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Chapter 2
FEDERAL PLANS IN
PRE-INDEPENDENCE INDIA
The British rule … disrupted the natural evolution of India into an
authentic federal polity.
(Khan 1992, 37)
The British could not have organised India as they did if the people had
not already been … apprenticed to the idea of unity. Nor, in consequence,
could independent India have grown so quickly in unity and strength. Mr
Nehru was sometimes called a great Mughal; he was their heir in a truer
sense than perhaps he himself realised.
(Spear 1965, 51)
We divide and you rule.
(Mulana Muhammad Ali to the British Government in 1930)i
The basis of Pakistan is the fear of interference by the Centre in Muslim
majority areas as the Hindus will be a majority in the centre.
(Azad 1988, 152)
Federal Antecedents in South Asia
Did federalism have historical antecedents in South Asia? Was it the only
possible institutional configuration to rule such a diverse and large territory?
Certainly under the Mughal period, but even further back, modes of gover-
nance premised upon territorial autonomy were devices to consolidate terri-
tory. While this autonomy did not involve a de jure division of sovereignty,
and the central ruler maintained supreme power, de facto territorial power
sharing operated. This was because of the constraints imposed by geographic
distance, cultural diversity, limited technology, and means of transport and
communication. As developments in technology and communications over-
came the constraints of ruling large territories, the functions of government
expanded. Even the historian Reginald Coupland, a fellow of All Souls’
College, Oxford, who wrongly argued that “there was … no division of
authority, no trace of the federal idea in the constitution of British India
before 1919” conceded that in practice “superintendence and control” by the
center were limited by distance and the sheer volume of work involved
(1942, 10). These restrictions on “superintendence and control” have been a
constant in organizing the governance of the subcontinent, ensuring that ter-
ritorial autonomy remained a necessary feature of successful government in
the subcontinent. But the extent to which they were a form of ethnic con-
flict regulation is more contestable, as many provincial boundaries did not
coincide with particular ethnic groups.
Much continuity exists between the effective period of Mughal rule
(1526–1707)ii and the British Raj. One of the best recent discussions of the
links between the Mughal and the British period has been undertaken by
Judith Brown (1994, 33–40), although she focuses on explaining Indian
democracy. The concession of provincial autonomy was an essential part of
the British strategy to maintain “real” power at the center. In pursuing this
strategy, the British were influenced by the regimes that preceded them.
An appreciation of the nature of both empires is essential to understand
the continuities between the two regimes.iii Yet interpretations of the
nature of both regimes are contested (Kulke 1995, 1–47), as are historio-
graphical interpretations of the nature of Indian society.iv These under-
standings have affected the formation of constitutional structures and
ideologies of governance.
The imperialist or neo-imperialist school emphasizes divisions within the
subcontinent to justify the need for British rule to unite the peoples and pre-
vent bloodshed. India is seen as a “geographical expression,” with the Hindu
and Muslim divide being fundamental and irreversible (Spear 1965, 111). In
contrast, the nationalist school—primarily writing around the time of the
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
24
independence struggle, but not confined to this period—is concerned with
emphasizing the unity of the subcontinent, despite its divisions of race,
region, ethnicity, caste, and religion. Jawaharlal Nehru’sv“Discovery of
India” typifies these writings, stressing the solidarity Congress was able to
achieve despite the heterogeneity of Indian society and asserting that the
whole was greater than the sum of its parts (1946, 391). In contrast to those
secular nationalists who claim that social differences are not an obstacle to
unity, and indeed, have strengthened the Indian nation, Hindu nationalists
seek to justify the primacy of the ancient Hindu civilization over the usurp-
ing Mughal and glorify the past as “a compensation for the humiliating pres-
ent.” They “stress the political unity of the country from earliest times”
(Thapar 1968, 326–27). The third school is that of the “contemporary eth-
nic nationalists” (Chadda 1997, 27). These authors typify the subcontinent
as comprising several distinctive historical, national entities that possess
independent existence and validity, and are separate from “the whole.” The
political agenda behind this school of thought is often used to justify further
autonomy or independence for these entities. The similarity to the imperial-
ist understanding of Indian history is significant. Those who advocated the
partition of the Indian subcontinent fit into this category.
Interpretations of Indian history enable us to understand the politics
behind constitutional design and political action. The perception of a
divided country needing a firm hand not only justified British imperial rule
but also “justified” policies designed to separate Hindus and Muslims. The
perception of a united India, as epitomized by Nehru in “Discovery” (1946,
219), similarly influenced the type of federal system designed after inde-
pendence—one that initially sought to relegate “ethnic” identities to the
personal sphere. Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s conception of India as comprised
of two religiously defined nations similarly affected the form of the
Pakistani federation.
For most of its history before the Mughals, India was divided into sepa-
rate kingdoms, some autonomous, others subordinate to a greater regional
king (Inden 2000, 165). This makes it problematic to speak of a “state” in
the modern sense of the word, with a ruler exercising sovereignty and wield-
ing legitimate force over a defined territory. Before the Mughals it was usual
that the “suzerain respected the local laws and customs” (Sharma 1932, 129).
This system of asymmetrical, indirect rule encouraged the flourishing of
regional languages and culture. As Samuel Finer argues, the span of “effec-
tive unity” under the Mauryan, Gupta, and Delhi dynasties amounted “to
little more than 362 years [in a period spanning 2500 years]…. [I]n the
Indian subcontinent, empire was very much the exception and transience the
norm” (1997b, 1211).
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 25
Similar to other conquerors of India the Mughals built upon existing
structures, but they were also innovative (Ali 1995, 266). Joseph
Schwartzberg compares the Mughal dynasty to the Tudors in England, as it
marked a distinct break with the past in bringing about a succession of strong
rulers who welded disparate political and ethnic elements and spatially frag-
mented polities into an administratively and fiscally united country (1978, 204).
By the end of Aurangzeb’s reign, the Mughals had not managed to unify
India, but they controlled the core of what is now known as India, as well as
most of the territory that now comprises Pakistan and Bangladesh.vi As the
subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, no one single central authority has
ever (directly) controlled the whole territory of India and Pakistan. (Two-
fifths of the territory was made up of princely states during the rule of the
British.) This has had an undeniable influence on the ability to forge a united
“nation” within the territory.
Emperor Akbar is widely credited for evolving the “Mughal system” of
administration.vii This system provided institutional continuity to a region-
ally, linguistically, and religiously diverse society. The problem of how to gov-
ern effectively without leading to disunity was not a new one.viii However,
Akbar was the first ruler of India to base his entire administration around the
provinces, and they assumed far greater importance than under Sher Shah.
Akbar systematically reorganized the areas under his control (Ali 1995, 266).
This system was extended to areas conquered by his successors. The Mughal
system differed from most of the previous dynasties in its extent of territo-
rial penetration and provincial organization. The four central departments—
finance, war, judiciary, and supply—were replicated at the provincial level,
thus the provinces were an integral part of the Mughal system of administra-
tion (Ali 1995, 267; Finer 1997b, 1242). They were designed to be efficient
tax revenue collection institutions.ix Even though the Mughal Empire was
authoritarian, the significance of this system of provincial organization
should not be underestimated.
Provincial organization was organized around provincial governors, or sube-
dars,xwho received instructions from their emperor. This complex chain of
command was an administrative solution to the geographical size of India and
the ultimate basis of Mughal power. Although more centralization may have
been desirable from the perspective of the regime, it was impossible to achieve.
The subedar was responsible for the protection of the province against
external and internal rebellion, as well as for the maintenance and discipline
of the military forces in that state. Max Weber argues that “the fusion of the
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
26
military and economic power of an administrative district in the hands of
one person, soon tended to encourage the administrator’s disengagement
from the central authority” (1968, 1044). The danger of disengagement
identified in this system is similar to the powerful critique of the dangers of
federal structures of government: the danger of secession. The Mughals
countered this danger through transferring leaders and forces between
Subahs, approximately every four to five years. Finer observes that “[t]he
Emperors succeeded only too well as the nobles, rather than being the pillars
of the state, sought to acquire their own power” (1997b, 1258). In addition,
Akbar instituted a system in which the subedars were directly responsible to
him. To prevent the development of powerful families (with control over the
land revenue of that Subah), Akbar and his successors did not permit heirs
of nobles to succeed directly to their father’s posts.xi Therefore the system was
not a feudal one. It was a necessary mechanism to consolidate territory and
promote efficiency, similar to the motivations behind the formation of fed-
erations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This study accepts that
the Mughal Empire was “a complex, nuanced and loose form of hegemony
over a diverse, differentiated and dynamic economy and society” (Bose and
Jalal 1998, 36), but it is important to recognize that the Mughal Empire and
its systems of rule were primarily based around the emperor himself.
In 1580, “His Majesty apportioned empire into 12 divisions, to each of
which he gave the name of Subah and distinguished them by the appellation
of that tract of the country or its capital city” (Abul Fazl, a contemporary and
chronicler of Akbar’s life cited in Khan 1992, 102). This reorganization is
confirmed by other authors (Schwartzberg 1978, 205; Smith 1923, 24–25;
Srivastava 1997, 113), but Rasheeduddin Khan’s claim that “[a]n obvious
concern was shown for linguistic and socio-cultural homogeneity in the
delimitation of provinces” must be treated with caution (1992, 37–38).xii No
scholars of the Mughal Empire mention this rationale behind the organiza-
tionxiii and neither do political geographers (Spate and Learmouth 1967,
187–88; Day 1949, 118). Indeed, Winifred Day argues that “the Suba or
Provincial boundaries were not deliberately defined to coincide with ‘natural’
regions, for Subas were created as conquest was extended” (1949, 118). By the
time Aurangzeb’s conquests were completed, they numbered twenty-one.xiv
The rulers of the core Muslim areas were not appointed according to cul-
tural criteria. Many of them were members of the ruling dynasty—Aurangzeb
was a subedar before his reign. But the ancient Hindu states, especially the
Rajputs, retained autonomy, although they had to swear fealty to the
emperor. These ties were reinforced through marriage. In the Muslim-con-
trolled areas that were acquired later, such as Bijapur, the original Sultan con-
tinued to rule—an arrangement that permitted him to expand southward but
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 27
also promoted stability for the empire (Griffiths 1952, 130–31). Although
the emperor was ultimately supreme, this provincial system permitted certain
aspects of indirect rule and cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity. It was
vital for shoring up a mainstay of the Mughal regime: the system of taxation.
It also accommodated the expansion of the Mughal Empire.
The reorganization of the Subahs was prompted by Akbar’s desire to sys-
tematize the administrative framework. Whether or not they were organized
according to cultural boundaries, the fact that many provinces were permit-
ted to keep their own kings was significant, given that they were the founda-
tion stone of Akbar’s administration. Additionally, the provincial boundaries
often coincided with physical boundaries and “these sometimes also coin-
cided with linguistic frontiers” (Day 1949, 118). Oskar Spate and Andrew
Learmouth identify “nuclear regions, … which are perennially significant in
Indian historical geography” (1967, 187–88).xv It is therefore not surprising
that some congruence existed between territorial and cultural boundaries
under the Mughals. Interestingly, Finer views the policy as a sign of weak-
ness: “the Mughals conquered and pieced the conquered states together but
did not homogenise them. The Hindu Mahrattas and the Sikhs both rose
against Aurangzeb, the fundamentalist Muslim emperor” (1997b, 1257).
In contrast to the Mughals, because of its uncoordinated territorial expan-
sion, the East India Company’s (EIC) administration was haphazard. The
EIC was set up in 1600 and established three trading posts on the coast dur-
ing the seventeenth century. These three trading posts became known as
presidencies, “and during most of the Eighteenth Century the Presidencies
of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta were independent and of equal standing”
(Griffiths 1952, 154). Newer factories were added to the control of these
presidencies, leading to an unplanned, sprawling territorial expanse.xvi The
EIC developed its operations and structures of government in the three areas
independently of the others. This was not surprising, given the challenges of
distance and communication, although they were quick to aid the others if
needed. Before 1773, the presidencies were completely independent entities,
subordinate only to the EIC’s governing body in London.
As the Mughal Empire declined, the EIC gradually inserted itself at the
top of the structures of rule formed around the processes of taxation and
defense vacated by the previous regime. In common with the Mughals, the
EIC used zamindars as intermediaries to help control the areas under its
direct territorial control. It also systematically established treaties and
alliances with the princes. These treaties were created for economic, political,
and military reasons, and differed according to the power of the prince. Even
in princely states where nominal sovereignty existed, the British official resi-
dent exerted influence and provided “advice.”xvii
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
28
The Battle of Plassey in 1757 was initially seen only as “a solution to a
local problem: the future security of the Company’s operations in Bengal”
(James 1997, 36). However, the outcome had dramatic implications. In
exchange for a fixed payment to the (nominal) emperor the EIC was granted
the sole right to impose and collect land taxes in Bengal. Direct territorial
control of taxation was the key to power in India. Henceforth, all real power
in Bengal, and ultimately India as a whole, was concentrated in the EIC,
funding an expansionist drive in a similar way to the Mughals. Between
1757 and 1857 Westminster acquired more control from the EIC. In 1773,
after allegations of high-level corruption, the EIC was deprived of sole con-
trol.xviii A more unified system of administration was created. The governor
of the Bengal Presidency was given the title of governor general, with the
authority “of superintending and controlling” the governments of Madras
and Bombay in certain matters (Government of India 1948b, Article 9).
This confirmed their dependent status.
In 1833, under the influence of the utilitarians, Westminster continued
the centralization process. The governor general of Bengal expanded his dis-
cretionary powers and was given the power to abolish the councils of Madras
and Bombay. In the event, the number of councilors in these provinces was
reduced from four to two. More importantly, all legislative powers were
taken away from the provinces,xix which became financially dependent upon
the center—a trend which was subsequently never fully reversed.
However, the utilitarian centralizing trend did not survive the death of its
founders, and was overturned soon after the death of Jeremy Bentham and
James Mill.xx The Act of 1853 created a lieutenant governor to administer
Bengal (Government of India 1948a, Article 16). This allayed “the fears of
the other two presidencies … that they were mere appendages to the
Presidency of Bengal so long as the Governor of Bengal continued to be the
Governor-General of British India” (Sharma 1932, 150). The beginnings of
provincial representation at the center were also laid down. The governor
general’s council’s legislative element now included “[o]ne member for each
Presidency and Lieutenant Governorship” (Government of India 1948a,
Article 22). This was designed to rectify the problem “of there being no
member of the Legislative Council at Calcutta who knew anything of the
manners and customs of other parts of India.”xxi While this appeared to be a
significant victory for proponents of provincial administration, at the same
time the center obtained the power to alter the boundaries of the provinces
of India and acquired all residual powers (Government of India 1948a,
Article 18). This conformed to the trend, established under the Mughals, of
conceding territorial autonomy to aid efficient administration, thus reinforc-
ing rather than undermining the power of the center.
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 29
In 1858 an Act of Parliament relieved the EIC of its role in the gover-
nance of India after the uprising of 1857, for which London held the EIC
responsible. Westminster then assumed direct control. As under the
Mughals, central control was based on conceding greater executive power to
the provinces. The Indian Councils Act of 1861 reinstated and expanded the
legislative element in the Madras and Bombay councils and the number of
provincial legislative councils was increased. Despite this, their powers were
limited. Contrary to their sister organizations in other parts of the British
Empire, they were not permitted to discuss taxation and they were not sov-
ereign legislative bodies (Coupland 1942, 13).
In practice the restrictions imposed by the sheer territorial size of India
ensured that central powers “were exercised in matters of policy rather than
of current administration” (Coupland 1942, 11). Additionally, “the cost of
administering India was rising rapidly. In order to extend taxation it was nec-
essary to increase local representation, which meant that Indians had to be
allowed into government” (Bayly 1989, 135). Every reform conceded more
to British-educated Indians who were pressing for a say in their government
and frequently citing the precedent established in the other colonies, specif-
ically Canada and Australia. The Indian Councils Act of 1892 increased the
size of the provincial councils and extended their area of competence. By
1909, indirectly elected members were in a majority in the council of Bengal
and had significantly increased in number in the other provincial councils.
The process of democratization was introduced at the provincial level as a
“safety valve” mechanism.
The Mughal provincial boundaries were redrawn by the EIC’s random
administrative expansion. When Westminster took direct control in 1858
the presidencies were broken up.xxii Swiftly, however, the new provinces also
developed identities of their own (Coupland 1942, 12). At the same time, as
Brown reminds us, democratization increased pressures to determine the
issue of which Indians would be represented (1985, 127). This issue was
made more prominent through the introduction of the census in 1872,
which categorized Indians according to their religious identity for the first
time (Corbridge and Harriss 2000, 8). These trends coincided with other
processes, such as Muslim and Hindu revivalism in the late-nineteenth cen-
tury (Robinson 1993, 66–83). The creation of separate electorates at the
national level in 1909, therefore, cannot simply be seen as a concession to a
legitimate fear. Separate electorates were “nothing less than the pulling back
of sixty-two millions of people from joining the ranks of the seditious oppo-
sition” (a contemporary statement quoted in Metcalf 1994, 224).
The structures of federalism adopted in colonial India were partially
mechanisms used to perpetuate British rule—first, through democratizing at
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
30
a “safe” levelxxiii and later, through including the primarily pro-British princes
within the central institutions. But they were also a necessity to rule such a
large and diverse country, as the discussion of the Mughal institutions of gov-
ernment has demonstrated.
Understandings of Federalism in British India
Territorial autonomy was therefore a historically established ruling strategy
for the Indian subcontinent; even if it was not the rigid codified constitu-
tional federal form analyzed by constitutionalists, such as Kenneth Wheare
(1963, 33). To argue that India and Pakistan were influenced by the state
structures that preceded them is not a revelation. A stronger claim is that fed-
eration was the only possible institutional structure through which the suc-
cessor states could have been ruled after partition. This does not necessarily
mean that the elites who designed the post-independence constitutions were
ideologically committed to federal forms of government. Nehru’s statement
in the Rajya Sabha in December 1955 that a one-unit federation “would be
ideal” is a strong indication of his dispositions (Bondurant 1958, 56).xxiv
Both the Muslim League and the Congress Party, despite their many inter-
nal divisions—indeed because of them—signed up to plans that were federal.
Differences within these movements were often more significant than those
between them.
To understand post-independence constitutional formation, and its con-
tribution to federal stability (or otherwise) in India and Pakistan, it is neces-
sary to discuss the attitudes toward federal design of the League and the
Congress. The British government structured the debate on federal forms of
government, and the degrees of what would now be called consociationalism
within it. Different elements of the British constitutional plans appealed to
different organizations. The British “winner-takes-all” system of federation
appealed to the Congress, while the segmentation of the communities
through separate electorates and legislative weightages appealed to the
League.xxv
Of course, the League and the Congress were not the only organizations
affecting constitution formation after independence, but they did play a
uniquely important role. There were many other regional political parties
and actors who possessed substantial power in pre-partition India, notably
the Unionist Party, which reached across religious communities for its sup-
port, the National Liberals, the Hindu Mahasabha, as well as the more pow-
erful princes. Ian Talbot argues that
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 31
[a]n analysis which ignores the emergence of other regional or communal par-
ties inevitably glosses over the compromises which the bearers of Indian and
Pakistan nationalism had to make with ascriptive loyalties. It also leaves the
reader to puzzle over their resurgence since independence (2000, 111).
The point is valid and the importance of these actors and movements should
not be marginalized, but it is problematic to include their preferences in the
following macro analysis. The plans proposed between 1916 and 1946 were
numerous and complicated. Not all were directly concerned with the issue of
federalism and federal design. Issues such as the granting of dominion status
rather than full independence, or reservation of seats and separate electorates
for Scheduled Castes (SCs) were often more contentious. Despite this, all the
constitutional plans proposed within these dates were drafted under the
assumption that there would be provincial governments with a certain
amount of autonomy. Certain aspects of what are normally considered ele-
ments of federal systems were not present. As a colony, the Constitution
would necessarily be a product of the Westminster parliament and the gov-
ernor general as representative of that parliament possessed extraordinary
powers. Within these limitations, the plans proposed a definitively federal
form of government, with provincial representation and division of powers
between the provinces and the center. This colonial legacy has proved to be
a definitive one.
Federations, as we have seen, can take many forms and serve many differ-
ent purposes. To provide a more meaningful analysis than the statement that
“the plans proposed a definitively federal form of government,” it is necessary
to look at the proposed form of these federations. This more nuanced analy-
sis permits a focus upon the impact of the federal form on ethnic conflict reg-
ulation; first, by examining the effect of institutional form upon political
behavior; second, by revealing the preferences of the elites who advocated the
federal form, which in turn affected the operation of the institutions.
While all of the plans discussed in this chapter operated under the
assumption of an eventual federal (or possibly confederal) constitution for
India, they differed according to various criteria. This study focuses on those
elements relevant to the success of a federation as a mechanism of ethnic
conflict regulation. It concentrates on the extent to which a federation is
majoritarian or consociational. As discussed in Chapter 1, consociationalism
was expounded by Arend Lijphart in the 1960s to explain why multiethnic
societies could remain democratic (Lijphart 1969). Consociational federal
structures facilitate the accommodation of territorially dispersed ethnic
groups—something that federal structures cannot easily do.xxvi They also
address the concerns of territorially concentrated groups who are a minority
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
32
in the state as a whole and for whom federal structures give no guarantees of
minority veto or protection outside of their province, especially at the cen-
ter. Although consociational elements are distinct from those specifically
associated with federalism, there can be overlaps as discussed in Chapter 1.
The demand for the inclusion of these consociational elements, specifically
by Muslims who were in a provincial minority, were an integral part of the
acceptance of the federal system of government in British India, and cannot
be dissociated from the plans proposed and accepted.
An analysis that takes into account consociational elements posits the dis-
tinction between attitudes toward minority accommodation proposed by the
Congress and the League better than a simple focus on formal elements of
federal structures does. Although a federal form of government can be part
of a consociational system, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for consoci-
ationalism. Federations are often majoritarian systems of government; assess-
ing the extent of consociational elements of government within the plans
proposed before independence provides a strong comparative element with
which to examine the post-independence constitutions and to understand
how they operated.
Lijphart has distinguished between four features of consociationalism.
The first of these was a grand coalition, vitally important because of its inclu-
sion of all of the political leaders of a significant segment of a society (1977,
25). This feature was expressed in the constitutional designs of pre-independ-
ence India by giving a community executive-weightage out of proportion to
their part of the greater population. The second feature was that of propor-
tionality, both in terms of “allocating civil service appointments and scarce
resources,” but also in “decision making organs” (1977, 39 & 51). This was
expressed through separate electorates, overrepresenting a community in a
legislature, and reserved seats. The third feature was that of segmental auton-
omy, given federal expression through the creation of an institutional space
for territorially concentrated groups. Within this territorial space the groups’
leaders control decisions relating to their community’s well being, such as
education or the language of the state. Therefore, linguistic or religious reor-
ganization of units were vitally important, as well as which powers were allo-
cated to the units and where residual powers were allocated. Lijphart’s final
feature was the mutual veto. A community will not have its vital interests out-
voted at the center, damaging the condition vital to making consociational
democracy work: intersegmental elite cooperation.xxvii This study contends
that a state may possess certain consociational elements identified by
Lijphart, while lacking others, and these elements remain significant.
Many of the plans discussed in this period were nothing more than one-
issue presentations designed to influence the debate. The Lahore Declaration
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 33
of 1940 is a prime example: it demanded independent and autonomous
states, but did not stipulate a particular constitutional structure. However,
other plans, such as the Lucknow Formula of 1916, the (Motilal) Nehru
Report of 1928, and Jinnah’s 14 points of 1929, as well as the Cripps Plan
of 1942 and the Cabinet Mission Plan (CMP) of 1946, were more detailed.
The Government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935 were, of course, fully
fledged constitutions.
Attitudes of the Congress and the League toward
the Concept of Federalism
In Chapter 1, federalism was defined as a commitment to the self-govern-
ment of a people through the division of sovereignty between territorially
defined levels of government. In contrast, the term federation defines a spe-
cific political system within the genus of federal political systems, which may
or may not be democratic. In evaluating the Congress and the League’s atti-
tude toward federalism, the distinction between a unitary and federal form
of government (as opposed to centralized and decentralized forms of govern-
ment) is vital. Within the history of the period it is common to read that
1935 was the first federation of India (Barua 1984, 56; Wheare 1963, 32;
Sharma 1976, 60). This, however, is false.xxviii Federations are diverse forms
of government; they are not necessarily the most decentralized forms, but
what is important in defining a federation is the division of sovereignty,
rather than the extent of powers devolved.
Both Congress and the League accepted the need for a federation and
advocated federal forms of government. This is an important point to make.
Although they disagreed over specific forms of federations, specifically over
the scale and depth of the power of the federal government, neither party
officially advocated a unitary form of government in the plans discussed—
although some individuals within the Congress did.xxix The perception that
the Congress was in favor of a unitary state and the League was in favor of a
federation is false. Both parties’ commitment to a federal system of govern-
ment can be partially accounted for by the fact that they worked within a
British institutional framework.
But they differed on federal design. The specific element of federal design
that is important to this study is the composition of the units within the fed-
eration. The composition of provinces has been an important element of fed-
eral design in South Asia. The attitude of the Congress to linguistic
reorganization is well-documented (King 1997, 52–73; Roy 1965, 217–20).
Not as commonly appreciated, especially given the anathema to the subject
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
34
after independence, was Congress’s acceptance of the creation of the reli-
giously defined Sindh in the 1928 Nehru Report. With the exception of
Ayesha Jalal, the Muslim League’s position with regard to federal design has
not been explicitly commented on in the federalism literature. This omission
is surprising because whether Jinnah sought an independent Pakistan, as
orthodox historians believe, or security within a united India, as revisionist
historians assert, a degree of religious organization of units was required. The
partition of the subcontinent involved the division of the Punjab and Bengal
on religious lines, although Jinnah resisted the logic of the argument until
the bitter end. If the revisionists’ position is accepted, then Jinnah’s desire to
be “safe” within a united India demanded provincial reorganization and
power sharing for religiously defined provinces, as he accepted in 1929 and
Mohammad Iqbal demanded in 1930.
The Congress Party
The Congress was a centralized and disciplined organization but had several
major internal disputes.xxx While the issue of federalism was not one of them,
it serves to illustrate the difficulties in assessing organizational coherence.
The Congress did not favor a unitary government, but it was initially suspi-
cious of federal structures of government—especially under the 1919 Act—
concerned that federation was a mechanism to thwart self-government in the
absence of real power at the center. Therefore, the Congress did not reject the
1919 Act because of its concession of provincial autonomy.xxxi It rejected it
because under the system of dyarchy; only a few select powers were trans-
ferred to the Indian ministers in the provinces. The remainder resided in the
hands of the provincial governor-in-council (Sitaramayya 1935, 208).
Congress did not oppose the federal provisions. This is illustrated by the fact
that in 1924, Motilal Nehru, a prominent Swarajist,xxxii advocated the exten-
sion of provincial powers and revenues (Sharma 1976, 122).
The Congress’s acceptance of the need for federation was a practical one,
the size and diversity of India required it, and the Congress was influenced
by the experience of the colonies. Annie Besant, as the Congress president in
1917, called for “[a] Bill … establishing self-government in India on lines
resembling those of the Commonwealth” (Sitaramayya 1935, 247). The
Congress’s internal party organization after 1908 was structured around
Provincial Congress Committees (PCC), and after 1920, linguistically
defined them. Even though the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and
the Congress Working Committee (CWC) tightly controlled the PCCs, this
organizational structure encouraged the development of political linguistic
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 35
loyalties. This ensured that internal pressure in favor of linguistic federation
as a structure of government persisted. However, the Congress was divided
over whether to adopt “minority friendly” policies. Many members of the
“secular” Congress were also members of the Hindu Mahasabha, opposing
Muslim demands on the grounds that India was a “Hindu nation.” Others
were concerned that “minority protection” would be detrimental to Muslims
as a community.
The Congress’s acceptance of federalism was codified when Motilal
Nehru chaired the committee commissioned by the All Parties Conference
in 1928 to produce a constitution to rival the deliberations of the Simon
Commission. This “Constitution” subsequently became known as the Nehru
Report. The Nehru Report technically advocated a unitary state, as Article 87
allowed the parliament to amend the Constitution without an explicit mech-
anism to secure the consent of the provinces. However, any amendment
would come into force only after four-fifths of both houses of parliament
consented. Since the second chamber was comprised of indirectly elected
provincial representatives, this provision secured provincial consent for
changes. This was in addition to the Report’s constitutional division of
power, upper chamber, and Supreme Court to adjudicate disputes between
the levels of government. The form of federation proposed was centrist, with
residual powers at the center, although it argued for both linguistic and reli-
gious reorganization of certain provinces. Additionally, the Report accepted
a federal set up for India, not grudgingly, as is sometimes portrayed, but
rather as “the only solid foundation for responsible government” (Nehru
1928, 85). Therefore, those authors who uncritically categorize the Nehru
Report as unitary have only selectively read the report (Ahmad 1960, 25;
Kaushik 1964, 308; Sayeed 1968, 69). The Congress concurred with the
British over the centralization of federal structures while disagreeing over the
extent of Indian control of them. Brij Sharma, a contemporary source, wrote
that “it may safely be presumed that all prominent Congressmen subscribe
to the view of a federated India” (1932, 210). This was because a federation
was compatible with a majoritarian form of government.xxxiii
The Congress accepted the federal form of government again in 1931
within the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. The Delhi Pact states that “of the scheme
there outlined, Federation is an essential part” (Sitaramayya 1935, 736).
Contemporary actors often assumed that the Congress was in favor of a uni-
tary form of government, partially because of conceptual conflation of uni-
tary government with centralized government. Nehru, among others,
contributed to the confusion. In his 1936 presidential address to the
Congress, he stated that “[w]e are not against the conception of a federation.
It is likely that a free India may be a federal India, although in any event
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
36
there must be a great deal of unitary control” (reproduced in Zaidi and Zaidi
1980c, 191).
While the Congress opposed the 1935 Act, it did not oppose federation
as a structure of government. It concurred with the British over the centrist
nature of the federation while disagreeing over the extent of Indian control of
these structures. The CWC Resolution of 4 February 1938 made this clear.
The Congress is not opposed to the idea of federation, but a real federation
must, even apart from the question of responsibility, consist of free units
enjoying more or less the same measure of freedom and civil liberty and rep-
resentation by democratic process of election. Indian States participating in
the Federation should approximate to the Provinces in the establishment of
representative institutions…. Otherwise Federation as it is now contemplated
will, instead of building Indian unity, encourage separatist tendencies and
involve the State in internal and external conflict (reproduced in Zaidi and
Zaidi 1980c, 42–43).
Though the Congress was not antifederal, it was more concerned with the
organization of power at the center than those Muslims in Muslim-majority
provinces who sought to benefit from the provincial autonomy opportuni-
ties afforded by the 1935 federal structure.
The Muslim League
For most of the period under discussion, the League was an undisciplined
organization. Difficulties exist in portraying the Muslim League as a unified
organization, even though its leadership was more stable than the Congress.
Jinnah became, in Jalal’s terminology, “the sole spokesman,” contrasting
sharply with the Congress’s many prominent all-India leaders. Yet the League
was polarized between the priorities of the Muslim-majority and the Muslim-
minority provinces. Different institutional solutions recommended them-
selves to accommodate the same community—one a minority at the center
but with the security of being a local majority (Muslims in Sindh), and one
who was “twice cursed,” being a minority both at the provincial and the all-
India level (Muslims in the United Provinces). Many League members were
also members of regional political parties with very different priorities.
Federal structures of government were generally welcomed, and the
League did not boycott the 1919 institutions. In accepting federation as a
structure of government within British India, the League was subject to the
same compulsions as the British and the Congress. The provinces were of
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 37
varying sizes and many were a substantial distance from the center. Unlike
the Congress, who viewed the concession of power at the provincial level as
a negative mechanism of maintaining the Raj, many members of the Muslim
community whom the League sought to represent were content with provin-
cial autonomy within a British-controlled federation precisely because of the
dangers of a Hindu Raj. The League’s attitude toward federalism was there-
fore more complex than that of the Congress.
The “community” around which the League mobilized can be split at its
core into those living in provinces primarily populated by Muslims—North
West Frontier Province (NWFP), Punjab, Sindh, and Bengalxxxiv—and those
in which they were a minority—United Provinces and Bihar being the two
most prominent. Unlike the Congress that proclaimed to represent all
Indians, the League had a narrower support base. Until the late 1930s it
could only claim to represent those Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces.
Its leaders were Hamza Alavi’s salariat, “the educated mainly lower middle
classes whose main avenue for livelihood and upward mobility was to secure
salaried jobs in the colonial … state apparatus” (1990, 27–28). This salariat
was threatened by Hindu “encroachment” into government employment in
provinces in which Muslims were a minority (Robinson 1993, 142). As fed-
eralism is a device best suited for regulating ethnic conflict when groups are
territorially concentrated, federal structures of government offered no imme-
diate security for the leaders of the League. Therefore, Jinnah and others in
the Muslim minority provinces initially sought a centralized federation with
minority protection at the center and within the provinces (Jalal 1985, 10).
This reflected Jinnah’s desire to consolidate the League’s position at the cen-
ter. The leaders of the League subscribed to a more decentralized federation
only later as a strategy to co-opt the Muslim-majority provinces into the
League (Jalal 1985, 54). Elites within Muslim-majority provinces viewed
federalism primarily as a mechanism of minority protection at the all-India
level, therefore favoring a more decentralized federation.
The difference in political aims between the majority- and minority-
Muslim provinces was not immediately apparent. Demands for representa-
tion at the center, a consociational mechanism, initially served the interests
of the Muslims in Muslim-majority provinces, as well as those in provinces
dominated by Hindus. This was because federal structures of government
did not guarantee Muslim interests at the center. Similarly, demands for the
creation of separate electorates and reserved seats (priorities for Muslim
minorities in provinces) promoted Punjabi and Bengali Muslim’s interests, a
majority in their respective provinces, but only minimally. For the Muslim-
majority provinces there was no necessary incompatibility between federal
and consociational elements within the League’s proposed plans, although
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
38
those in Punjab and Bengal sought reserved seats to maintain their majority
status.xxxv However, although there was no necessary incompatibility between
the elements, many Muslims living in Muslim-majority provinces perceived
one. As Khalid Bin Sayeed reminds us,
It had always been the contention of Muhammad Shafixxxvi that Muslim
majorities, particularly where they were narrow as in Punjab and Bengal, were
being sacrificed in order to get more seats for Muslims than were due to them
on the basis of their population in Hindu majority provinces (1968, 65).
Yet, while consociational elements protected the Muslim minorities’
interests, and their leaders extended the same courtesy to Hindu and Sikh
minorities in the Muslim-majority provinces, the issue of residual powers
and the creation of more Muslim provinces did not serve the Muslim
minorities’ interests. In this, CWC member Pattabhi Sitaramayya was incor-
rect (1935, 811). He implausibly argued that Muslims wanted residual pow-
ers in the provinces to “deal effectively with Provinces having a majority of
Hindus which might ill treat the Muslims.” He was standing the logic on its
head—residual powers in the provinces potentially meant greater powers to
use against Muslim minorities.
These tensions between the consociational and federal variables were
revealed in the position of Jinnah toward a federation. Hailing from a
Muslim-minority province, from which most of the League’s support
came,xxxvii he was more oriented toward securing power at the center than
those in the majority provinces, already relatively secure in their position.
This did not preclude his support for a federation, although Jalal argues he
was lukewarm to the idea personally (1985, 13). This changed in 1929 when
Jinnah’s 14 points demanded that no change in the Constitution could be
made without the concurrence of the provinces—a federal provision. This
was a major change in strategy, but Jinnah retained a very different concep-
tion of federation than Shafi’s. Within a weak federation, favored by the
Muslim-majority provinces, strong Muslim provinces would ensure that the
League would be the servant not the master. In Jinnah’s opinion, Muslim
minorities needed a strong center to achieve power and patronage (Jalal
1985, 51).
The change in the fortunes of the League came after the 1937 elections
when the Congress gained majority control of five provinces and the League
suffered an electoral debacle. Following the Congress’s success, the Muslim-
majority provinces accepted that they needed security at the center, and
rejected territorial segmental autonomy as their sole strategy. As Jalal notes,
“[n]o juggling of the political arithmetic could prevent safe provincial Muslim
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 39
majorities from being turned into an ineffectual minority at the centre”
(1985, 52). It is at this point that Jinnah’s consociational and the majority
provinces’ federal strategies coalesced strongly, and the League became a
more effective mobilizing force, centralizing control of its organization in a
manner similar to the Congress.
Although Jinnah vociferously rejected the 1935 Act—first for its inclu-
sion of the princesxxxviii and then for its benefiting the Congress “agenda”
(despite the Congress’s denunciation of the Act in even more virulent tones
than the League)—he did not reject the federal form. This is important to
reiterate: A united Indian federation was still supported by the League even
after Congress gained an absolute majority in five out of the eleven provinces
in the 1937 elections. The Muslim League suffered an embarrassing defeat—
securing only 108 out of the 482 Muslim seats and not securing a majority
in any province (Mansergh 1999, 9). Despite this, at the 25th Session of the
All India Muslim League (AIML) in 1937, Resolution II stated that
[t]he object of the AIML shall be the establishment in India of full independ-
ence in the form of federation of free democratic States in which the rights and
interests of the Musalmans and other minorities are adequately and effectively
safeguarded in the Constitution (reproduced in Pirzada 1970, 274).
It is therefore incorrect to attribute the League’s diminishing commitment
to an all-India federation to the Congress’s failure to form coalition ministries
after their success in the 1937 elections. Before the elections, the Congress
had promised a coalition with the League in the United Provinces, but was
so successful that it reneged on the deal. This was not merely a partisan com-
munal decision or one confirming the Congress’s belief in the Westminster
system of government. Muslims in the Congress also opposed the coalition
in order to preserve their own positions (Hasan 1993, 13). Rather than the
Congress’s refusal to form a coalition, it was the actions of the Congress once
in power that convinced many in the League of the dangers of a majoritarian
federation. The allegations included the singing of the anti-Muslim song
Bande Mataram and discrimination against Muslims in appointments,
which, “[w]hether or not they were justified, they were believed” (Talbot
1990, xvii). At the 26th Session in Patna in 1938, Jinnah argued that
[i]f the Congress can gain control over the Federal machinery, then, by means
of direct and indirect powers vested in the Federal Government, the Congress
would be able to reduce to a nonentity the Government of the Hon’ble Fazul
Huq in Bengal and the Hon’ble Sir Sikander Hayat Khan in the Punjab
(reproduced in Pirzada 1970, 309).
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
40
In 1939 at an emergency meeting of its Working Committee, the Muslim
League declared that it was now “irrevocably opposed to any ‘federal objec-
tive’ which must necessarily result in a majority community rule under the
guise of democracy and parliamentary system of government” (reproduced
in Pirzada 1970, 310). The Lahore Declaration of 1940 demanded inde-
pendent sovereign states in the Northeast and Northwest of India. This was
not a “short step” away from the formation of the Congress Ministries, but
a result of their controversial actions, especially in the United Provinces,
which the Pirpur Report detailed in 1939.xxxix
While the Muslim League expressed its dissatisfaction with a united
Indian federation, the Lahore Resolution supported a federal form. It called
for independent and sovereign autonomous states to be “grouped” together.
After 1940, League pronouncements on the form of a federation in an inde-
pendent Pakistan were vague. The imperative was to retain unity within its
ranks, because “[a]s long as Pakistan remained unachieved, all Muslims were
supposed to subordinate their personal and ideological differences to the
national goal” (Sayeed 1968, 180).
Conclusion
Forms of government-dividing power between the center and the provinces
have a long history in the subcontinent. The challenges of effectively ruling
a diverse territory were recognized by the Mughals and the British. In their
turn, neither the Congress nor the Muslim League felt able to reject the fed-
eral idea. Both recognized the necessities that drove the British to adopt the
framework. But federal forms differ and as the League and the Congress both
advocated democratic and federal forms of government, it is necessary to
unpack the conflict between the two organizations’ preferences further. As
noted in Chapter 1, federalism and democracy can both be majoritarian or
consociational. An understanding of the conflicts between the two parties
can be understood best by employing this consociational-majoritarian
dimension and focusing on specific elements of constitutional design. This
dimension will facilitate a comparison with the constitutions that were
adopted after independence.
The Congress had federalized its party organization to mobilize against the
British, and recognized that India could not be governed as a unitary state,
but it was concerned with increasing the control of the center. The League
also had an eminently practical purpose in subscribing to the federal idea. It
became committed to it as a mechanism of minority protection for provincial
Muslim majorities, in conjunction with consociational mechanisms at the
Federal Plans in Pre-Independence India 41
center. The actions of the Congress ministries after 1937 convinced many
within the movement of the limitations of such a strategy, given the large
Hindu majority at the all-India level. Jinnah, through articulating the
demand for Pakistan (although the Lahore Resolution never mentioned the
word), sought to secure consociational security at the center as well as more
autonomy for the provinces. This idea is supported by the League’s accept-
ance of the CMP, which is discussed in the next chapter.
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation
42