PERSPECTIVESBritish introduced as a device for the devolution of power in terms of
provincial autonomy ran counter to nationalist aspirations, but was
nevertheless retained after independence.
As both the Mughal and the British Indian political tradition was highly
centralist, this centralism was emulated by the Indian nationalists. It was
enhanced by the partition of India, which highlighted the need for national
integration. A further contribution to this centralism was the unbroken
tradition of the civil service which was taken over as a going concern
following the negotiated, non-revolutionary transfer of power. The
developmental needs of the federal states were not realised as a result of
this prevalent centralism, and it is only in recent times that a new
awareness of the value of federalism for a vast state like the Union of India
is becoming evident.
Another important element of the Indian political tradition is India’s
secularism. The various religious trends of India which come under the
general rubric of Hinduism always provided for a large degree of
autonomy for the political sphere. When Islamic rulers conquered extensive
parts of India, they brought along a different idea of the state as a
corporation of Muslims which would at the most grant protection to non-
believers. But in actual political practice they had to take note of the fact
that the majority of the citizens were such non-believers. When the British
conquered India they did not make it a Christian empire; similarly, when
the Indian National Congress challenged British rule this organisation took
great care to retain a secular character. This was not simply a matter of
ideology but also of political expediency, because anybody who wanted to
build up solidarity on a sectarian platform was bound to get isolated from
the mainstream of political life. The British policy of ‘divide and rule’, the
introduction of separate electorates for the Indian Muslims—which finally
led to the partition of India—confirmed the Indian National Congress even
more in its adherence to secularism, which then also became the guiding
principle of the Union of India. Jawaharlal Nehru saw in this secular
republic the true school of the Indian nation in which it would grow up in
terms of modern national solidarity. In this respect his views closely
paralleled those of earlier liberal nationalists such as Ranade and Gokhale,
who had hoped for the transformation of the many Indian communities
into a modern nation. This process is still going on and there are many
obstacles which had to be overcome by concerted action.
One of the problems besetting the Indian nation is the existence of great
regional discrepancies. The states in the western half of India, including
Tamil Nadu, are on a par with Latin America as far as their general
standard of life is concerned; the states of the east are on the level of the
poorer states of Africa. The dynamics of economic development usually do
not reduce, but rather enhance, such discrepancies. Thus the over-
populated and under-urbanised areas of the east remain backward, while