Political obligation may imply obligation towards the State and the Constitution as well as resistance against them depending upon particular circumstances. For example, before independence it became the political obligation of the Indians to resist the colonial state but after we attained independence and had a Constitution of our own, the scope of political obligation and resistance has been comprehensively defined by the Constitution. One the one hand, the Constitution provides a set of fundamental rights, on the other, it provides for reasonable restrictions on the exercise of these rights. These restrictions are to guard against resistance and threat to territorial integrity, national sovereignty, internal security, law and order or public order, incitement to civil war, contempt of court, etc.
Not all acts of resistance amount to end of political obligation. There may be resistance against a particular regime or certain policies and legislations of the regime. Similarly, there can be resistance to policies or ideologies of certain political party/parties. These do not amount to the end of political obligation to the state or the Constitution. As such, while resistance against the state and the Constitution amounts to the end of political obligation; resistance to a regime or its policies or the executive an its actions, etc., may not amount to the end of political obligation.
It is possible that there may not be any disagreement on the Cconstitution but there may be resistance to the government of the day or a regime identified with a particular political ideology. The call for Sampoorna Kranti (Total Revolution) was such a resistance movement, which opposed the Congress regime. There may also be resistance to some of the policies of the government, which does not necessarily represent any disloyalty to the state or the Constitution as such. For example, Narmada Bachao Andolan being a movement to resist a particular aspect of developmental policy that has implication for habitation and displacement of a section of people may not be construed against the state or the constitution. However, the radical and ultra leftist movements against the state or the movement of the ethnic and religious extremists and terrorists reflect erosion of the political obligation. Examples of opposition to the state and its nature could be found in India’s opposition to the colonial state, African National Congress’s (led by Mandela) rejection of the white dominated state in South Africa, etc.
We can categorize different forms of resistance either as resistance within the overall constitutional and permissible legal framework which accepts the legitimacy of the state authority or resistance which denies any legitimacy to either the constitution or the state. Thus, resistance could be for changes within the systemic framework, i.e., intra-systemic or outside it, i.e., extra-systemic. Resistance expressed by the Naxalite and extremists and terrorist movements in Assam, Kashmir and Punjab are examples of extra-systemic resistance, as they voice opposition to the constitutional means and the sovereignty of the Indian state. They deny any political obligation to the Indian state and its Constitution. There have been various autonomy and statehood movements which demanded/are demanding statehood for Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal, Telangana, etc.8. These movements could be temporary in nature and seek limited a political objective, statehood. Their resistance may cause suspension of political obligation by the members concerned temporarily and its restoration as soon as the demands are fulfilled. These are intra-systemic resistance movements. There may also be various resistance movements, which oppose particular policy of government. For example, pro and anti-reservation protests are oriented towards particular policy. Though it has constitutional implication, opposition to a particular policy does not mean rejection of political obligation to the Constitution. These would also be examples of intra-systemic resistance movements.
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