Centre–State Relations and the Changing Nature of Cooperative Federalism in India: A Framework of Negotiated Interdependence

India's federal system combines constitutionally distributed authority with dense forms of fiscal, administrative and institutional interdependence. This article examines how Centre–State relations have changed since 2014, with particular attention to the replacement of the Planning Commission by NITI Aayog, the constitutionalisation and operation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, successive Finance Commission awards, intergovernmental consultative mechanisms and recent judicial interpretation. Rather than treating contemporary Indian federalism as a binary movement towards either centralisation or decentralisation, the study develops the concept of negotiated interdependence to analyse the coexistence of self-rule, shared rule, fiscal dependence, policy coordination, inter-State competition and constitutional disagreement. The research uses a qualitative, document-based and comparative design. It draws on the Constitution of India, Supreme Court judgments and advisory opinions, Finance Commission reports, official records of NITI Aayog, the GST Council and the Ministry of Home Affairs, together with peer-reviewed scholarship. The analysis shows that institutional change has produced different effects across policy domains. Formula-based tax devolution can strengthen predictability while the composition of the divisible pool, grants, centrally sponsored schemes and borrowing conditions continue to shape State fiscal space. GST reduces unilateral discretion over several indirect taxes but embeds States in a constitutionally structured decision-making forum. Judicial review, meanwhile, continues to define the boundaries of shared and autonomous authority. The article concludes that negotiated interdependence provides a more precise description of the contemporary federal relationship than a single centralisation–decentralisation continuum.