This book provides a critical account of federal asymmetry in India - its origins, context, forms and functioning - by taking into account the institutional effectiveness of asymmetric institutions in the regions for identity fulfillment, development and governance. It argues that while some asymmetry, de jure/ or de facto, is part of all federations for meeting some special circumstances, in India, which has followed a different path of federation building, asymmetric institutional solutions especially in the border areas have played a crucially important role in accommodating ethno-cultural diversity, ensuring law and order, a level of development and governance in a process that has turned the 'rebels into stakeholders'. India's federal asymmetric designs and their working has been a key to holding the peripheries within the Union of India. The book utilizes both archival research and empirical survey data, as well as elite interviews. Harihar Bhattacharyya is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Burdwan, India. He holds a PhD in Government from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He taught at the South Asia Institute a the University of Heidelberg, Germany, Hull University, UK, Institute of Federalism, Fribourg, and Delhi University, India.