Raj 1

Aniket Raj

Dr. Anish Vanaik

History II

03/11/19

A Union of Nations: How India Makes Unity in Diversity Work

Independent India has always had a system of government in which there is not only a

single central government that has jurisdiction all over the country but also there are regional

governments vested with significant powers in the states as well, this is called the “Union of

States” by the Constitution. The Indian system is quite similar to that of the United States

America, which calls itself a “Federal” form of government and was inspired from the

Canadian model. While there are similarities in the Indian and federal systems of

governments, it is not exactly federal neither is it unitary, rather it is a carefully formulated

mixture of the two. The Indian Constitution serves as the single and the most important body

of legislation for both the centre and state but can only be amended by the central legislature,

this is one such instance of the mixture of federalism and unitary forms of government. The

Indian central government has more power than the central government of any other federal

countries. Although this system has served to provide a significant amount of sovereignty to

the plethora of culturally and regionally diverse peoples of India while maintaining a united

nation, it possesses several impediments as well.

Fourteen Points of Jinnah demanded a more federal India with semi-autonomous

provinces and communal electorates. Jinnah wanted an “Indian Federation” in which the

provinces had an equal say on governing at the national level, he wanted participation of the

states in any major decision making at the centre, like any changes in the constitution would

require concurrence from the states. Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian National Congress, who

were at the other side of the negotiations at the time of partition rejected this idea of an India
 Raj 2

Federation and advocated for a more powerful Centre. Jinnah argued that a powerful regional

government is crucial in providing equal say in decision-making for the benefit of the whole

country, while Nehru wanted power focussed at the Centre as he believed a powerful Centre

was essential to maintain a firm unity and prevent any secessionist activities. But power

concentrated at the centre is prone to being abused. Within 12 years of independence Nehru

abused the power under Article 356 of the Constitution to dismiss the elected government of

the Communist Party of India in Kerala.

There are several instances of the abuse of power by the Centre in history, but the

most infamous is of Indira Gandhi’s brutal imposition of emergency. In 1975 Indira Gandhi,

like her father abused the power of the Centre to impose a state of emergency which caused

the people to lose even the most basic rights against the state. The Centre has the power to

use the wrath of the mighty military and the paramilitary to do its bidding. Even though

policing falls under the State List (a constitutional list prescribing matters over which the

state has power), the Centre has found a way to interfere with state policing. By creating

organisations like the Central Reserve Police Force and other forces under Central Armed

Police Forces, the Centre has the power of Police in addition to the military. It is not only the

police and the military but virtually every state and central department can be influenced by

the Centre, with the assistance of its prestigious bureaucracy that is controlled by the Union

Public Service Commission. While the states have their own state public services the real

power lies within the servants employed by the Centre. Services like the Indian

Administrative Services or the Indian Police Services are the gift of a colonial government

which wanted as much control over the locals as possible without any regards for democratic

procedures. The motive behind using a colonial bureaucratic apparatus to rule an independent

India was to make sure that the ultimate power lies within the Centre even when it may

appear to fall within the state’s jurisdiction.

 Raj 3

The Indian system is not all bad, it may have it’s drawbacks, but it has proved

successful in many ways. “The predictable clashes between the centre and the states voiced

most stridently in the political arenas have been echoed within the formal structures

preserving federal relations – especially financial and administrative - making for a highly

tenuous display of the unity, integrity and indestructibility of the Indian state” (Jalal 165).

This system which has caused inevitable clashes between the centre and the states has also

provided a platform to discuss the issues that are causing it. The flexible nature of the Indian

system made dialogues between the centre and the states, a success. The ethnic and linguistic

differences that some saw as a weakness and a threat to the unity of India became the very

thing that empowered it. For instance, the struggle for states to be divided on linguistic basis

during the 1950s was met with strong opposition from the Centre, but the demand had so

much weight behind it that it gradually turned into a secessionist movement in certain places.

The Centre was made helpless was forced to consider dividing the existing states to calm the

secessionist tendencies. This struggle had created groups which started gaining huge political

supports from the regional population. In other words, the struggle had created political

entities that acted as a check on the centre’s authority. These political entities now gained

power as new states were being created on the linguistic basis and thus, paved the way for

regional players to form the government in their respective states. These regional political

parties started gaining so much support that the Indian National Congress’s hegemony over

the Centre became threatened by their existence. The ethnic and linguistic minorities who

initially felt threatened under the strong centre, now placed their confidence in the parties

who they could understand their conditions better than the centre ever could. Thus, this

struggle helped the cause of democracy by giving voice and representation to not only the

majority but also the minority.

 Raj 4

India could not have been a federal country like the United States of America, India

simply has much more diverse peoples than the USA to allow such a form of government.

One of Federalism’s major drawbacks is that it tends to give the states or provinces greater

autonomy to make laws to govern itself which may cause the majority in the region to neglect

the needs of the minorities of that region. This greater autonomy may also result in the non-

uniformity of laws and regulations throughout the country which in turn will create a sense of

difference and inequality between the citizens of different regions. Disputes would arise

between states on conflicting policies, trading across state borders would become a problem,

and most importantly there would be an unequal distribution of wealth across different states.

A weaker Centre will mean that it would be incapable of solving these disputes, in addition to

the technical issues, the idea of a united nation and patriotism will lose it’s influence over the

citizens. Citizens of a particular region will live under different laws and conditions as other

contrasting regions, this will create a feeling of alienation as they would not be able to

identify with each other, they would start seeing people from other states as foreigners or

outsiders rather than their own countrymen. And since India has people that are more

different from each other than in USA these problems would be overwhelmingly widespread.

India’s strong centre helps in tackling these issues, it ensures that the states do not gain so

much influence that they start becoming a different country in their own. In India, the Centre

which represents the whole country rather than a particular region maintains adequate

representation of itself in the state governments through the Governors of each state, who are

appointed by the Central government. The presence of a strong central government serves as

a reminder to the people that however different they maybe, they are all the citizens of the

same country who are governed by the same laws and all the states and it’s people are all

subject of a single nation.

 Raj 5

History is witness to the abuse of power by the Centre in India, it has shown that

Centre is more than capable of threatening the integrity of democracy in the country. In the

present we can see this abuse happening in front us, the Centre has used it’s powers to divide

and conquer the highly controversial state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre has arbitrarily

stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its statehood and put it under the control of the Centre itself.

The people of Kashmir were provided greater autonomy than the other states of the Union,

this was done to honour the same intentions that gave birth to the Indian system of

government which chose to share the powers of the Centre with the state so that the people

are represented equally and do not feel alienated. Stripping away the statehood of Jammu and

Kashmir is threatening the very principles of democracy that this country is build upon. The

Centre is now undoing the progress made during the last decades that had favoured

regionalism and decentralisation of power in India. The present central government, unlike its

predecessors is moving backwards and wants to accumulate as much power to itself as

possible, even if it is at the cost of the people and the very pillar of democracy on which it

stands. There was a critical need of a powerful Centre when the country got its independence,

to bear the effects of partition and the diversity among the people, but the democratic reforms

led India towards regionalism as the need for a strong Centre started became lesser. It is

because of these democratic reforms that India stood as an example of “Unity in Diversity”, if

it is to stay that way the country needs to move towards decentralisation instead of amassing

power at the Centre.

 Raj 6

WORKS CITED

1. Elazar, Daniel J., “Contrasting Unitary and Federal Systems.” International Political
Science Review, vol. 18, no. 3, 1997, pp. 237-251.

2. Jaffrelot, Christophe. “India and Pakistan: Interpreting the Divergence of Two

Political Trajectories.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 15, no. 2,
2002.

3. Jalal, Ayesha. Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia. Cambridge University

Press, 1995.