Is Our Constitution Holding India Together or Pulling it Apart?

The Constitution was designed more to control diversity than to celebrate it, writes Bhanu Dhamija.

The Constitution describes India as a “Union of States,” suggesting cooperative federalism and respect for regional diversity. In practice, however, the system is federal only in form and largely unitary in spirit.

(Photo: Namita Chauhan/ The Quint)

As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of India’s Constitution, it would do us well to have an honest appraisal of why it has failed to cultivate unity and social harmony.

The signs of disunity are all around us: Hindu-Muslim violence, caste-based politics, North-South divide, linguistic disputes, separatist movements in Kashmir and Punjab, armed insurgencies in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha, communal violence in Manipur, to name just a few. Since many of these conflicts have persisted since Independence and many are new, it is hard to blame one political party or one set of leaders.

Such pervasive discord points to a fundamental problem in the way India is governed.

When our founders adopted the Constitution in 1950, they hoped that it would serve as a glue holding the country together. They enshrined in the document many features with that goal in mind: majority-rule with parliamentary checks; federation of states with a unifying Centre; freedom of religion with secular protections, and accommodation of regional languages without imposing a national language.

All these so-called unifying features of the Constitution have failed to deliver. The majority-rule has no Parliamentary checks, the Centre dominates the states, the secular protections have become meaningless, and the linguistic fights continue. Let’s examine each of these shortcomings.

Inherent Majoritarianism, Pseudo Federalism 

The idea that majority governments would be held in check by Parliament failed for two main reasons: India’s fragmented polity and the winner-takes-all nature of its Parliamentary system.

India’s political fragmentation largely stems from the country’s permanent Hindu majority. Since religion is a powerful unifying force, the Hindu vote naturally coalesced over time. The opposition, left with few options, resorted to three strategies:

1. Splitting the Hindu vote along caste or ethnic lines.

2. Forming regional parties, or

3. Uniting minority groups. This resulted in a fragmented political landscape, with multiple parties seeking to divide the nation by religion, region, caste, or ethnicity.

Compounding the issue is India’s Parliamentary system, which consolidates both legislative and executive powers in the hands of the leader of the majority. This concentration of power in the hands of the Prime Minister, or Chief Ministers at the state level, leaves little room for dissent or minority voices to be heard.

Moreover, the pseudo-federalism embedded in the Constitution ignores regional aspirations.

The Constitution describes India as a “Union of States,” suggesting cooperative federalism and respect for regional diversity. In practice, however, the system is federal only in form and largely unitary in spirit. Fearing national fragmentation, the framers created a structure in which the Centre retains overwhelming fiscal, legislative, and administrative power.

Over time, Constitutional amendments and political conventions have pushed this imbalance even further. The President—originally conceived as a possible check on the central executive—has become subordinate to the Prime Minister. Governors, appointed by the Centre, often act as partisan agents rather than neutral constitutional authorities.

This central dominance has produced a federalism based on coercion rather than cooperation. As a result, India continues to face separatist movements and internal conflicts across several states, alongside widening regional divides such as those between the northern and southern regions. Constitutional scholar Granville Austin observed that “over-centralisation unbalanced many of the Constitution’s provisions for centre-state relations and set back the cause of unity.”

Central interference in state matters also allows local governments to evade responsibility for resolving internal disputes and addressing regional aspirations. I have previously argued that this so-called “Strong Centre” lies at the root of many state-level conflicts and has failed to resolve violent regional movements.

Secessionist struggles that emerged in the early republic—Tamil, Sikh, Kashmiri, and Naga—continue today. The Maoist insurgency, which began in West Bengal in 1967, only intensified, eventually spreading to Bihar, Jharkhand, and other regions. In 2010, retired Major General Ashok Mehta noted that “more lives have been lost due to internal insecurity than in the five wars India has fought since independence in 1947.”

The Bogey of Secularism and Linguistic Diversity

Secularism is another pillar of the Indian Constitution that appears noble in theory but flawed in execution. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and prohibits discrimination on religious grounds. However, India’s version of secularism is not one of strict separation between religion and state but of “equal respect for all religions.” In practice, this has allowed the State to intervene selectively in religious matters. This uneven approach has led to accusations of both “appeasement” and “majoritarianism,” depending on who wields power.

Instead of neutralising religious identity, India’s secularism has often politicised it. Electoral politics routinely exploit communal divisions. Far from fostering a neutral public sphere, the constitutional framework has enabled religion to remain a potent political weapon, deepening social fractures.

Today, India risks losing its world renowned, age-old, secular culture. Many Indian thinkers still believe that India’s secularism can survive if governments keep a “principled distance” from all religions, or promote them equally. But they may be expecting too much from politicians.

Language has always been a defining marker of Indian identity, and the Constitution’s handling of it has been a source of persistent tension. The framers avoided declaring any single national language, designating Hindi and English as “official languages.” While this compromise prevented immediate unrest, it also entrenched linguistic divisions.

The absence of a clear national language has also affected India’s sense of unity at a symbolic level. Unlike countries where language serves as a shared identity, India’s multilingualism remains fragmented.

Superficial Secularism

Taken together, these features—the strong Centre, pseudo-federalism, superficial secularism, and linguistic ambiguity—reveal a pattern. The Constitution was designed more to control diversity than to celebrate it.

India ignores these ailments in our Constitution at its own peril. Fixing them is not difficult, provided our leaders focus on educating people about these shortcomings instead of constantly singing paeans to the Constitution.

The secular and linguistic flaws are the simplest to address because they are not structural. Parliament could pass a law prohibiting governments from engaging in any form of religious activity, and another establishing a national language. The United States and many other nations already have such laws.

The structural problems—inherent majoritarianism and pseudo-federalism—require more fundamental changes. One option, which I have long supported, is adopting a US-style Presidential system. This model separates legislative and executive powers and creates three distinct centres of authority—the President, the Senate, and the House—giving minorities greater influence. It also provides two layers of independent government—federal and state—offering local communities more control.

However, because India is not ready for such a sweeping transformation, largely because the system is unfamiliar and not indigenous, we should consider more modest reforms. These could include directly electing the President and granting the office more discretionary authority; restructuring the Rajya Sabha to give each state equal representation; or establishing an All-Communities Council to deliberate on communal issues.

Above all, India needs a rigorous, honest debate about the flaws in our Constitution. We must demand a Constitution worthy of a great people.

(Bhanu Dhamija is Founder and CEO of the Divya Himachal Group and author of ‘Why India Needs the Presidential System’. He can be reached @BhanuDhamija. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for the same.)