Telangana and the limits of article 3 as an instrument of federal rescue and accommodation.

This article examines the formation of Telangana as an illustrative case to show the possibility and limits of using Article 3 of India’s Constitution as an instrument of federal rescue and accommodation of territorially concentrated groups who are at the receiving end of political marginalization and perceived oppressive rule by dominant kin ethnolinguistic groups. Drawing from the existing literature on the politics of recognition and redistribution in multinational federations, it argues that far from investing the Centre with a unilateral power to make or break States, Article 3 entails a far more complex and multilevel federal interactive process. Given that the norms, rules, and procedures of making or breaking States entailed in Article 3 are never definitive, the formation of Telangana demonstrates that State formation in India is contingent on political opportunity structures which emerge from the alignment of complex interests and agendas of multiple actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]