Rahul Gandhi – the scion of Gandhi Parivar has ignited a massive debate in the country by questioning the very idea of India as a ‘nation’. Speaking in the Parliament on the motion of thanks to President’s Address in Lok Sabha, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi claimed that India was just a “union of states” and not as a nation.
“India is described in the Indian Constitution as a union of states and not a nation. One cannot rule over the people of a state in India. Different languages and cultures cannot be suppressed. It is a partnership, not a kingdom,” claimed Rahul Gandhi, who launched a tirade against the Modi government.
In his speech, Rahul Gandhi insisted that the power arrangement between the states and the centre is of a “negotiation” and insinuated that India did not have a single national identity, instead, the idea of India rose from an agreement or a negotiation between the provincial units. The Gandhi-scion also brought the reference of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, imagining them to be distinct entities and asserted that the ruling dispensation treated these constitutional units as its kingdom.
To put it simply, Rahul Gandhi views the provincial units, commonly referred to as ‘states’, as autonomous political entities which, according to him, were independent units that reached an agreement to form a new nation-state ‘India’ during the process of national integration. For Rahul Gandhi, India is just a political unity born after 1947, which arose due to the integration of several provincial units, comprising British Indian provinces that were directly ruled by the British Empire and the 565 princely states which enjoyed relative autonomy during the colonial rule.
Rahul Gandhi dismisses the very idea of India’s national identity and expectedly peddles the left-liberal narrative of India’s non-existence as a nation before 1947. Instead, the Gandhi-scion considers India a national entity that owes its existence to the British Empire, which created several provincial entities that later integrated based on an agreement to form the Republic of India.
Rahul Gandhi questions the idea of India:
In his hurry to target the Modi government, Rahul Gandhi resorts to the dangerous ploy of questioning the very idea of India as a nation. To do so, the fifth-generation dynast Rahul Gandhi displays his flawed understanding of the provisions of Article 1 of the Indian Constitution, from where he seems to have lifted the fallacious interpretation of the idea of India as a “union of states”.
Article 1 describes India, that is, Bharat, as a “union of states”. Rahul Gandhi twists the very basic idea of “union” to actually deliver a speech on the idea of “federation”.
It is important to note that the Drafting Committee of the Constitution was very careful in choosing the words to interpret the constitutional relationship between the federal and the provincial units. They had a purpose while choosing the word “union” to “federation”. They were of the view that the word “union” better defines the relationship between two units as the union of India is not the outcome of an agreement among the old provinces, and it is not open to any state or a group of states to secede from the union or to vary the boundary of their states on their own free will.
This is exactly why the constitution-makers stayed away from using the term “federation of states” and insisted on referring to “union of states”.
However, in his speech, Rahul Gandhi misinterprets Article 1 to subtly suggest that India is a federation of states, which was formed due to the outcome of an agreement or negotiation among provincial units.
Even Dr BR Ambedkar, the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, was very categorical in explaining the idea of “union of states”. First, Dr Ambedkar suggested that the Indian Federation is not the result of an agreement among the states like the American Federation. Secondly, the states have no right to secede from the federation. The federation is a union because it is indestructible.
Most importantly, Dr Ambedkar clarifies that the country is an integral whole that is divided into different states only for the “convenience of administration”.
However, Rahul Gandhi is now trying to tread on this dangerous path by insinuating that the idea of India stood on the premise of some agreement between provincial units and the centre, without which India as a nation did not exist. Perhaps, Rahul Gandhi assumes this “agreement” between the states is negotiable in the future, threatening India’s very existence as a nation-state.
Not just Ambedkar, even Rahul Gandhi’s great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru has several times insisted that the organisation of princely states and provinces were not just on linguistic lines, but also from the point of administrative efficiency.
It is important to note that the Linguistic Provinces Commission under the chairmanship of SK Dhar in 1948 had recommended the reorganisation of states based on administrative convenience rather than linguistic factors, suggesting that provincial units did not have any independent identity on their own. In contrast, the integration of the state was merely an act of national consolidation rather than establishing a new national identity as being claimed by Rahul Gandhi.
Is Rahul Gandhi stoking sub-nationalism and Balkanisation?
Rahul Gandhi’s repeated reference to Tamil Nadu and a direct challenge to the union government asking them to try and establish control over the state is deeply problematic and worrisome. Today, it is not an unknown fact that there is a slight discord among some northern and southern states over several political, economic, linguistic, and cultural issues. However, these grievances and differences have been addressed and accommodated in a non-partisan manner by the Indian leadership for over seven decades now.
However, by constant flaring up of regional identities, especially by riding on the sub-national sentiments, Rahul Gandhi intends to divide India and Indians on regional identities. After failing to polarise Indians along caste and religious lines, Rahul Gandhi perhaps thinks that he can stir up regional sentiments as a means to keep Indians fighting forever.
Intriguingly, this is not the first time Rahul Gandhi is resorting to milk the ‘North-South’ divide. In February last year, Rahul Gandhi had claimed that representing a constituency in Kerala has been a refreshing change for a person like him who had represented a constituency in Northern India for the first 15 years of his career. The Congress leader had said that people in Kerala are interested in issues, unlike others. Though it looked like he was praising Keralites, in reality, he was insinuating that the people in the north were not as serious as the people of the south.
It seems like Rahul Gandhi has now gotten hold of a new playbook of covertly reviving sub-nationalism sentiments to polarise the country on regional lines, if unchecked, which may slowly result in strengthening separatist tendencies in many states.
