This article reveals the hold that German history and constitutionalism had on Indian federalists in the interwar period. A range of federalists from Indian princely states and British provinces, eager to see India become a federation rather than a unitary state fashioned on the English model, looked to Imperial Germany for constitutional lessons. They saw in German history and constitutionalism a federal solution to the so-called “Indian problem,” wherein the rights of the states would be primary over those of individuals or groups. This German-inspired federal tradition, I argue, departed not only from political pluralism and association-based federalism, but also from the nationalist vision of placing individual rights over state rights. This article presents an alternative genealogy of comparative constitutional thought in India, and examines a post-national worldview that sidestepped the nation-states. By bringing a comparative approach to bear on political and constitutional histories, it escapes the national insularity that often characterizes such histories in colonial India, and places them in the comparative and global context of the interwar circulation of federalist ideas. German-inspired federal ideas of the period offer a counterpoint to corralling futuristic visions of India, and its founding, on the twin axes of anticolonial nationalism and popular sovereignty to the exclusion of state-centric ideas articulated by the princely states.

本文揭示了德国历史和宪政主义在两次世界大战期间对印度联邦主义者的影响。来自印度诸侯邦和英国各省的一系列联邦主义者渴望看到印度成为一个联邦而不是一个按照英国模式建立的单一国家，他们向德意志帝国寻求宪法教训。他们在德国历史和宪政中看到了所谓“印度问题”的联邦解决方案，其中各州的权利优先于个人或团体的权利。我认为，这种受德国启发的联邦传统不仅背离了政治多元化和以结社为基础的联邦主义，而且背离了将个人权利置于国家权利之上的民族主义愿景。本文提出了印度比较宪法思想的另一种谱系，并探讨了回避民族国家的后民族世界观。通过对政治和宪政历史采用比较方法，它摆脱了殖民时期印度此类历史经常出现的民族狭隘性，并将它们置于两次世界大战期间联邦主义思想循环的比较和全球背景中。这一时期受德国启发的联邦理念与印度及其建国的未来主义愿景形成鲜明对比，以反殖民民族主义和人民主权为双轴，排除诸侯国所阐述的以国家为中心的理念。