The 70th anniversary of the Indian Republic is, to my mind, an occasion for satisfaction more than celebration. Yes, there are always the celebratory facet, as befits a traditional national holiday. But that is only to be expected. What is far more important is the quiet satisfaction that comes with the awareness that the path we chose after Independence has, the occasional hiccup notwithstanding, worked reasonably well.
This is not to say that other systems of public life would have been less rewarding. There was a strong case for the Constituent Assembly to adopt a presidential system with in-built federal features. Adopting such a system would not have compromised stability. Indeed, given the type of challenges India faced in the first decades after Independence, a presidential system would probably have made policy choices more purposeful. It may even have worked to the advantage of Jawaharlal Nehru who often complained that his world view and his priorities were insufficiently understood by the other stalwarts of the Congress.
Counter-factual history is always an interesting intellectual game. However, it is also purposeless. The fact is not merely that India opted for a Westminster model and a bicameral Parliament but that other alternatives weren’t seriously considered. That is not surprising. In the aftermath of Independence and with the world just about recovering from a devastating World War, single point leadership was viewed with suspicion. Maybe rightly so. Many of the former colonies that won freedom after 1947 quickly shifted from a parliamentary to a presidential system, with consequences that were undesirable.
India didn’t change course — although Indira Gandhi tried to in 1976 at the height of the Emergency — and it hasn’t really suffered.
Maybe the policy choices under a presidential system would have been more emphatic and, consequently, economic progress would have been more marked. However, in hindsight, that had less to do with the parliamentary system than with the flawed policy options exercised. The alternative, less-statist options that were proffered by stalwarts, could well have been accommodated within a parliamentary system. More to the point, a parliamentary system encouraged the development and consolidation of a party system that has certainly added to the democratic spirit. A presidential system may have done quite the opposite.
In any event, the role of a Constitution should not be over-stated. A Constitution is a valuable and, indeed, indispensable document without which a country can be held hostage to individual flights of whimsy. However, a Constitution stipulates the rules governing public life. It is important to have these rules as they delineate a Lakshman Rekha and defines self-restraint.
A Constitution, in the case of India, however, has its limits. India isn’t a treaty state as many European and African countries are. There was an India before the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 and there was an India even before the Moghul kings set up a mighty empire. The boundaries of the state may have been defined by conquest and treaties but India as a nation — and a civilisational entity — had an autonomous existence, independent of the multiple kingdoms that existed in the subcontinent. The term ‘sacred geography’ is just one version of an India that operated at the level of a cultural entity.
The importance of stressing this on the 70th anniversary of the Indian Republic is obvious. There is an intellectual and political current in the country that would have us believe that the Constitution is the first and final word defining our national life. Without undermining its colossal importance in any way, it is necessary to affirm that Indian nationhood existed well before a Constitution was even imagined. It is a nationhood that, unlike European nations, isn’t based on the commonality of either language or a structured faith. It is based on cultural assumptions.
The term Hindu has often been used to define India. If used in a sense that proceeds on the belief that Hinduism is a codified religion with an established church and hierarchy, it would be wrong. India possesses a broadly shared culture that is loosely speaking described as Hindu. But it is a culture that cannot and should not be codified. Secularism was sought to be codified in 1976 by including the term in the Preamble. The results have been disastrous. There have been more disputes centred on secularism after 1976 than there were in the period 1950-1976, when secularism existed as an understanding.
The challenge India faces today is not one of a dysfunctional Constitution. The worry stems from an attempt to detach nationhood from citizenship and reduce India to a juridical tract, a plaything for clever lawyers and those who want to take culture away from our public life. The trend should and must be resisted.
Bharat Mata holds the Constitution in one hand. What she carries is important and even sacred. But no more important and sacred that Bharat Mata herself.
