The American-Israeli political scientist Daniel Elazar famously warned that it is a “mistake to present unity and diversity as opposites”. Instead, he contrasted them, respectively, with disunity and homogeneity. In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the ultimate sovereign, and the real parmatma, of our nation has told the new government in unequivocal terms: Do not undermine the noble ideas of diversity, constitutionalism and federalism.
Constitutionalism is the idea of limited government. It demands that governmental power should not itself be destructive of the values it was intended to promote. Civil liberties operate as restrictions on the power of the state.
The real masters of our Republic have told the incoming government that India is a “Union of States”, not of Union Territories, and so nothing should be done to diminish their importance and powers. Cooperative federalism should not be reduced to mere rhetoric.
Our Constitution begins with the expression “we, the people of India” — diverse groups bound together, not by religion, language, caste or region, but by the idea of “constitutional patriotism”. Can we really exclude over 15 crore Muslims from the “people of India”? Should the government not pay heed to the RSS chief’s assertions that “Hindus and Muslims have the same DNA” and that “Hindutva cannot be imagined without Muslims”? No ruling party leader referred to these statements in their election speeches.
Since 2019, several liberal scholars have been predicting a bleak future for Indian........