Postcolonial India's modernist ambition to have a Uniform Civil Code, impressively written into Article 44 of the Indian Constitution of 1950 as a non-justiciable Directive Principle of State Policy, concerns not just an Indian problem but a universal predicament for lawyers and legal systems. What is the relationship between personal status laws and general state-made laws? To what extent should the formal law allow for, or seek to restrain, the legal implications of religious and socio-cultural diversity? To what extent does a state, whether secular or not, actually have power and legitimacy to decree and enforce legal uniformity? There are many more agendas at play here than simply the central issue of legal authority, focused on the power of the law, or simply “religion” v. “law”, or “culture” v. “law”, as we are often still led to believe.

In the western part of India, on the edge of the Thar Desert, a wealthy camel herdsman died, leaving his seventeen camels to his three sons. His final wishes distributed the camels to his heirs in specific proportions: one-half to the eldest, one-third to the middle son, and one-ninth to the youngest. The sons quickly appreciated the immediate obstacle to complying fully with their father's wishes. How could they make this specific distribution? They could not wait for the camels to breed; nor did they choose to sell them off and share the proceeds because herding camels was all they had ever known. Accordingly, they decided to consult their village leaders from the local panchayat. Seemingly uncertain of the appropriate solution, one of the five elders suggested that the boys accept a loan of one of his camels, go home, think it over again, and return the camel to him on the very next day. Disgruntled by the ostensible futility of this advice, they returned to their tent, under their breath cursing the stupidity of the old man.

While shaking their heads over tea, the youngest quickly rose in excitement. “Brothers,” he exclaimed, “we now have eighteen camels.” “So?!?,” the eldest mocked him, “we will have seventeen only tomorrow. What good will that do, you fool?!?” “But bhaya, with eighteen camels, we can divide them up according to the wishes of our papa: you get nine; our brother gets six; and I get two. That makes seventeen. We divide the herd, and give the eighteenth camel back to our elder!”

The first disquisition given to the concept of the sublime, written by the anonymous Greek Pseudo-Longinus, famously mourns the passing of the pagan relationship between gods and men. In his essay on the work of Pseudo-Longinus, the French poet Michel Deguy states that “the question of the sublime was doubtless first of all an attempt to measure the decline of the Orient, to measure the author's distance from the time of gods and heroes.” For Deguy, the Longinian tradition of emphasising the sublime as a key feature of rhetoric must be regarded as an attempt to establish some hope of a truly exalted discourse at a time in which man moves further and further away from his sacred relationship to the highest of origins. Such nostalgia obviously colours every cycle of secularisation; from paganism to Christianity to modernity and beyond. If each period of secularisation generates a more worldly state of affairs, or flatter discourses, it also produces a Longinian longing for a more vertical axis to explain our mortality.

It is by now common knowledge that British colonialism in India transformed or invented many Indian institutions and traditions. Questions of how the transformation occurred, of the extent of Indians’ participation in the changes, and of how to measure the scope of the transformation are all still very much in scholarly debate. The area of law has recently become a productive intellectual site for historians interested in describing the transformative effects of colonial governance. Few of these studies, however, are informed by more than a superficial knowledge of classical and medieval legal traditions in India.

The future of an effective climate regime, post-2012, depends on three nations—China, India, and the United States of America. While a deadlock persists when it comes to the question of accepting binding international legal obligations for targeted reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, all three countries favor action to address climate change. Nationally, each country is exploring a range of policy and legislative options to retard carbon emissions, especially by promoting alternative energy options and energy efficiency.

This article analyses the legal, political and moral basis of citizenship in the contemporary world. India is analyzed here as a case in point of a general category of ‘changing societies’ emerging from colonial or communist rule. Citizenship, which used to be considered a part of the general problem of nation-building, has increasingly acquired the character of a salient problem in its own right. This change in perspective has come about as a consequence of globalization and the world-wide diffusion of basic norms of human rights. In the contemporary context, with regard to the problems of endangered minorities whose lives, dignity and welfare are at risk – be it in Kashmir or Kosovo – the world at large considers itself morally bound to intervene, if not militarily, then at least in terms of the invocation of law and good conduct. As such, from the point of view of the post-colonial state, both its national sovereignty and legitimacy are contingent on its success with turning its whole population into citizens. This, the article argues, is contingent on the ability of the post-colonial state to gear its laws, courts and administration towards effective management of identity and the constitutional incorporation of core social values (see Figure 2 below). With regard to ‘making citizens out of subjects’, the Indian ‘experiment’ holds important lessons for other states, ensconced in multi-cultural societies.

Some words said in closing to the recent International Conference on Federalism in New Delhi (hereinafter 4th ICF) could not help but bring to mind the lyrics of an old pop song: “Thank you India”, said George Anderson, President of the Forum of Federations, echoing the well-known refrain of his compatriot Alanis Morissette. In her hit single “THANK U”, Morissette expresses gratitude to India for the life lessons she learned during a visit. Anderson's words provoked at least this audience member to reflect upon “Unity in Diversity” and to “learn […] from each other”, the ICF's overall theme and goal. Ironically, the lessons that I draw are not dissimilar from Morissette's: “clarity”, “consequence”, and “disillusionment”. For these valuable lessons I would like to express gratitude too, namely to the Indian Government, the Conference host.