Despite the dismal failure of the United Front to remain united its existence is cited as a brilliant illustration of the need and the potential of what is termed ``cooperative federalism''. This term is being repeated again and again by the UF leaders. Chidambaram has made it the leitmotif of his highly overrated and dangerous Budget. He has again appealed to Prime Minister I. K. Gujral to make it one of the priority items for implementation by the new government.

It is not just a turn of speech, a nuance of declaration, or a new phrase that causes concern. It is the essence of the matter. The slogan of cooperative federalism is the latest battle cry of those who deny that India is a nation. It is the latest thrust of those whose vision is that of a multinational India.

There should, therefore, have been no surprise when the aggressive spokesman of the Akalis in his speech on the latest confidence motion in the Lok Sabha chided Chidambaram and others for having taken so long to come round to his party's position on the meaning and structure of India. The Akalis had long ago come to the conclusion that India existed in the States whereas the Centre was only a convenient administrative adjunct to the States.

N. T. Rama Rao, while launching the Telugu Desam Party, had described the Centre as a myth and neither Chandrababu Naidu nor Lakshmi Parvati has contradicted him on this point. While it is true that during the Chinese aggression in 1962 Annadorai stated that the DMK no longer believed in Tamil Nadu seceding from India, his successors have never withdrawn in theory from the concept of Dravidistan as the unifying basis of the Tamil identity. The Asom Gana Parishad came into existence to assert the Assamese identity per se and not for defending the existence of Assamiya as an expression of Bharat.

The CPI(M) today is, of course, coy when anybody asks it some basic questions. Among such questions is its historical and basic appraisal of India. Is it a multinational country whose constituent units found themselves unified by British colonial administration? Is India in the view of the CPI(M) a product of the Raj? Some of its leaders, notably Jyoti Basu, seem to be having second thoughts on the subject, but the party itself continues to be steeped in ancient dogmas.

The CPI many years ago broke from the multinational thesis and accepted the reality of India as a nation. But on reverting to anti-Congressism as the basic element of its strategy at its 1978 Bhatinda Congress it took up anti-Centrist positions which are difficult to demarcate from the multinationalities thesis of the CPI(M).

But in recent years no party other than the Akalis, has made the identity of India a major issue of contention. It was in the battle against the separatist terrorists posing as the champions of Sikhs that in the Punjab itself and throughout the country Indians fought and won the battle for India. It is the Indians whose language is Punjabi who will not allow the Akalis to turn the clock back even though so many of them have voted for that party. This is the reason why even the communal and the not-so-secret supporters of the late Bhindranwale among the Akalis are lying low and pretending to be the opponents of the Khalistanis.

It may be and has been asked as to what is wrong with describing India as a federation. The first point of the answer is to ask a counter-question federation of what? Of States, it would be answered. But what are the States? Are they the primary units which came together to form India? If so, when did this happen? In the case of the Soviet Union its existence can be dated from December 1922 when Russia, Ukraine, Byelo-Russia and the Transcaucasion Federative Republic met in Moscow and decided to create the USSR. In fact there was no Soviet revolution in November 1917. There was a Russian revolution led by the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from which the followers of Lenin broke away to establish the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik). Because this revolution destroyed the Tsarist Empire it paved the way for the eventual establishment of the Soviet Union. It is now quite clear that neither the new Soviet man nor Soviet patriotism came into existence thanks, above all, to the tyranny of Stalinism.

The historical development of India was quite different. It was the simultaneous development of the unity of Indianness and its expression in the diversity of ethnic-cultural formations.

The breakdown of the Mughal Empire in the 17th country led to the struggle and search for a new Indian national state. This was interrupted by the British conquest. The search was resumed in the struggle for freedom from the days of the War of Independence in 1857 in which Hindus, Muslims, Maharashtrians, Punjabis, Biharis, Awadhis and others participated to put Bahadur Shah Zafar back on the throne in Delhi.

This was followed by the modern freedom struggle led by the Indian National Congress in which, along with others, the Communist Party of India participated and in the cause of which the All India Trade Union Congress and other mass organisations came into being -- all with India in their name. That great revolution established the national state and adopted a constitution which declared that India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. These States were set up and then reorganised by the Union of India. This must never be forgotten. This must never be weakened.

Centre-State relations can be modified both to prevent over-centralisation and to prevent States from usurping all-India functions as well as coming in the way of Panchayati power. In fact, India's national and economic development depends on the interplay of all-India planning, all-India markets and devolution of implementation to the people where they work and live.

There is no room in such national development for federalism, cooperative or otherwise. It is not only the national Indian state that would be weakened by such federalist incursions. There would be States in combat with each other. What would happen to the Almati dispute if Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu did not have the Centre to turn to?

The Centre and States are neither equal nor antagonistic. The relation between them has to be one between the whole and its parts where the whole is more than all its parts.

The writer is general secretary of UCPI

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.