Unity and integrity of India was perhaps the single uppermost factor in the minds of the Constitution makers. Comment.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 Partition + communal violence + 540 princely states → fears of secession / Balkanization → holding the country together = framers’ first concern
Route 2 a subcontinent fractured by Partition → Constitution designed above all to hold a diverse polity together → unity as the organising anxiety of the makers
centralising design: Art 1 (Union of States, not a compact) → Arts 2–3 (Parliament creates/alters states) → strong Union List + single citizenship + integrated judiciary + emergency 352/365 (Centre armed against fragmentation) → but unity through accommodation, not force: cultural rights 29–30, Fifth/Sixth Schedules, Art 371, linguistic reorganization → Manor: internal heterogeneity strengthens unity → holding-together federation
unity not the sole aim → Austin: Constitution first and foremost a social document, equally devoted to justice and fraternity
Route 1 on balance, threat of disintegration kept unity foremost → secured through accommodation, not coercion
Route 2 claim holds, with one qualification → unity uppermost as the immediate priority, but pursued as plural, holding-together unity, not coercive uniformity
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
Also asked on this head
Making of the Indian Constitution — 9 questions in the Vault.
- Comment on the Objective Resolution of the Constituent Assembly in 150 words.
- Comment on the Constitutional morality in the Indian Constitution in 150 words.
- Imprint of the British Constitution on the Indian Constitution.
How this is taught
The same flow snapshot, built for every head of the syllabus, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.