India and the Ideal of the Nation-State

From a Western point of view, India, or at least the region where the so-called “white sahibs” established their businesses, was indeed a “politically” split realm. It is a fact that is frequently overlooked, yet the majority of the dharmashastras and artha shastras were written by Brahmins, who were the society’s priests at the time. The conventional knowledge of Europe reduces them to nothing more than religious authorities and advisors to those in positions of power in the political system.

Yet, in every area of India lived a group of individuals known as Brahmins, and they chanted the same shrutis, or passages from the Vedas. This was the ancient civilization that had a significant impact on the culture of the general population. The Vedangas were responsible for ensuring that every region on the subcontinent used the same jyotisha calendar, shaped the organisational principles of all Indian languages, and had an impact on Indian popular culture through the Natyashastra (Balakrishna, 2018).

The nation-state is a political model that combines two distinct principles: the principle of state sovereignty, which was first articulated in the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and which recognises the right of states to govern their territories without interference from outside forces; and the principle of national sovereignty, which recognises the right of national communities to govern themselves. The principle of state sovereignty was first articulated in 1648, and it recognised the right of states to govern their territories without interference from outside forces. The moral and intellectual premise of popular sovereignty, according to which states are the property of their respective peoples, serves as the foundation for the concept of national sovereignty. The latter principle suggests that legitimate rule of a state necessitates some form of consent by the people who live in that state. 

Despite this precondition, it is not the case that all nation-states practise democratic government. In point of fact, a great number of autocratic rulers have portrayed themselves as ruling in the name of a sovereign nation, both to the international community of nations and to the people living under their authority within their own countries.

Qualifications of a nation-state

A political unit known as a nation state is one in which the state and the country are indistinguishable from one another. It is a more specific concept than “country”, since a country does not need to have a main ethnic group.

A nation in the sense of a shared ethnicity may include members of a diaspora or refugees who reside in a state that is not part of the nation; some nations in this sense do not have a state in which their ethnicity is the dominant culture. 

In a broader sense, a nation state is nothing more than a big country or administrative region that is politically and administratively independent. One can compare and contrast a nation state with the following:

A multinational state in which no single ethnic group holds the majority of political power (such a state may also be considered a multicultural state depending on the degree of cultural assimilation of various groups).

A city-state is a political entity that is both smaller than a nation in the sense of “big sovereign country” and, depending on the context, may or may not be dominated by all or part of a single “nation” in the sense of a shared ethnicity.

An empire is a conglomeration of multiple countries (potentially non-sovereign states) and nations that are unified under the rule of a single monarch or state authority.

A confederation, sometimes known as a league of sovereign states, in which individual nation-states may or may not be included.

A state that is part of a larger federation but is only partially self-governing within that bigger federation. A federated state may or may not be a nation-state (for example, the state boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina are drawn along ethnic lines, but those of the United States are not).

India as a nation-state

The Constitution of India, which is the country’s highest-level legal constitution, governs India, which is organised as a federation and uses a parliamentary system. It is both a constitutional republic and a representative democracy, which means that “majority rule is balanced by the rights recognised by law” for the various minority groups.

There are a total of 28 states and 8 union territories that make up India, which is a federal federation.

The Westminster method of government is utilised in each of the states, in addition to the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Elected legislatures and administrations are in place in all of these jurisdictions. 

The remaining five union territories are under the direct control of the central government, who have selected administrators to oversee each territory.  Language was used as the primary factor in the reorganisation of the states that took place in 1956 as a result of the States Reorganisation Act. 

At the levels of city, town, block, district, and village, there are a combined total of almost a quarter of a million local government bodies.

India a modern state or nation-state

A new era began shortly after the conclusion of World War I, in which about one million Indians served their country. It was distinguished by British reforms but also by restrictive legislation, by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation, of which Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would become the leader and become an enduring symbol.

In India, the division of power between the central government and the individual states is defined by the federalist system. 

The Constitution of India, which was ratified on January 26, 1950, first described India as a “Sovereign, Democratic Republic”. However, in 1971, this description was changed to “a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic.”

As a result of shifts in politics, the economy, and society during the late 1990s. India’s government structure, which has traditionally been referred to as “quasi-federal” and characterised by a powerful centre and relatively powerless states, has become more federal in recent years.

Conclusion

India is the democracy with the most people living in it. A parliamentary republic with a multi-party system, India has more than 40 regional parties on top of the eight national parties that are recognised by the government. These national parties include the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress. In the context of Indian political culture, the Congress party represents the centre-left, while the BJP represents the right-wing. The Indian National Congress was the party in charge of the country’s government throughout the majority of the time that spanned from the year 1950, 

when India was initially established as a republic, to the late 1980s. 

Since then, on the other hand, it has increasingly shared the political stage with the BJP, 

in addition to powerful regional parties, which have frequently compelled the formation of multi-party coalition governments at the central level.