National Integration and the Law:Burning Issues and Challenges

The article analyses the process of national integration through law in India. The history of legislation taken for the purpose is traced from pre-Independence days. Abundant care was taken in the Constitution to ensure national integration. Yet, today all the legal measures appear to be counter-productive. Their inadequacies and their consequences are pointed out. It is observed that not only the various legislatures but courts too have not been consistently following the goal of national integration. Provision of reservation in the Constitution was expected to be an effective equaliser but, unfortunately, the very provision has further divided the caste-ridden society. Politics of capturing power through pandering people's unreasonable demands, particularly of religious minorities or of secessionist regional and linguistic chauvinists, has not brought the constitution makers' dream of national integration any nearer to realisation.