Federalism is compound mode of two governments. That is, in one system there will be a mixture of two governments – state government with central government. In India, we can describe federalism as a distribution of authority around local, national, and state governments. This is similar to Canadian model of political organization.

Federalism is at its core a system where the dual machinery of government functions. Generally, under federalism, there are two levels of government. One is a central authority which looks after the major affairs of the country. The other is more of a local government which looks after the day to day functioning and activities of their particular region.

For example, our Indian Constitution says that India too is a federal country. As you know we have two levels of parliament, the at center the Union government and at State level, we have the individual State governments.

¶¶ Federalism is a form of  government in which the power is divided between a central authority and various constituent units of the  country.