The Indian Constitution may face an unprecedented crisis in 2026 when there will be a dramatic change in the composition of the Lok Sabha. Since 1976, seats in the Lok Sabha have reflected the 1971 census and have not taken into account changes in the population. The primary reason for this has been unequal population growth among States. India's most highly developed and prosperous States have been successful at family planning, while the poorer States continue to expand. The freeze was thus a chance to ensure that India's most successful States are not punished politically for their success. Post 2026, when this compact ends, there will be a seismic shift in national power towards India's poorest and most populated States, which is sure to generate much resentment among the States that will lose political and economic power and influence. This calls for a realignment in the balance between the democratic principle and the federal principle in the Indian Constitution. Having established, thus, that States are important, self-contained units within the Indian constitutional scheme, we must turn to an inherent contradiction between the principles of democracy and federalism, when federal units are unequal in size, population and economics. This is easy to comprehend. In a democratic set up, all citizens are equal and are thus entitled to equal representation in governance. But this would imply that bigger States are likely to dominate the national conversation over smaller States. Small States fear that they would get a smaller share of the pie economically, a much reduced say in national issues, and be irrelevant in the political governance of the country. In order to assuage this legitimate fear, federal democracies have incorporated into their governing structures various kinds of compromises to ensure a balance between democratic principles and federal ones. For example, when the Americans adopted their Constitution, they protected smaller States in four ways. First, national powers over the States were limited. Second, each State regardless of size had two seats in the Senate, giving smaller States an outsized role in national governance. Third, Presidents are elected by electoral votes, which means they must win States rather than the total national population. Fourth, and deplorably, the slave-owning States which did not confer citizenship on slaves were allowed to count the slaves for purposes of representation, with each slave being counted as three-fifths of a person. This essential structure remains the bedrock of the American Constitution today, though the Americans have rid themselves of slavery and have dramatically increased the scope of federal intervention. This federal structure has led to the severing of causational links between the national vote and presidential elections. Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump won without winning the popular vote. The current movement to remove the power of a minority to filibuster legislation is based on democratic principles seeking to mitigate the pathology of excessive federalism indeed.