Inter-State Council (Art. 263) and the GST Council (Art. 279A). Pointer: federalism-centre-state.
• Holding-together vs coming-together (Stepan, 1999): India, Belgium and Spain are "holding-together" federations, where the Centre hands down power to keep a diverse country united. The USA and Switzerland are "coming-together" federations. Sri Lanka's constitution is unitary.
• Exercise 8: 1-B, 2-D, 3-A, 4-C, so the answer is (c).

9. Power-sharing among social groups

Read the detailed note →

• Power-sharing among social groups: giving religious and linguistic groups, weaker sections and women a share in legislatures and administration, so that they do not feel cut off. Examples are Belgium's community government and India's reserved constituencies.

Arrangement	Indian anchor
SC/ST seats	Arts. 330, 332: 84 SC and 47 ST Lok Sabha seats (2008 delimitation); extended to 2030 by the 104th Amendment, 2019, which also ended Anglo-Indian nomination
Women	One-third of panchayat and municipal seats (Arts. 243D, 243T); 106th Amendment, 2023 (Arts. 330A, 332A, 334A) waits for delimitation
Jobs and education	Arts. 15(4), 16(4), 16(4A); EWS quota by the 103rd Amendment, 2019
Minorities	Arts. 29-30; linguistic minorities under Arts. 350A, 350B
Tribal self-rule	Sixth Schedule councils in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram; PESA 1996; Arts. 371-371J

• India's choice: the Constituent Assembly dropped seat reservation for religious minorities in 1949.
• The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill 2026 would have brought women's reservation forward. It was defeated in the Lok Sabha on 17 April 2026 (PRS).
• Strains: Ladakh's demand for the Sixth Schedule and statehood (Leh violence, September 2025), and Manipur's conflict since May 2023, with President's Rule from February 2025 (verify current).

10. Parties, coalitions and pressure groups

Read the detailed note →

• Power-sharing among political parties and pressure groups: competition among parties stops power from staying in one hand. Over time, parties representing different ideologies and groups share power.
• Direct sharing: parties form a pre-election alliance and then a coalition government. NCERT's example is Germany's 2005 grand coalition of the historic rivals CDU and SPD, formed because neither won a majority. A CDU/CSU–SPD coalition under Friedrich Merz followed in 2025.
• India's coalitions: Janata (1977), National Front (1989), United Front (1996-98), NDA (1998-2004), UPA (2004-14). Single-party majorities came in 2014 and 2019. From 2024 the BJP (240 seats) relies on the TDP and JD(U). Pointer: political-parties.
• Anti-defection law: the Tenth Schedule (52nd Amendment, 1985), tightened by the 91st Amendment (2003).
• The opposition also shares power: it chairs the PAC, and the Leader of Opposition sits on selection panels (CBI Director, CVC, Lokpal).
• Pressure groups: traders, industrialists (FICCI, CII), farmers and workers share power through committees or by influencing decisions. The farmers' protest of 2020-21 led to the repeal of the three farm laws (2021). The risk is that powerful lobbies capture policy.
• Class-monitor question: a monitor who changes every month shares opportunity over time, not power at the same time.

11. Power-sharing and national unity: India's experience and debates

Read the detailed note →

• India uses all four forms at once:
• Horizontal: an independent judiciary, and constitutional bodies such as the ECI and CAG.
• Vertical: Union, state and local tiers, plus special arrangements for some areas (Arts. 371-371J, the Sixth Schedule). Art. 370 was abrogated in 2019, and the Supreme Court upheld this in In re Article 370 (2023).
• Social groups: reservations, minority rights, linguistic states.

• Parties: coalitions, and regional parties running states.

• Accords as accommodation: Punjab (Rajiv–Longowal, 1985), Assam (1985), Mizo (1986, statehood in 1987), Bodo (1993, 2003, 2020) and the Naga Framework Agreement (2015, still unresolved). Pointer: regional-aspirations.

• Stress points today:
• Delimitation: the 84th Amendment (2001) froze seat shares on the 1971 census until the first census after 2026. Southern states fear losing seats.
• Money and taxes: fiscal devolution, and voting in the GST Council, where the Union holds one-third of the votes.
• Governor–state friction.

• Language: disputes over the three-language formula.

• Does power-sharing weaken unity?

• For sharing: India has held together as a diverse democracy. Sri Lanka slid into war, and Pakistan broke up in 1971 after refusing power to the Awami League, which had won the 1970 election.

• Costs: delay, many veto players, hardened identities.

• Synthesis: design matters. Arrangements that cut across groups, rest on rights and have time limits work better than fixed communal quotas. Ouseph's view, that every society needs some power-sharing, makes a good closing line.

---

Exam angles

Prelims — high-yield facts and traps

• Belgium: 59% Dutch (Flemish region), 40% French (Wallonia), 1% German; Brussels is 80:20 French to Dutch. Reforms ran from 1970 to 1993, and Belgium has been federal since 1993. Community government is based on language, not territory. Trap: "Belgium had only four reforms" is FALSE, since there have been six state reforms (NCERT counts four amendments).
• Sri Lanka: independence in 1948; Sinhala Only Act 1956; Sinhala 74%, Tamil 18% (Sri Lankan Tamils 13%); Vaddukoddai Resolution 1976; civil war 1983-2009. The 13th Amendment (1987) followed the Accord of 29 July 1987, created provincial councils and made Tamil an official language.
• Lebanon: Maronite President, Sunni Prime Minister, Shi'a Speaker, Orthodox Deputy Prime Minister. The National Pact (1943) is not the same as the Taif Agreement (1989).
• Forms matched to examples: separation of powers = organs; federal government = levels; community government = social groups; coalition = parties. Exercise 8 answer: (c).
• Exercise answers: Exercise 6 is (a) A, B, D, F. Exercise 7 is (d) B, C, D; statement A ("Dutch majority imposed domination in Belgium") is FALSE.
• Prudential vs moral: "reduces conflict" is prudential; "right to be consulted" is moral.
• Lijphart's four features: grand coalition, mutual veto, proportionality, segmental autonomy.
• Indian articles and amendments:
• Arts. 330, 332, 334 (reserved seats, extended to 2030 by the 104th Amendment, 2019).
• Arts. 243D and 243T (women's quota in local bodies).
• Arts. 29-30 and 350A-350B (minority and linguistic rights).
• The 106th Amendment (2023) added Arts. 330A, 332A and 334A.

• Sixth Schedule states: Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram.

• Horizontal vs vertical: horizontal means organs at the same level; vertical means levels of government. India is a "holding-together" federation.

Mains — GS-II themes

1. Majoritarianism vs accommodation: lessons from Sri Lanka and Belgium for India's handling of language, religion and region.
2. The prudential and moral case for power-sharing: is it a cost to efficiency and unity, or what makes them possible?
3. Consociationalism vs India's integrative model: group rights without communal quotas for executive posts; Khalil's dilemma and individual citizenship.
4. Vertical power-sharing as a tool of unity: federalism and decentralisation; the debates on delimitation and fiscal devolution.
5. Power-sharing among social groups: legislative reservation, women's reservation and its link to delimitation, the Sixth Schedule demand in Ladakh, Manipur.
6. Coalition governments as power-sharing: stability, policy paralysis and regional voice (the 1989-2014 era vs 2024).
7. India–Sri Lanka relations and the Tamil question: the 13th Amendment, provincial council elections, reconciliation.

Current-affairs hooks

• Sri Lanka: the 13th Amendment and provincial council elections in bilateral talks; plans for a new constitution; UNHRC resolutions (verify current).
• Delimitation after Census 2027; the defeat of the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill in April 2026; the timeline for women's reservation.
• Ladakh's Sixth Schedule and statehood demands, Manipur's governance, the Naga talks, Bodoland.
• Coalition dynamics at the Centre and in states; government formation in Germany, Belgium and Lebanon.
• Disputes over the three-language policy and the rights of linguistic minorities.