I. Introduction
Nation-States are founded on the assumption that humanity is divided into nations, each entitled to its own state. The idea originated in Europe, where relatively homogeneous populations sharing ethnicity, language, religion, and geography came to identify themselves as sharing a common destiny, giving rise to nationalism.[1] Colonisation exported it to the rest of the world. The modern Indian state applies this European idea to a landmass of multiple cultures, languages, religions, and ethnicities. The Indian Constitution sought to dismantle long-standing social and political inequalities by introducing ideals of equality and secularism, adapted to the Indian context, and by creating an identity capable of being shared across religious, caste, and ethnic divisions: fostering social cohesion among people who identified more strongly as ‘Kashmiris’ or ‘Tamils’ than as Indians. This article argues that there was no singular Indian culture before the Constitution, but rather a collection of different cultural communities. To prevent the revival of regional loyalties and communal divisions from threatening national unity, the cultural moorings must be shifted from a pre-constitutional past to a post-constitutional framework, building a stable nation free from communal hatred and secessionist questions.
II. India as a Nation-State: The Question of a Singular Identity
The first question is whether a singular cultural identity capable of rallying the masses into a cohesive unit ever existed. Historically, there is little evidence of a unified Indian nation. The history of India, as Salman Rushdie observed, is a history of independent nation-states – Oudh, Bengal, the Marathas – with only a brief history of imperial rule that cannot establish a culturally homogeneous populace. The subcontinent was divided into numerous cultural and ethnic groups having different languages, religions, and traditions, and the difficulty of selecting any one of these traditions as the basis of Indian identity remains evident even today. The continuing controversy over the Hindi language demonstrates how easily the elevation of one cultural marker can alienate others: the decades-long resistance to Hindi in Tamil Nadu, which at its height drove men to self-immolation in the name of Tamil, demonstrates how privileging a single linguistic marker can provoke movements for linguistic revival and even separatism.[2] The north is predominantly Indo-Aryan, and the south Dravidian, each containing a myriad of sects, religions, and languages, fostering distinct cultures representing the largest and the smallest ethnicities in the region. Once regional divides and caste are added, forging a single identity out of these pre-constitutional identities becomes near-impossible.
This does not mean a shared national identity is unattainable; only that it cannot be built on ethnicity. The multi-ethnic nation-state appears paradoxical but becomes coherent once ethnicity is no longer the foundation of belonging. Ethnic nationalism is inherently exclusionary, drawing boundaries between who belongs and who does not; in a country as diverse as India, that approach is neither practical nor just. The Constitution instead embraces civic nationalism, prioritising citizenship and equal rights over ethnicity and creating a political community capable of transcending historical divisions.
The concept of asabiyya (social cohesion), as philosophised by the fourteenth-century historian Ibn Khaldun, offers a useful lens on this shift. Khaldun argued that political authority depends on collective solidarity built around shared purpose rather than blood or ethnicity. Applied to India, asabiyya can represent the collective will to adhere to constitutional values. Khaldun also observed that cohesion rooted in outdated principles eventually loses its force; similarly, a nationalism founded solely on inherited traditions cannot unite so diverse a society. Constitutional morality, grounded in equality, secularism, and liberty, thus offers a stronger and more inclusive basis for unity.
III. Constitutional Morality and the Fluidity of Cultural Identity
Unlike many liberal constitutions, the Indian Constitution was never intended merely to limit state power; it also sought radical change by dismantling long-standing social, political, and economic inequalities. Indian constitutional morality therefore differs from its Western counterpart: it regulates not only the state’s relationship with its citizens but relationships within society itself. Ambedkar advocated this morality to promote fraternity and displace deep-rooted prejudices of caste and religion. Nehru emphasised India’s own traditions of heterodoxy and pluralism, and the framers drew on indigenous participatory traditions as well as Western democratic experience.[3] Cultural identity is not static; it evolves – and better that it evolves on principles of inclusion and solidarity, nurturing the imagined bond necessary for a stable nation.
That cultural identity is inherently dynamic is borne out by history: across global politics, socio-political norms once regarded as fixed have repeatedly shifted. Resistance to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government when it attempted to amend Article 9 of the Japanese constitution is one example of a concept introduced by foreign influence becoming so engrained that a populace grows reluctant to change it, even where change might benefit the nation.
In the Indian context, major events in modern history – the abolition of Sati and the legalisation of widow remarriage – challenged deeply entrenched patriarchal customs despite their cultural acceptance. These examples illustrate that cultural moorings, by their very nature, change and adapt to the needs of the hour.
IV. Forging a Civic National Identity
Many modern states have embraced civic nationalism without sacrificing cultural diversity. Canada, the United States, and contemporary Germany have integrated diverse religious and linguistic groups under a shared national identity, and India fits this model. As established earlier, India had no precedent for a unified identity before the Constitution, and regional identities were historically stronger. Yet even before independence, pan-Indian identities were forged under various empires and cultural movements. The independence movement in particular fostered a collective identity transcending region, uniting people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds under the common goal of freedom.[4] Leaders such as Nehru emphasised ‘unity in diversity’, laying the foundation of the modern Indian state.
The civic reading must, however, answer a constructivist critique. That critique is relevant precisely because the Constitution does not simply impose Western ideals such as democracy, secularism, and equality, but modifies them to confront Indian realities such as caste discrimination and communalism. Constitutional morality need not oppose traditional culture. Values such as Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) resonate with the Constitution’s commitment to inclusivity and are widely read as finding expression in the Preamble’s promise of fraternity,[5] while protests surrounding the decriminalisation of consensual conduct under Section 377 and the Citizenship Amendment Act show how constitutional values can challenge exclusionary practices without rejecting Indian society altogether.[6] India certainly faces regional and communal tensions, but the solution lies not in abandoning traditional identities but in cultivating an inclusive one that respects diversity. Cultural morality evolves, and many traditional cultural aspects remain compatible with constitutional morality.[7] To reduce India to a purely ‘civic nation’ would risk disregarding its heritage – just as rooting its identity solely in a pre-constitutional past would ignore the evolving nature of cultural identity.
V. Conclusion
The case for India as a nation-state does not rest on the fiction of a single ancient culture waiting to be recovered. Before the Constitution, India was not one people but many – a mosaic of linguistic, religious and regional communities for whom ‘Tamil’ or ‘Kashmiri’ meant far more than ‘Indian’. To insist that unity be quarried from that pre-constitutional past is to invite the very fractures such an identity cannot contain. The alternative traced here is to relocate the nation’s cultural moorings within the constitutional order itself. Read through Khaldun’s asabiyya, solidarity need not spring from shared blood; it can be built around a shared commitment to equality, secularism, liberty, and fraternity. That such moorings move is not speculation but historical record – from the abolition of Sati to the widening of who the Republic recognises as an equal. Nor is such a constitution culturally neutral: it is woven from liberal and indigenous threads alike, from Ambedkar’s fraternity to Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. Once ethnicity is dethroned as the core of belonging, the multi-ethnic nation-state ceases to be a paradox: the Constitution becomes not a substitute for Indian culture but its most inclusive and durable expression – a shared inheritance capacious enough to hold many cultures within one.
[1] Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (rev edn, Verso 2006).
[2] Sumathi Ramaswamy, Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970 (University of California Press 1997).
[3] Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2005) 80.
[4] Bipan Chandra and others, India’s Struggle for Independence 1857-1947 (Penguin Books 1988).
[5] Vedant Tiwari and Esham Karanjikar, ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: Indian Concept of Unity in Diversity’ (2021) Burnished Law Journal.
[6] Martha C Nussbaum, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future (Harvard University Press 2007).
[7] Rusi Jaspal and Marco Cinnirella, ‘The Construction of Ethnic Identity: Insights from Identity Process Theory’ (2012) 12 Ethnicities 503.
Shaurya Sharma and Sanya Garg are fifth-year law students at Jindal Global Law School. Their areas of interest are Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Administrative Law.
