Authored CAPF Paper II precis exercise on federalism and diversity, with an original passage and a one-third model precis
Authored practice. The passage below is original, written for this wiki, not a verbatim previous-year question. Reduce it to about one-third of its length in your own words, third person, neutral, one connected paragraph, with a title and a stated word count.
A country as varied as India faced, at its founding, a question that had broken many states before it: how to hold together a people divided by language, religion, region and custom without either crushing the differences or being torn apart by them. The answer chosen was a federal arrangement, but a federal arrangement with a strong centre, in which the states govern much of daily life while the union holds the matters on which the survival of the whole depends. The genius of this design is that it converts difference from a threat into ordinary politics. A community that can run its own affairs in its own language, that sees its identity reflected in its own assembly, has far less reason to seek a way out of the union than one that feels ruled by strangers from afar. Federalism, in this view, is not a concession that weakens the nation but the very mechanism by which a vast diversity is held together by consent rather than by force. The friction it produces is the friction of a living arrangement, not the prelude to its collapse.
Reduce the passage to roughly one-third (about 58 to 62 words), in your own words, in one connected paragraph, in the third person and a neutral tone, with a title and a word count at the end.
Title: Federalism as the Container of Diversity
India faced the problem of uniting a people divided by language, religion and region without crushing their differences. Its answer was a federal system with a strong centre, letting states govern daily life while the union keeps essential matters. By giving communities self-rule and recognition, this design turns diversity into ordinary politics and holds the nation together by consent rather than force. (60 words)