CDS (II) 2024 General Knowledge · Question 62 of 120

Correct — A, Union of States. The Draft Constitution that Ambedkar placed before the Constituent Assembly on 4 November 1948 opened with the words ‘India shall be a Union of States’, and the wording survived into the Constitution that came into force on 26 January 1950, where Article 1(1) reads ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States’. The choice of ‘Union’ over ‘Federation’ was argued for, not stumbled into. A federation formed by agreement can in principle be unformed by agreement, and the Drafting Committee wanted no such implication: the Indian union was not a bargain struck between sovereign provinces, and no unit within it could claim a right to walk out. Parliament's power under Articles 3 and 4 to redraw a State's boundaries, area or name by ordinary law follows from the same premise — the States are units of one country, not parties to a treaty.

• (b)Federation of States — The expression the Drafting Committee deliberately avoided. The Constitution nowhere calls India a federation, even though the machinery it sets up is federal in structure.
• (c)Autonomous States — No text of the Constitution uses this phrase for the States generally. Autonomy in the Indian scheme is a matter of the State List and of special provisions like Article 371, not of a name in Article 1.
• (d)Subsidiary States — An echo of Wellesley's Subsidiary Alliance, a colonial arrangement with princely rulers. It has nothing to do with the drafting of the Constitution.

The Constituent Assembly first met in December 1946. Its Drafting Committee, chaired by B. R. Ambedkar, produced a Draft Constitution which Ambedkar moved for the Assembly's consideration on 4 November 1948. Article 1 of that draft, and of the finished Constitution, describes the country as a Union of States. The scheme that follows is federal in its machinery — three lists of subjects, a written Constitution, an independent judiciary to police the division — but it is a federation with a strong centre, and its founding document takes care not to describe the States as parties who came together voluntarily.

The item is really a vocabulary test with a constitutional point behind it. All four options sound plausible if you have not read Article 1, and the two colonial-sounding options are there to catch anyone reaching for the wrong century. The way to be sure is to recall the first line of the Constitution's operative text rather than any description of India's federal character. Present-day relevance: the same reasoning is why a State can be reorganised, divided or renamed by a simple parliamentary majority under Article 3, as happened when Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two Union Territories in 2019.

• Article 1(1) reads: ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.’
• Ambedkar moved the Draft Constitution for the Assembly's consideration on 4 November 1948; guiding it through took three years, and the printed debates fill eleven volumes.
• S. N. Mukherjee was the Chief Draughtsman who put the Committee's proposals into legal language.
• The Draft Constitution set out three lists of subjects — Union, State and Concurrent — with more items reserved to the centre than in most other federations.
• Articles 3 and 4 let Parliament form new States and alter areas, boundaries or names by ordinary legislation, without a constitutional amendment.

• Assuming the Constitution calls India a federation somewhere. It does not.
• Mixing up the date the Draft Constitution was moved (4 November 1948) with adoption (26 November 1949) and commencement (26 January 1950).
• Reading ‘Union of States’ as a claim that the States are weak; it is a claim about how the Union came into being, not about the division of powers.

As a one-line recall of Article 1's wording, or as a statements item on whether India's federalism rests on an agreement among the units.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article of the Constitution may Parliament form a new State by separating territory from an existing State?

  • (a)Article 1
  • (b)Article 3
  • (c)Article 12
  • (d)Article 19

  Answer(b) Article 3 — it lets Parliament form new States and alter the areas, boundaries or names of existing States by ordinary law.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  On which date did the Constitution of India come into force?

  • (a)15 August 1947
  • (b)4 November 1948
  • (c)26 November 1949
  • (d)26 January 1950

  Answer(d) 26 January 1950 — the Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 and commenced on 26 January 1950.