Caught in an ugly political slugfest, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma grandiloquently pronounces: “…India is not just a union of States but Bharat is our Mata…” A definite statement that India was neither a federation nor a concord of partnership between the Centre and the States but an arrangement of overlordship, replete with subordination of all the diversities and differences to an overarching centre of authority. Sarma is a recent addition to the BJP’s political stable. With all the fervour and conviction of a neo-convert, the Assam chief minister righteously believes that our constitutional scheme can be molded and mended to suit the ruling party’s political convenience.