With reference to the federal system in India, which of the statements is/are correct ? 1. States have no right to secede from the Union under the Constitution of India. 2. Just advocacy of secession will have the protection of freedom of expression. Select the correct answer from the codes given below :
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Correct — A, 1 only. Statement 1 is the settled constitutional position and it is built into the very first Article. Article 1(1) says 'India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States' — and the Drafting Committee chose the word 'Union' deliberately. Explaining that choice in the Constituent Assembly on 4 November 1948, Dr B.R. Ambedkar said the Committee had used 'Union' to make it clear that though India was to be a federation, the federation was not the result of an agreement by the States to join it, and that the federation not being the result of an agreement, no State has the right to secede from it. India's States are administrative units carved out by Parliament, not contracting parties: under Articles 3 and 4 Parliament can create a new State, alter any State's area, boundaries or name by an ordinary law, with the State legislature entitled only to be consulted, not to consent. A unit that Parliament can redraw at will plainly has no right to walk out. Statement 2 is wrong. Freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) has never been absolute, and since the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act, 1963 the very first ground on which Article 19(2) permits reasonable restrictions is 'the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India'. That amendment was made precisely to allow the State to act against secessionist advocacy: the same Act rewrote the forms of oath in the Third Schedule and the qualification requirements for legislators so that a candidate or member must swear to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India. So advocating secession is not sheltered by the free-speech guarantee — it falls squarely inside a permitted restriction. Statement 1 stands, statement 2 falls, so the answer is (a).
- (b)2 only — This inverts the paper. Statement 2 is the false one — Article 19(2), as amended in 1963, expressly allows reasonable restrictions on speech in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, so advocacy of secession is not protected expression. And it discards statement 1, which is the one proposition here that the Constitution guarantees outright.
- (c)Both 1 and 2 — Statement 1 is correct but statement 2 is not. Treating the two as compatible misses the point of the Sixteenth Amendment, 1963: the Constitution answers 'no right to secede' and 'no free-speech shelter for advocating secession' the same way, through the sovereignty-and-integrity limitation, not in opposite directions.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — Statement 1 is squarely correct. Article 1's description of India as a 'Union of States', read with Parliament's power under Article 3 to alter State boundaries by ordinary law, leaves no room for a right of secession — a position the Drafting Committee stated in terms when it explained why 'Union' was preferred to 'Federation'.
Indian federalism is a federation without a compact. In a classic federation such as the United States the units existed first and pooled sovereignty by agreement; in India the Constituent Assembly created the Union and then distributed powers to States it could itself redraw. Article 1 therefore calls India a 'Union of States'; Articles 2, 3 and 4 let Parliament admit, establish, divide, merge, rename or reshape States by simple majority, with only a Presidential reference to the affected State legislature for its views; and Article 4 clarifies that the consequential changes to the First and Fourth Schedules are not even constitutional amendments under Article 368. This is why K.C. Wheare called the Constitution 'quasi-federal' — federal in form, with a strong unitary bias. The integrity of the Union is protected on the speech side too: Article 19(2) since 1963 permits restrictions on expression in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India.
The question is really two separate probes wearing one costume. Statement 1 tests whether you know the reason the word 'Union' appears in Article 1 — that is a pure recall point and should be instant. Statement 2 tests whether you treat Article 19(1)(a) as absolute; it is the softer trap, because 'just advocacy' sounds harmless and the word 'just' invites you to think that mere words cannot be curbed. Two clarifications keep you honest without disturbing the answer. First, 'may be restricted' is not the same as 'is always punishable' — the Supreme Court has held that casually raising secessionist slogans a couple of times, without evoking any response, does not by itself amount to the offence charged (Balwant Singh v. State of Punjab, 1995), and in Kedar Nath Singh (1962) it read sedition down to speech that incites violence or public disorder. But that is a limit on criminal liability, not a constitutional shield for advocating secession, which is what statement 2 claims. Second, a present-day note for a 2026 reader: the sedition section of the Indian Penal Code was ordered to be kept in abeyance by the Supreme Court in May 2022 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 now carries this ground as its offence of endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India. The constitutional position under Article 19(2) is unchanged.
- Article 1(1): 'India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.' The Drafting Committee preferred 'Union' to 'Federation' to signal that India was not formed by agreement among the States and that no State may secede — Ambedkar's explanation in the Constituent Assembly, 4 November 1948.
- Article 3 lets Parliament form new States and alter the areas, boundaries or names of existing States by ordinary law; the affected State legislature is only consulted, and under Article 4 the resulting changes to the First and Fourth Schedules are not amendments under Article 368.
- The Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act, 1963 added 'the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India' as a ground of reasonable restriction in Article 19(2) — and to the corresponding clauses on assembly and association — and amended the Third Schedule oaths and the qualifications for legislators to require an undertaking to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India.
- Article 19(2) grounds in full: sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, contempt of court, defamation, and incitement to an offence.
- In re Berubari Union (1960): territory of India cannot be ceded to a foreign State under Article 3; that requires a constitutional amendment — a further sign that the Union's territorial integrity is not at the disposal of ordinary politics.
- Reading 'Union of States' as a mere synonym for 'federation'. The word was chosen for two specific reasons — India is not the product of a compact, and the Union is indestructible.
- Treating Article 19(1)(a) as an absolute right. Every clause of Article 19(1) is paired with a restriction clause, and 'sovereignty and integrity of India' has headed the Article 19(2) list since 1963.
- Sliding from 'the State may restrict such speech' to 'every such utterance is a crime'. The constitutional permission to restrict is broad; the criminal threshold, after Kedar Nath Singh, is incitement to violence or public disorder.
UPPSC frames this area as two-statement sets or Assertion-Reason pairs on the character of Indian federalism — it ran a 'quasi-federal' Assertion-Reason in 2020 — while UPSC prefers 'which one of the following is NOT a feature of Indian federalism', with 'it is the result of an agreement among the federating units' as the answer to be spotted.
Which one of the following is not a feature of Indian federalism?
- (a) There is an independent judiciary in India.
- (b) Powers have been clearly divided between the Centre and the States.
- (c) The federating units have been given unequal representation in the Rajya Sabha.
- (d) It is the result of an agreement among the federating units.
Answer(d) It is the result of an agreement among the federating units.
The same idea from the other end. UPSC asks you to reject 'agreement among the federating units'; UPPSC asks you to accept 'no right to secede'. Both rest on the single reason the Constitution says 'Union of States' — India was not created by a compact, so no unit can withdraw from it.
Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R): Assertion (A): Indian federalism is called 'Quasi-federal'. Reason (R): India has an independent judiciary with power of Judicial Review. Select the correct answer from the codes given below. Codes:
- (a) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
- (b) Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- (c) (A) is true but (R) is false
- (d) (A) is false but (R) is true
Answer(b) Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
UPPSC returning to the same unitary-bias theme a year later. 'Quasi-federal' is Wheare's label for exactly the features that make secession impossible — a single Constitution, an indestructible Union and Parliament's power to reshape States — and not, as the Reason suggests, for judicial review, which federations and unitary states alike possess.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The description of India as a 'Union of States' in Article 1 of the Constitution signifies that
- (a)the Indian federation is the result of an agreement among the States
- (b)the States have a qualified right to secede from the Union
- (c)the federation is not the result of an agreement among the States and no State has a right to secede from it
- (d)India is a confederation of sovereign units
Answer(c) the federation is not the result of an agreement among the States and no State has a right to secede from it — this is exactly the reasoning the Drafting Committee gave for preferring 'Union' to 'Federation' in Article 1.
- practice — not a real PYQ
'The interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India' was added as a ground for imposing reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(2) by
- (a)the First Amendment, 1951
- (b)the Sixteenth Amendment, 1963
- (c)the Forty-second Amendment, 1976
- (d)the Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978
Answer(b) the Sixteenth Amendment, 1963 — it inserted the sovereignty-and-integrity ground into Articles 19(2), 19(3) and 19(4) and also amended the forms of oath so that legislators must swear to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India. The First Amendment, 1951 had earlier added public order, friendly relations with foreign States and incitement to an offence.