The very idea of India is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may accommodate – indeed, celebrate – differences of caste, creed, colour, culture, cuisine, conviction, costume, and custom, and still rally around a democratic consensus. That consensus is around the simple constitutional principle that in a democracy under the rule of law, you do not really need to agree all the time – except on the ground rules of how you will disagree. The reason India has survived all the stresses and strains that have beset it for nearly eight decades, and that led so many to predict its imminent disintegration, is that it maintained consensus on how to manage without consensus. Today, those in positions of power seem to be scorning these ground rules, which are enshrined, alongside the idea of India, in our Constitution. This is why it is imperative, today more than ever, to reaffirm those rules, that idea, and – above all – our Constitution.
The Constitution had to incorporate, in its very essence, this idea of Indian nationhood, which had emerged from the nationalist movement. Nationalism, to my mind, is essentially divisible into those forms that are changeless (like ethnicity and identity-based nationalism) and those where the sense of nationhood inheres in institutions, practices, and systems enshrined in a Constitution and reaffirmed regularly through a democratic vote – in other words, civic nationalism. Whereas ethnic nationhood inheres in the body, civic nationalism appeals to the mind; it is a nationalism of constitutions and institutions you respect, rather than identities you are born into.
In using “ethnic nationalism” as shorthand for what most people traditionally understand by the idea of nationalism, I admit, of course, that nationalism always goes a step further than mere ethnocentrism, in that it seeks and demands loyalty to a politically distinct entity, requires membership in an organized mass social group or community, insists on fealty to a formalised ideology, and requires of its adherents the performance of certain actions or behaviours to confirm their allegiance to the nation, such as saluting the flag, singing the anthem, or swearing loyalty to the state. Still, if its basis is the unchanging qualities one largely acquires by the accidental circumstance of birth, it falls into the category of “classic” ethnic nationalism. Civic nationalism, while still nationalist, is distinguished from ethnic nationalism by the very fact that ethnicity and its trappings are irrelevant to a nationalist’s sense of allegiance to his country. It is this latter idea that the Constitution of India implicitly incorporated.
Civic nationalism is a concept that drives those states that derive their political legitimacy not from ethnicity, religion, language, culture, or any of the immutable trappings that people acquire from birth, but from the consent and active participation of their citizens, as free members of a democratic polity.
Ideas of civic nationalism are said to have originated from the writings of European philosophers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and especially with the latter’s 1762 book, The Social Contract, which describes the legitimacy of government being derived from the “general will” of the people. Membership of the civic nation is voluntary and can be acquired not only by birth but by immigration and usually (except in a handful of countries) renunciation of other allegiances. Civic nationalism requires liberal democratic institutions, constitutionalism that guarantees freedom of speech and association, and representative democracy, and is therefore the form of nationalism most closely associated with the modern state. Since these essential attributes are not totally inconsistent with the majoritarian impulse prevalent in ethno-nationalist “illiberal democracies”, civic nationalism rests on liberal constitutionalism to prevent such distortions. While the United States of America and France are often described as prototypes of civic nationalism, anti-colonial nationalism like India’s evolved into civic nationalism, and, arguably, a once ethnic nationalism like Germany’s has been transformed into the same variant today.
Indian civic nationalism thus required allegiance to an idea of India transcending religious, ethnic, linguistic, and other sub-national identities. “I do not want that our loyalty as Indians should be in the slightest way affected by any competitive loyalty,” said Ambedkar, “whether that loyalty arises out of our religion, out of our culture or out of our language. I want all people to be Indians first, Indians last and nothing else but Indians.” He was explicitly rejecting the divisions by religion, caste, region, and language which the likes of Churchill would have seen as definitive. The Constitution set about formally and legally establishing who “Indians” were.
In doing so, and in their attempt to give the country the best Constitution they could, its framers borrowed from and were inspired by models from around the world. The structure of Parliament, including the roles of the Lok Sabha (House of the People) and the Rajya Sabha (Council of States), and the concept of a cabinet system of government, where the executive is responsible to the legislature, were inspired by the British system. The idea of a written Constitution and the inclusion of a Bill of Rights, along with the concept of judicial review, allowing the judiciary to strike down laws that violate the Constitution, were inspired by the US Constitution. The words “equal protection of the laws” in Article 14 were taken from the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. The exceptions to the freedom of speech and expression incorporated in Article 19(2) were included in emulation of the Irish Constitution. The phrase “procedure established by law” in Article 21 was borrowed from Article 31 of the Japanese Constitution.
The Directive Principles of State Policy, as we have seen, were inspired by the Irish Constitution. The concept of a strong central government with a federal structure, in which powers are divided between the central and state governments, was influenced by the Canadian model. The idea of emergency provisions, allowing the central government to take control during times of crisis, was inspired by the Weimar Constitution of Germany. The concept of concurrent powers, where both the central and state governments can legislate on certain subjects, was borrowed from the Australian Constitution.
And the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which are enshrined in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution, were inspired by the French Revolution.
Excerpted with permission from Our Living Constitution: A Concise Introduction and Commentary, Shashi Tharoor, Aleph Book Company.
