NATION BUILDING THROUGH CONSTITUTIONALISM: LESSONS FROM THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE

The institutional experience of the Indian Union is quite underestimated by Western legal scholars both in constitutional and globalisation studies. Today it appears necessary and stimulating to reassess the state of Indian constitutional democracy. A first set of considerations of this study concerns the relation between state building and constitutional democracy. After independence India managed to establish a durable state not through coercion or authoritarian routines but through democratic practices. In India the vibrant pluralism of the party system has guaranteed a rich political debate and the representation of wide range of social groups, from linguistic and religious communities to backward social groups. A second pillar of the Indian constitution is its federal system displaying very peculiar features such as the successful policy of inclusion of cultural identities through the creation of the so-called "linguistic states". Such policies have not undermined the consolidation of an Indian identity; on the contrary they have consolidated it, as showed by recent studies. A third subject needing more reflection is the constitutional reform of local self-government occurred in the 1990s, resulting in the "institutionalisation" of rural India and its villages, through a political language more in tune with local traditions and capable to stimulate grass-roots democracy in contrast with the elite democracy typical of the first phase of state building in India. This article tries underline the original approach of the Indian constitution in building a democratic state not through a mere reproduction of the schemes of western constitutionalism but adapting them to the Indian reality to create what is proudly considered by the majority of Indian scholars as a "beautiful patchwork".