Commentary History

India as a historical project: A failure of the imagination

15 August 2015
In different ways, both the Sangh’s project of history and the secular project of national history, whatever their contours, suffer from the same disease; the need to locate India in history rather than see it as the creation of the unique ongoing experiment of shared values that began in 1947.
In different ways, both the Sangh’s project of history and the secular project of national history, whatever their contours, suffer from the same disease; the need to locate India in history rather than see it as the creation of the unique ongoing experiment of shared values that began in 1947.

Nations are defined by a shared sense of history; republics are defined by a shared sense of values. This vital distinction is often lost when liberals, conservatives and radicals—whether Sanghis or Marxists—turn the debate over the idea of India into a battle over history.

There is indeed a civilizational idea that is evoked by the term India, but that is not how the term is invoked or defined when it is used in the Constitution to describe the Republic of India. The Preamble of the Constitution begins by stating, “The People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic.”  It goes on to define the set of values—justice, liberty, equality and fraternity—to be shared by those who constitute this Republic.  The only terms then, that remained to be defined in this commitment to a shared set of values relate to what India is. This question concerns the definition of the territory of the Republic, and who the people of India are, which follows from the definition of citizenship in this Republic. The Constitution goes on to state:

Name and territory of the Union –

1) India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.

2) The states and territories thereof shall be as specified in the First Schedule.

Hartosh Singh Bal is the political editor at The Caravan.

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