Ethnic Conflict Resolution in India and Constitutional Incrementalism

Abstract

How does India put up with the challenge of forging national unity amidst its intricate diversity? What is the puzzle behind her comparative success as an integrated state? The paper seeks to examine the reasons for India’s relative success as a multicultural state amidst all odds and addresses the question of accommodation of ethno-regional diversity in a single political framework, a challenge to the framers of the constitution during 1946-1949. The paper argues that an incrementalist approach to constitution making enabled the accommodation of ethnic conflicts through approaches of deferral of controversial issues to future political institutions.  The paper critically examines the Constituent Assembly Debates (henceforth CAD) on the issue of accommodation of ethno-regional conflicts and the approach adopted by the framers to leave some ethnic issues to the future Parliament through appropriate constitutional provisions. The focus will be on the interventions made by the representatives of the different provinces in the debates of India’s Constituent Assembly. This analysis is significant because India’s Constitution is one of the most enduring post-colonial constitutions despite the complexities of time. Incrementalism, as the study shows, provided a fine balancing act that maintained the overall coherence of different groups and communities though dissenters could voice their opinions but ultimately agreed on a broad consensus. These incrementalist strategies allowed the Indian state to reconcile the problem of accommodating linguistic, ethnic, cultural identities within a democratic framework without undermining the integrity of the country and proving her critics wrong who had prophesied the balkanization of India way back in the 1960s. The Indian drafters recognized that given the nature of multi layered identities and their aspirations, all the ethnic issues cannot be resolved instantaneously, neither had they attempted to do so.