Federal Segregation or Multiculturalism?

Abstract

The final important element to take into account in explaining the adoption of the particular constitutional structures that contributed to federal stability, or lack thereof, in India and Pakistan is that of state-sponsored national identity. Understanding the state’s articulation of a national identity is vital to explain attitudes toward constitution formation. As should be clear from the previous chapters, it cannot stand alone. State-sponsored national identities in India and Pakistan were inevitably influenced by British constitutional structures. And without an appreciation of the changes that occurred between the plans that were proposed by the Congress and the League, and the constitutions that were adopted by India and Pakistan, it is not possible to explain the reasons behind the changes.

When the vision of the state is contested, the vision of the units is apt to be contested.

(Rajagopalan 1999, 193)

To accept Muslims or Christians as minorities would [be] tantamount to making religion a permanent divisive line… in every walk of social life. Indirectly, this would mean upholding the pernicious two-nation or multi-nationality theory.

(Vajpayee 1961, 2)¹

It may be that the founding fathers of independent India did not fully understand the significance of ethnic loyalties and cleavages, some institutions adopted by them would have been better suited to homogeneous societies than to India.

(Vanhanen 1992, 3)