The Indian federation is highly centripetal, and historically, this has left states without the requisite legislative and fiscal authority to take independent action and initiate policies of significance. Consequently, India's response to the global COVID‐19 pandemic was to impose a very severe countrywide lockdown using the mandate of the Union (federal) government. This centralized one‐size‐fits‐all diktat was imposed despite high variations across states in resources, healthcare capacity, and incidence of COVID‐19 cases. We argue that India's dysfunctional federalism is the reason for the centralized lockdown, preventing state and local governments from tailoring a policy response to suit local needs. Using mobility data, we demonstrate the high variation in curtailing mobility in different states through the centralized lockdown. We find that India's centralized lockdown was at best a partial success in a handful of states, while imposing enormous economic costs even in areas where few were affected by the pandemic.

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与功能失调的联邦制对抗COVID‐19：印度的经验教训

印度联邦是高度向心的，从历史上看，这使各邦没有必要的立法和财政权力采取独立行动并提出重要政策。因此，印度对全球COVID-19大流行的反应是使用联盟（联邦）政府的授权在全国范围内实施非常严厉的封锁。尽管各州在资源，医疗保健能力和COVID-19病例的发生率之间存在很大差异，但仍实施了这种集中式的“一刀切”的工作。我们认为，印度功能失调的联邦制是中央封锁的原因，这阻止了州和地方政府针对当地需求制定政策对策。使用移动性数据，我们展示了通过集中式锁定在减少不同状态下的移动性方面的巨大变化。