January 26, 2025, marks the 76th Republic Day of India. Republic Day is celebrated annually on January 26 to commemorate the entry into force of the Constitution of India on that day in 1950, marking the transition of India to a sovereign democratic republic. Distinct from Independence Day, which annually commemorates India’s liberation from British rule on August 15, 1947, Republic Day highlights the establishment of a government by the people, for the people.
The roots of Republic Day trace back to the Independence Act of July 18, 1947, which ended British rule and transferred legislative authority to the Constituent Assembly of India. The Constituent Assembly, tasked with drafting the constitution of the country, formed a drafting committee chaired by Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the country’s first law minister, often referred to as the ‘Father of the Indian Constitution.’ A draft of the document was submitted in November 1948 to the Constituent Assembly, which publicly debated and adjusted the text over the following year. January 26 was selected as the date of the Constitution’s promulgation, in recognition of the Purna Swaraj (Complete Self-Governance) resolution, a call for India’s complete independence, adopted by the Indian National Congress on January 26, 1930. The Constitution, one of the longest and most detailed in the world, established India as a democratic republic and a union of states.
For more than seven decades India’s democracy has succeeded against considerable odds. What follows is an explanation of how democracy has taken root in India amidst a low-income economy, widespread poverty and illiteracy, and immense ethnic diversity. And, what general lessons can be drawn from this singular but significant experience for an unstable economy and democracy of Pakistan that came into being the same day, the 15th of August, 1947?
India’s democratic record suggests that two related sets of political processes have guided the management of power conflicts in that country. First, a delicate balance has been struck and restruck between the forces of centralisation and decentralisation. And, second, the interests of the powerful in society have been served without fully excluding the weaker groups. Accommodation of those who mount powerful challenges by granting them greater autonomy and/or a share of resources has been central to the strengthening of democracy.
Given India’s diversity, crafting a unified nationalist movement also forced Indian leaders to develop conceptions of ‘unity in diversity’ that eventually led to a federal structure
After more than seven decades of periodic elections in which all political offices are contested, and in which all adults are qualified to vote, there is little doubt that democracy in India has taken root. Moreover, India enjoys a considerable scope to express political dissent and protest. Even India’s founding national party, the Congress – which increasingly came to resemble a dynasty – has by now been voted out of power, replaced by other challengers. It is in these procedural or political senses of the term that India’s democracy has succeeded.
India’s democracy is mainly a legacy of British colonialism. This argument immediately runs into the problem of why democracy has not fared as well in so many other former British colonies, including Pakistan. Nevertheless, the argument is a serious one and merits some attention, especially because the impact of British colonialism varied across its colonies. India inherited several political traits from British rule that can be argued to be significant for India’s future democratic evolution including a well-functioning civil service; early introduction of elections; and socialisation of the highest political elite in values of liberal democracy.
In addition to the colonial legacy, the role of the Indian nationalist elite and nationalist movements in the birth of Indian democracy helped clear the path for democracy. Nonetheless, this Marxism-inspired hypothesis also requires further study, especially because it may help explain the India–Pakistan contrast; after all, the Muslim League that spearheaded the movement for Pakistan in the first half of the twentieth century was led by landed aristocrats who often had trouble mobilising popular support. A more political argument may well focus on the important role of the nationalists in creating a ‘nation’ in India and/or on the practice of inclusive democracy within the nationalist movement.
The British may have introduced some electoral politics but they also resisted mass adult suffrage. The role Indians played in shaping their version of democracy, especially the combination of full adult franchise, secularism, and federalism eventually pushed forward by Indian nationalist leaders combined with politicised Indian masses has played a significant role in strengthening Indian democracy.
Given India’s diversity, crafting a unified nationalist movement also forced Indian leaders to develop conceptions of ‘unity in diversity’ that eventually led to a federal structure – a structure that was quite distinct from what the British had in mind. Finally, the same diversity, but especially the Hindu–Muslim divide of the subcontinent, pushed nationalist leaders to counter the colonial divide-and-rule politics by crafting a pragmatic, political secularism that offered symmetrical treatment to various religious communities.
Observing both long-term political trends over the first half of the twentieth century and analysing the more specific political debates that preceded the formation of the Indian Constitution in the 1940s, Indian leaders demanded full adult franchise, real political equality for a variety of religious communities, and genuine federalism with some decentralisation of power helped laid the foundation of the contemporary modern Indian republic.
Institutions and practices of democracy found considerable acceptance during the first phase, which was dominated by Nehru. Aside from Nehru’s own commitment to democracy, India benefited in this phase from the presence of two very important institutions: a well-functioning civil service and a popular ruling party, the Indian National Congress. The civil service constituted the heart of the state that India inherited from the colonial period, and India’s ‘new’ civil service was essentially built on this colonial base. This civil service contributed to effective government and imparted political stability.
A greater challenge to modern and secular Indian democracy is the BJP both as a social movement and as a political party that has tended to be more radical – i.e., more extreme in its Hindu nationalist commitments
National unity was built while incorporating India’s considerable multicultural diversity. As a result, India’s Congress Party, even though a hegemonic party in the early decades, balanced centralising and regional forces within its fold. This institutional development provided long-term ‘political capital’ for crafting a successful federal system. Second, India’s constitutional design – though mainly centralist – was also flexible enough to accommodate regional ambitions over time. And, second, the evolution of Indian federalism has been helped by the spread of democratic politics. Within the framework of a centralised but accommodating state, democracy has enabled regional forces to successfully press their demands. These successes were manifest early in the area of identity politics, namely, in the reorganisation of India along linguistic lines, and over the last several decades in the struggle to share economic resources between the national and state governments.
Over the years, local governments have become more and more significant in India’s governance. This process has enabled the political incorporation of village-level elites and masses. Not only have the links between the ‘center’ and the ‘periphery’ thus been strengthened, but new political resources have also been infused into the Indian political system. As a result, the legitimacy of India’s democratic institutions has deepened.
Lastly, regarding the role of the Indian Constitution or, more appropriately, the role of some constitutionally provided institutions, both the Indian polity and the economy have experienced significant decentralisation in recent years. These deeper changes, combined with less deep ones such as unsavory leadership practices, have weakened some of India’s central political institutions, especially a strong and stable executive. One of the reasons why this weakening has not been highly debilitating is because India has a reservoir of other constitutionally approved institutions that include the important new political roles of the judiciary, the presidency, and the Electoral Commission. In recent years, however, especially in the 1990s, these institutions have mitigated and moderated the potential damage that coalitional instability within national governments may have caused.
However, a greater challenge to modern and secular Indian democracy is the BJP both as a social movement and as a political party that has tended to be more radical – i.e., more extreme in its Hindu nationalist commitments – the BJP as a political party often moves towards the political ‘center.’ While the BJP in the last few years of power has acted moderately, Nonetheless, this moderation is by no means irreversible. For now, the BJP is hemmed in by its coalitional partners. The movement versus the party dialectic, which is deeply rooted in the BJP, can readily swing back, away from the logic of a ruling party to more of an extreme religious–nationalist movement, pushed in part by ‘true believers’ and, for the rest, by a need to further bolster its electoral prospects.
In sum, how and why India’s democracy has become such a well-established fact is, of course, all complex outcomes, more than one factor has contributed to the establishment of India’s democracy including India’s multicultural diversity that was organised as anything else but a federal, democratic polity. British colonialism established a relatively centralised state and, within that frame, introduced proto-democratic institutions and practices. Indian nationalists further played a critical role, first by crafting the ‘unity in diversity’ that was India’s nationalist movement and, second, by pushing for full democracy by instituting mass adult suffrage and tolerance for religious and cultural diversity.
The seventy-seven-year history of the sovereign Indian republic, however, is replete with instances of power negotiations that indeed lend themselves to lessons for others especially Pakistan as a post-colonial contemporary state of India. Most significantly, within the framework of a centralised state, accommodation of ethnic-regional groups can strengthen democracy in Pakistan. Federal structure can further be strengthened when the demands of one region or another are partially accommodated rather than resisted. Furthermore, the effective functioning of local governments may similarly point towards the deepening and strengthening of democracy in Pakistan.