Decentring the Indian Nation

Andrew Wyatt, John Zavos, Andrew Wyatt, John Zavos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781135761684
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Studi sull'etnia

The world's largest democracy has experienced strife since its inception in 1947. The contributors to this study examine trends in Indian and Pakistani politics during the late 20th and early 21st centuries whilst focusing on the fragmentation of the body politic.

Constitutional Centring: Nation Formation and Consociational Federalism in India and Pakistan

KATHARINE ADENEY

States, as political and territorial entities, can be more or less centralised through adopting differing governing structures. Nations are more fluid. Since the French Revolution regimes have explicitly sought to legitimise their rule by articulating a national identity. This national identity defines the membership of the state’s community and in what capacity the ‘private’ characteristics of an individual, whether based around religion, language or culture are recognised politically in the institutions of that state. In most states of the world, national and political borders do not coincide and the national identity is therefore contestable. It is logical to speak of centring the nation around a core group, for example the Punjabis in Pakistan, Hindus in India, or a territory that holds particular significance for the nation (Kosovo for the Serbs, or Kashmir in the case of Pakistan and India). However, all these cases are good examples of contested status, not least because the articulation of who ‘belongs’ is linked to the distribution of political power and economic resources. Even non-culturally defined nations, based around territorial ‘civicness’, can be contested, as seen by the BJP’s rejection of the secular identity of India.

My starting point is that the articulation of the national identity of the states of India and Pakistan profoundly influenced the type of institutions that were created to give expression to this identity. Before independence, the Congress and League’s conceptions of the Indian nation(s) were given expression through a mixture of consociational and federal formulae, structures of government designed to manage ethnic and national diversity within states.¹ Both federalism and consociationalism operate according to the principle of devolution of powers and are therefore important institutions to determine the extent of the centring or decentring of a state’s national identity. Whilst federations do not have to be organised according to ethnicity, as in the case of Austria, federations can be a mechanism to manage ethnic identities, when they either (a) devolve power to territorially concentrated communities or (b) deliberately cross-cut these communities in an effort to reduce the significance of these communities. When federations accommodate ethnic identities it comprises a political form of recognition as it recognises these identities in decision-making institutions. Unlike federalism, consociationalism is always related to the devolution of power to ethnic groups. Consociationalism as a concept was initially developed by Lijphart in 1969 to explain the maintenance of stable democracy in ethnically divided societies. It was predicated upon elite inclusion in governing structures and segmental autonomy for the relevant group, whether linguistically or religiously defined. It had four features, a grand coalition of all the significant segments of the society, proportionality in government appointments, segmental autonomy and a decision-making veto.² Federalism and consociationalism also differ in the unit they devolve power to. Federalism devolves power to territorial spaces of government, whilst consociationalism devolves power to group leaders, whether these groups are spatially concentrated or not. Federation and consociation can coincide if federalism’s territorially defined provinces are structured around territorially concentrated ethnic groups. Both can be mechanisms of decentring a state and its national identity by permitting selfgovernment for some (or all) of the different communities within the state. In permitting this autonomy, they provide the conditions under which security for the differing ethnic groups within the state is promoted, thereby reducing the potential for conflict between these groups and the state.³

Before the creation of India and Pakistan the British Raj’s territory contained an ethnically heterogeneous population. After independence both countries remained so. Each had approximately 15 per cent of its population constituted by religious minorities and substantial numbers of linguistic communities. Whilst the two states had very different national identities and rationales behind their creation (India was defined as a secular inclusive nation state and Pakistan was demanded and created as a separate state for a religiously defined nation), their constitutions were more similar after Independence than the plans they respectively articulated before Independence. Although this could have been expected on one level, as both were products of the British Raj and British institutional structures, their constitutional preferences before independence were very different. The League was consociational, the Congress more majoritarian. This majoritarianism was ultimately what led the Congress to question the Cabinet Mission Plan. Coupled with the fact that Congress and the League articulated very different nation-building strategies, both before and after independence, this relative similarity poses a problem that requires explanation.

DECENTRING UNDER IMPERIAL CONTROL

By the twentieth century, federal forms of government to rule the Indian subcontinent were well established. These were not the rigid codified constitutional federal forms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries analysed by constitutional federal theorists such as Wheare.⁴ Yet, under the Mughals, devices corresponding to territorial methods of autonomy were adopted to consolidate territory, which the British adapted to their requirements. These in turn influenced the formally federal institutions set up under the 1919 Government of India Act.

The British concession of autonomy at the provincial level was an essential part of their strategy to increase Indian self-government whilst maintaining ‘real’ power at the centre. As a British constitutional historian put it: the Act of 1919 ‘effectively negatived any real test of the capacity of Indian ministers to work responsible government’.⁵ It was viewed as such by many of the Indian political parties. Nevertheless, although Congress rejected the 1919 and 1935 acts, it is important to stress that the Congress did not reject the 1919 Act because of its concession of provincial autonomy, rather because of the system of dyarchy, under which only a few select powers were transferred to the Indian ministers at the provincial level.⁶ The main opposition to the Act came from the perception that it conceded ‘too little too late’, rather than opposition to the federal provisions themselves. The Nehru Report of 1928⁷ also advocated a federal form of government, and Congress accepted a federation in the 1931 Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Whilst Congress vehemently opposed the 1935 Act, its opposition was directed against certain undemocratic aspects of the federation—notably the inclusion of the princes within the federal chamber at the centre—rather than federation as a structure of government. As the Congress Working Committee Resolution of 4 February 1938 makes clear:

The Congress is not opposed to the idea of federation, but a real federation must, even apart from the question of responsibility, consist of free units enjoying more or less the same measure of freedom and civil liberty and representation by democratic process of election. Indian States participating in the Federation should approximate to the Provinces in the establishment of representative institutions.⁸

Whilst the Muslim League generally welcomed federal structures of government, as the League’s main basis of support was in the United Provinces, Muslims in these Hindu-dominated areas were primarily concerned with consociational methods of protection through separate electorates and legislative weightage. Provincial autonomy could not benefit a spatially dispersed minority. In the late 1920s the Muslim majority provinces’ interests became more important to the League’s strategy, and federal forms of government were articulated. In common with the Congress, the League vociferously rejected the 1935 Act, firstly for its inclusion of the princes, on the grounds that this would bring an undemocratic force into a constitution that was supposed to be moving in a more democratic and inclusive direction; later for its benefiting the Congress agenda (despite Congress’ denunciation of the Act in even more virulent tones than the League).

Both Congress and the League therefore favoured federal structures before Independence, an important similarity that was carried over after Independence. The perception in the literature that Congress was in favour of a unitary state is false. Federations are diverse creatures and a centralised federation should not be confused with a unitary state. Yet in terms of defining the Indian nation, Congress and League differed substantially before Independence—Congress seeking to centre the ‘nation’ around territorial ‘civicness’ and the League seeking to decentre it through the articulation of the two-nation theory. This is why the League promoted consociational features within the federation, whilst the Congress demanded a more majoritarian and centralised one. While federations may decentralise power, they do not necessarily protect minority rights. The protection of minority (and sometimes majority) communities within the national identity promoted by the state varies according to the level of consociationalism within these structures—as well as the extent to which the provincial units of the federation coincide with the boundaries of the communities within it, if such communities are territorially concentrated.

To assess the institutional differences between the Congress and League on the issues of minority accommodation in federal structures, I have scored the constitutional plans between 1916–46 on federal and consociational criteria. Whilst the Congress and the League differed over the federal form, primarily over the issue of the location of residual powers, the significant differences between them occurred over levels of minority protection and accommodation within these constitutional forms. As argued, these different priorities were indicative of different national identities, and attitudes to (de)centring the nation. The political recognition of alternative identities amounts to a decentring of the nation even if there is little decentralisation of powers within the state. In assessing these constitutional plans, I have ignored the differences between the proposed plans that were not pertinent to a discussion of federalism, or were not sufficiently detailed to permit meaningful analysis. Conversely, I have included elements that are not normally considered relevant to a federal system. This is for two reasons. Firstly, to be an effective mechanism of regulating ethnic conflict, federalism often requires the inclusion of additional elements. While methods of securing proportionality in decision-making organs, security or a grand executive coalition are more commonly associated with theories of consociationalism expounded by Lijphart, they have also been associated with federal organisation, especially in multiethnic/multinational societies, such as Belgium and Switzerland. Not only do consociational federal structures facilitate the accommodation of territorially dispersed communities, something which majoritarian federal structures cannot do, they address the concerns of territorially concentrated groups which are a minority in the state as a whole, for which federal structures give no guarantees of minority veto or protection outside their province, especially at the centre. Although consociational elements are distinct from those specifically associated with federalism, there can be overlaps, as Lijphart demonstrates.⁹ The demand for the inclusion of these consociational elements must therefore be seen as an integral part of the acceptance of the federal system of government in united India, and should not— indeed, cannot—be dissociated from the plans proposed and accepted. Secondly,

TABLE 1
THE ELEMENTS AND VARIABLES TO TEST FEDERAL LEVELS OF CONSOCIATIONALISM

an analysis that takes into account consociational as well as formal federal features is better placed to posit the distinction between the attitudes towards minority accommodation proposed by the Congress and the League before and after Independence than a simple focus on formal elements of federal structures does.

have identified nine variables with which to categorise the differences in the plans, as set out in Table 1. I have grouped the nine variables under Lijphart’s classification of four elements of consociational government -grand coalition, proportionality, segmental autonomy and mutual veto. All nine fit into the criteria specified above, either being elements of federations, or consociational elements that complement them. All nine were integral to the type of federation proposed, and facilitate comparison of the plans according to testable criteria. As discussed below, Lijphart in 1996 attempted to argue that India was a consociation under Nehru and therefore was not a deviant case for his theory.¹⁰ Whilst he analysed India using his four elements of consociationalism, grand coalition, proportionality, segmental autonomy and mutual veto, this author concurs with Lustick that Lijphart’s treatment of these elements reveal, ‘an impressionistic methodological posture, flexible rules for coding data’.¹¹ I intend to be more specific in analysing pre- and post-constitution formation through the subdivision of Lijphart’s elements as set out in the Table 1.¹²

Grand Coalition

Lijphart incorporates a grand coalition as one of the elements of consociational democracy because of its inclusion of all the political leaders of the significant segments in a society.¹³ In so doing he precludes the ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Decentring the Indian Nation
• Constitutional Centring: Nation Formation and Consociational Federalism in India and Pakistan
• Redrawing the Body Politic: Federalism, Regionalism and the Creation of New States in India
• The Continuing Struggle for India’s Jharkhand: Democracy, Decentralisation and the Politics of Names and Numbers
• Liberal, Secular Democracy and Explanations of Hindu Nationalism
• Whatever Happened to Cultural Nationalism in Tamil Nadu? Reading of Current Events and the Recent Literature on Tamil Politics
• Response to John Harriss
• Identity Politics and Social Pluralism: Political Sociology and Political Change in Tamil Nadu
• Abstracts