Tamil Nadu’s ruling party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), since it came to power in May, has been referring to the NDA-led government as ‘Ondriya Arasu’, which means union government, instead of ‘Mathiya Arasu’, which means central government. And that has sparked a discussion on whether the two terms are interchangeable, or on the correctness of the usage of the term ‘Centre’.

So what do the two terms mean? What is the difference between the two terms? Constitution expert Subash Kashyap told The News Minute, “From the point of the usage of the words, ‘centre’ indicates a point in the middle of a circle, whereas ‘Union’ is the whole circle. In India, the relationship between the so-called ‘Centre’ and States, as per the Constitution, is actually a relationship between the whole and its parts. The relation between the whole and its parts is definitely different from the relation between a centre and its periphery”.

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Kashyap added that usage of the word ‘Centre’ was not in the Constitution, which is why it would not be accurate to use it. “The word ‘Centre’ is not used in the Constitution; the makers of the Constitution specifically discarded it and instead used the word ‘Union’, he said. “’Centre’ is a hangover from the colonial period because the ‘Babus’ (bureaucrats) in the North and South Block (of the Secretariat Building in New Delhi), who are used to using the word ‘Central Laws,’ ‘Central legislature,’ etc, and so everyone else, including the media, started using the word”, reported The News Minute.

Kashyap said that the issue with using the term ‘Centre’ is that the Delhi Government ends up being seen as the central authority in the country, which could lead to other states not having as much of a say.