Government sets up the Sarkaria Commission on Centre-State relations

Who: The Government of India under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; Justice Ranjit Singh Sarkaria, a retired Supreme Court judge, who headed the commission; and the Shiromani Akali Dal under Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, whose main demand was a review of Centre-State relations on the lines of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.

What: The Tribune reports that Indira Gandhi announced in Parliament on 23 March 1983 that a commission would review Centre-State arrangements. Gurmit Singh dates the appointment to 24 March, calls it a one-man commission and says the Government conceded the review to calm Sikh discontent. The White Paper and The Tribune say the commission was set up in June 1983. Its brief, in the White Paper's words, was to examine and review the existing arrangements between the Union and the States in regard to powers, functions and responsibilities, and to recommend changes, keeping in view the unity and integrity of the country.

Longowal welcomed it on 25 March but asked for a time limit, implementation of its recommendations and a boundary commission, according to Gurmit Singh. The White Paper says the Akali Dal then insisted that the reference name the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, although its representatives had agreed in a tripartite meeting not to press the point. The Government answered that the Resolution's propositions on Centre-State relations were at total variance with the unity of the nation and could not be accepted even as a basis for discussion, but that the Akali Dal could make any submission it wished to the commission. On 8 October 1983 the Srinagar conclave of opposition parties called the commission, though welcome, an inadequate response.

The Rajiv-Longowal Accord of July 1985 provided for the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to be referred to the commission, Khushwant Singh writes. The commission's report of about 1,600 pages, with 247 recommendations, is dated 1987 or 1988 depending on the source. Wikipedia's summary of the Accord says the report rejected the Resolution's approach to Centre-State relations.

Where: New Delhi, in Parliament and the Home Ministry.

Why it mattered: The commission was the Government's answer to the Akali demand for a review of Centre-State relations, and the quarrel over naming the Anandpur Sahib Resolution in its reference became one of the points on which the talks stalled. In August 2003 the Inter-State Council was still considering 17 of its 247 recommendations (The Tribune).