We should have State Constitutions, shouldn't we?

Having one constitution, such as the current one, for the entire Indian nation and not letting States to have their respective constitutions is like taking a set of jigsaw pieces and pressing them to fit within a shape of player's choice! No, the pieces fit in only one way, and that way is only decided by the pieces themselves.

Presence of a Constitution of India (COI) on top of suspended State constitutions is perhaps the root cause for those umpteen amendments India has made to the COI and for the prevalence of dire problems in India's socio-economic landscape. For instance, the number of appendages made to Article 371 - the special status gimmick - displays the finicky and fluid state of vision over national policy. Such piecewise approach to making modifications in COI not only provide a reason for its bulky nature but also explain why and how it has failed to perform its original intended duty in this democracy. The very size of the constitution and the vast demography that it intends to acquire under its purview makes it increasingly untenable given the increasing awareness in people about the sovereign and republic nature of this democracy.

The year 2014 is turning out to be an year for the States to reckon with. Chief Ministers of multiple States - Delhi, AP and, just this afternoon, Bihar - have expressed anguish at the alleged misdeeds committed by the central government against the wishes of people living in their States. These can be directly attributed to a rather convolved Constitution of India that often lands even constitutional experts in moments of introspection and doubt; a doubt that shatters the confidence of people in their nation, and also its large, bulky constitution.

This bulky constitution resembles a big fat balloon with multiple punctures - you just cannot say where it will fly, meaning where this constitution will lead India to cannot be predicted easily. The mirth is higher when you have smaller, yet a more colourful bunch of balloons in your hand than one large punctured balloon in flight. You get the analogy, right?

In another State, Tamilnadu, the CM expresses her desire to free a set of convicts who've been in prison for nearly two decades, but the constitution by some weird combination, which too is figured out after much deliberation among experts, makes her seek the Centre's approval despite the fact that Police is a State subject as per Schedule 7 of the Constitution of India itself! Instead of having the Schedule 7 dictate what the States must govern and what the Centre must (& can), wouldn't it be rather more convenient and more appropriate for the States to have their own constitutions and the COI address subjects left behind unattended by the State constitutions? Wouldn't that be real decentralization and real federalism? Wouldn't that be in line with the real spirit of a democracy where the degree of delegation of governance droops with distance - both physical and representative.

The repercussion of this constitutional arrangement is also felt on the linguistic diversity of India. With regards to language planning and policy, Constitution of India is mired in controversy - controversies based on assumptions that go squarely against the nation's linguistic diversity.

The official language act, for instance, which is a statute law spun off from Articles 343 & 344 of the COI, forbids usage of any Indian language apart from Hindi at the Centre. This is a clear violation of human rights happening right under the aegis of a constitution that lays the political framework of this nation. This violation could have been precluded had the language policy of the nation been a linear summation and intercourse of the language policies of all States.

As the famous quote goes, people of India live in their States, and the Centre really need not have any business directly with the people. With such a natural arrangement of business, it is implied that there is very little need for such an all-encompassing constitution at the Centre whereas the need for such a constitution certainly exists at the State level. Time to write one?

Indian Democracy: The Highness of Lows?

A DEMOCRACY should ensure people don't live at the mercy of a single person. Also, Democracy should be about questioning the contemporary and about being able to shape one's tomorrows oneself. This is equity characteristic of a democracy, isn't it? From the way the Telangana episode is unfolding, that equity appears to be denied, perhaps by means of the constitution itself, and in doing so, the President of India, sitting at the apex of the Indian Democratic Republic, seems unquestionable, till now.

If the President's office, occupied by a person with recorded political loyalty to a party that's in power at Centre, agrees to hand over a State Reorganization bill to the parliament, discounting the State's aspirations, the President is indeed portrayed as unquestionable because the rest of the country can only watch, quite literally though! Because the State and its millions of people are absolutely at the mercy of the President's office and the President's decision in this regard. Can such living in the mercy of a single person be called a democracy?

Something in this episode tells me there's an unwritten assumption in our constitution that people are expected to believe the President is unquestionable, and it is better that way for the nation! It is unfair & even unreal to expect an entire nation to assume that one human being in this nation will alone remain unquestionable, even in matters that directly affect the lives of millions of people spread across vast stretches of land - matching that of some countries in the EU! In fact the celebrated office of the President enjoys more constitutional allowances than a democracy can actually afford. For instance the Presidential Ordinance offers an easy route for a favourable political party in power at the Centre to enforce law without opposition, albeit for a maximum of six months.

While the constitution does provide solutions to overrule an unruly or insane President, it does not equip people with a solution to a problem that could arise out of a hidden nexus between the President and a few parliamentarians, who could use the President's political superiority and immunity of sorts to siphon party gains, and subsequently, individual gains.

Talking about living at the mercy of an individual - applying such observations to the Telangana episode India will come across to anyone as that democracy in which people live with the least number of total people that collectively represent them, yet the highest number of total people that don't represent them but are 'empowered' to express their voice for or against them.

That is perhaps a new high in lows among democracies.

People who have seen democracies in action in other parts of the world may see something fundamentally wrong in this setup. The idea of representation has been infected with a virus at birth - a virus of assumption that the newfound idea of representation would work, an assumption that people, hailing from ages of monarchy, would know how to handle representation and get what they need. This assumption has cost the Indian peoples very dear; it has cost them a constitution that is unable to sustain the nation as well as would be desired. This assumption has pushed people to now question its very sanctity and relevance. It has forced people to have the weirdest representation formula that doesn't work for people, but works to pull more power to the Centre. Its time those questions were asked out in public, even if it were addressed to the President.

(After deciding to post this, #PepperSpray has shrouded Parliament. What else could happen when an entire people's identity is so brutally trampled upon?)