Now, let us broadly analyse the circumstances in which these Articles can come into operation. There may be a physical breakdown of the Government in the State, as for instance, when there is widespread internal disturbance or external aggression or for some reason or other, law and order cannot be maintained. In that case, it is obvious that there is no provincial authority which can function and the only authority which can function is the Central Government, and in that contingency these Articles are not only unobjectionable but absolutely essential and without it the whole thing will be in chaos. Then there may be political breakdown. This is a point which requires careful analysis. A political breakdown can happen when no ministry can be formed or the ministries that can be formed are so unstable that the Government actually breaks down. Normally according to the Constitution when there is great instability of a Ministry, the proper procedure will be to dissolve the Lower House and reconstitute it. If after a dissolution also, the same factions are reproduced in the local legislatures and they make a ministry impossible, it will then be inevitable for the Centre to step in according to the provisions of 278 and 278-A. In this it is necessary to evolve proper conventions. For instance, it is necessary to evolve the convention that before these Article are resorted to on account of political breakdown, there should intervene a dissolution of the Lower House of the State Legislature. Without a dissolution the Centre should not step in and that should be one of the conventions which we shall have to evolve; but it is not wise to put it in the Article itself, because there may be extraordinary circumstances in which even the local elections may have to be conducted by the Centre and temporarily the Centre may have to take charge.
