ISAS Insights

There are two, perhaps three, nation-building ideas that have been in conflict in South Asia since the British left the subcontinent in the late 1940s. One was espoused by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who governed the country for the first 17 years after independence in 1947. According to this belief, even in a country with such diversity as India, it was possible to construct economic, political and social systems that would protect all citizens, not only those who constituted the majority. Sunil Khilnani, the Indian political theorist, has called this the “idea of India”.2 There were, in fact, two ideas, both supported by Nehru and both with good historical justification. These two ideas were brought together in the Indian Constitution promulgated in January 1950. According to the historian, Ramachandra Guha, the Constitution brought together what he calls the “national” and “social” revolutions. “The national revolution focused on democracy and liberty – which the experience of colonial rule had denied to all Indians – whereas the social revolution focused on emancipation and equality, which tradition and scripture had withheld from women and low castes.”3 The idea of India, in other words, was a composite one.