India’s Federalism: A Legal and Intellectual History

This research agenda is led by 2022-24 CASI Postdoctoral Research Fellow Sarath Pillai. The history of Indian federalism is often assumed to have begin in 1947 when India attained independence and the founders met in the Constituent Assembly to debate India’s new constitution. This project offers both an alternative genealogy and ideological origins of Indian federalism and brings to light hitherto unknown global influences in Indian federal thought. It extends back the history of federalism to the turn of the twentieth century, showing how federalism was the main conduit through which Indians imagined their political futures at least from the 1900s onward. It also defamiliarizes the history of Indian federalism by showing that certain leaders of the Indian princely states, Muslims, and liberals, impacted by ideas of federalism prevalent in Germany and the US, were the main proponents of federalism. These groups and their alternative ideological vision contributed much to the development of federalism in colonial India than the anticolonial nationalist vision committed to a British parliamentary type of state. In October 2023, Dr. Pillai’s Ph.D. dissertation was awarded the Sardar Patel Award, given to the best dissertation on modern India in any social sciences or humanities discipline in the US. In 2022, an article showing the impact of German history and constitutionalism on the federalist thought in interwar India was published in the Comparative Studies in Society and History. This article was featured in the Ideas of India podcast hosted by Shruti Rajagopalan at the George Mason University and was also discussed at the Laws, Institutions, and Cultural Interactions (DIIC) seminar at the University of Tours. In August 2023, he helped convene a conference, “Rethinking Nationalism,” at CASI drawing 8 historians from across the US to debate the past, present, and future of nationalism in India. His article showing how the principles of international law justified and legitimized British imperialism in the princely states in colonial India is currently under review with Leiden Journal of International Law. Another article project on the history of British treaties with the Indian princely states is also underway.