Download or read book India s Founding Moment written by Madhav Khosla and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Economist Best Book of the Year How India’s Constitution came into being and instituted democracy after independence from British rule. Britain’s justification for colonial rule in India stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. And the empire did its best to ensure this was the case, impoverishing Indian subjects and doing little to improve their socioeconomic reality. So when independence came, the cultivation of democratic citizenship was a foremost challenge. Madhav Khosla explores the means India’s founders used to foster a democratic ethos. They knew the people would need to learn ways of citizenship, but the path to education did not lie in rule by a superior class of men, as the British insisted. Rather, it rested on the creation of a self-sustaining politics. The makers of the Indian Constitution instituted universal suffrage amid poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. They crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian Constitution—the longest in the world—came into effect. More than half of the world’s constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries characterized by low levels of economic growth and education, where voting populations are deeply divided by race, religion, and ethnicity. And these countries have democratized at once, not gradually. The events and ideas of India’s Founding Moment offer a natural reference point for these nations where democracy and constitutionalism have arrived simultaneously, and they remind us of the promise and challenge of self-rule today.
Download or read book Constitutional Democracy in India written by Bidyut Chakrabarty and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-12 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constitutional democracy is both a structure of governance and a way of providing an ideological perspective on governance. The 1950 Constitution of India established constitutional democracy in India and the narrative of the rise and consolidation of constitutional democracy in India cannot be understood without comprehending the politico-ideological processes that consolidated simultaneously both colonialism and constitutional liberalism. This book examines the processes leading to constitutionalizing India and challenges the conventional idea that the Constitution of India is a borrowed doctrine. A careful study of the processes reveals that the 1950 Constitution was the culmination of an ideational battle that had begun with the consolidation of the British Enlightenment philosophy in the early days of British paramountcy in India. The book therefore argues that constitutionalizing endeavour in India had a clear imprint of ideas which had its root in this philosophy. The study reveals a striking continuity of the same kind of ideological sentiments when the nationalists devised their own constitutionalizing design, visible in the 1928 Motilal Nehru report and which reappeared in the 1945 Sapru Committee report. Deviating from the conventional study of constitutional evolution of a polity, which is generally legalistic, this book explores the processes since the beginning of colonial rule in India which led to the conceptualization of constitutional democracy in a milieu engaging with arguments formulated by James and JS Mill. A detailed analysis of the roots of constitutional and political liberalism in India, this book sheds light on the material surrounding India’s constitutional development. It will be of interest to scholars in the field of Indian Political Theory, South Asian Politics and History.
Download or read book A People s Constitution written by Rohit De and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been contended that the Indian Constitution of 1950, a document in English created by elite consensus, has had little influence on India’s greater population. Drawing upon the previously unexplored records of the Supreme Court of India, A People’s Constitution upends this narrative and shows how the Constitution actually transformed the daily lives of citizens in profound and lasting ways. This remarkable legal process was led by individuals on the margins of society, and Rohit De looks at how drinkers, smugglers, petty vendors, butchers, and prostitutes—all despised minorities—shaped the constitutional culture. The Constitution came alive in the popular imagination so much that ordinary people attributed meaning to its existence, took recourse to it, and argued with it. Focusing on the use of constitutional remedies by citizens against new state regulations seeking to reshape the society and economy, De illustrates how laws and policies were frequently undone or renegotiated from below using the state’s own procedures. De examines four important cases that set legal precedents: a Parsi journalist’s contestation of new alcohol prohibition laws, Marwari petty traders’ challenge to the system of commodity control, Muslim butchers’ petition against cow protection laws, and sex workers’ battle to protect their right to practice prostitution. Exploring how the Indian Constitution of 1950 enfranchised the largest population in the world, A People’s Constitution considers the ways that ordinary citizens produced, through litigation, alternative ethical models of citizenship.
Download or read book The Constitution of India written by Arun K Thiruvengadam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-28 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the content and functioning of the Indian Constitution, with an emphasis on the broader socio-political context. It focuses on the overarching principles and the main institutions of constitutional governance that the world's longest written constitution inaugurated in 1950. The nine chapters of the book deal with specific aspects of the Indian constitutional tradition as it has evolved across seven decades of India's existence as an independent nation. Beginning with the pre-history of the Constitution and its making, the book moves onto an examination of the structural features and actual operation of the Constitution's principal governance institutions. These include the executive and the parliament, the institutions of federalism and local government, and the judiciary. An unusual feature of Indian constitutionalism that is highlighted here is the role played by technocratic institutions such as the Election Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and a set of new regulatory institutions, most of which were created during the 1990s. A considerable portion of the book evaluates issues relating to constitutional rights, directive principles and the constitutional regulation of multiple forms of identity in India. The important issue of constitutional change in India is approached from an atypical perspective. The book employs a narrative form to describe the twists, turns and challenges confronted across nearly seven decades of the working of the constitutional order. It departs from conventional Indian constitutional scholarship in placing less emphasis on constitutional doctrine (as evolved in judicial decisions delivered by the High Courts and the Supreme Court). Instead, the book turns the spotlight on the political bargains and extra-legal developments that have influenced constitutional evolution. Written in accessible prose that avoids undue legal jargon, the book aims at a general audience that is interested in understanding the complex yet fascinating challenges posed by constitutionalism in India. Its unconventional approach to some classic issues will stimulate the more seasoned student of constitutional law and politics.
Download or read book The Indian Constituent Assembly written by Udit Bhatia and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume propose a range of methodological perspectives from which these critical debates might be read. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, they explore themes such as party politics, ideas of rights, including caste and minority rights, social justice and the philosophy of free speech.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution written by Sujit Choudhry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 1328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Indian Constitution is one of the world's longest and most important political texts. Its birth, over six decades ago, signalled the arrival of the first major post-colonial constitution and the world's largest and arguably most daring democratic experiment. Apart from greater domestic focus on the Constitution and the institutional role of the Supreme Court within India's democratic framework, recent years have also witnessed enormous comparative interest in India's constitutional experiment. The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution is a wide-ranging, analytical reflection on the major themes and debates that surround India's Constitution. The Handbook provides a comprehensive account of the developments and doctrinal features of India's Constitution, as well as articulating frameworks and methodological approaches through which studies of Indian constitutionalism, and constitutionalism more generally, might proceed. Its contributions range from rigorous, legal studies of provisions within the text to reflections upon historical trends and social practices. As such the Handbook is an essential reference point not merely for Indian and comparative constitutional scholars, but for students of Indian democracy more generally.
Download or read book How to Save a Constitutional Democracy written by Tom Ginsburg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-10-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracies are in danger. Around the world, a rising wave of populist leaders threatens to erode the core structures of democratic self-rule. In the United States, the tenure of Donald Trump has seemed decisive turning point for many. What kind of president intimidates jurors, calls the news media the “enemy of the American people,” and seeks foreign assistance investigating domestic political rivals? Whatever one thinks of President Trump, many think the Constitution will safeguard us from lasting damage. But is that assumption justified? How to Save a Constitutional Democracy mounts an urgent argument that we can no longer afford to be complacent. Drawing on a rich array of other countries’ experiences with democratic backsliding, Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Z. Huq show how constitutional rules can both hinder and hasten the decline of democratic institutions. The checks and balances of the federal government, a robust civil society and media, and individual rights—such as those enshrined in the First Amendment—often fail as bulwarks against democratic decline. The sobering reality for the United States, Ginsburg and Huq contend, is that the Constitution’s design makes democratic erosion more, not less, likely. Its structural rigidity has had unforeseen consequence—leaving the presidency weakly regulated and empowering the Supreme Court conjure up doctrines that ultimately facilitate rather than inhibit rights violations. Even the bright spots in the Constitution—the First Amendment, for example—may have perverse consequences in the hands of a deft communicator who can degrade the public sphere by wielding hateful language banned in many other democracies. We—and the rest of the world—can do better. The authors conclude by laying out practical steps for how laws and constitutional design can play a more positive role in managing the risk of democratic decline.
Download or read book How India Became Democratic written by Ornit Shani and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovers the greatest experiment in democratic history: the creation of the electoral roll and universal adult franchise in India.
Download or read book Democracy and Constitutionalism in India written by Sudhir Krishnaswamy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The basic strucure doctrine articulated by the Indian Supreme Court in 1973 made it amply clear that the basic features of the Constitution must remain inviolable. The doctrine has generatd serious debates ever since as it placed substantive and procedural limits on the amending powers of the Execuive. Despite the lack of clarity as to its nature, the scope of the doctrine has been broadened in recent years, and a wide range of state actions are covered in its purview. In this book, Krishnaswamy analyses its legitimacy in legal, moral and sociological terms, and argues that the doctrine has emerged from a valid interpretation of the constituitional provisions. This book will be of interest to scholars of Indian Constitutional law, political theory and jurisprudence as well as judges and legal practitioners.
Download or read book The Success of India s Democracy written by Atul Kohli and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-06 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading scholars consider how democracy has taken root in India despite poverty, illiteracy and ethnic diversity.
Download or read book India s Living Constitution written by Zoya Hasan and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India became independent in 1947 and, after nearly three years of debate in the Constituent Assembly, adopted a Constitution that came into effect on 26 January 1950. This Constitution has lasted until the present, with its basic structure unaltered, a remarkable achievement given that the generally accepted prerequisites for democratic stability did not exist, and do not exist even today. Half a century of constitutional democracy is something that political scientists and legal scholars need to analyze and explain. This volume examines the career of constitutional-political ideas (implicitly of Western origin) in the text of the Indian Constitution or implicit within it, as well as in actual political practice in the country over the past half-century.
Download or read book Indian Politics Vs Indian Constitution written by Hari Babu E. and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2021-01-06 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there any authority in India, who is elected, other than the President of India? None. All ministers are appointed people. They need not even be members of a house when appointed as ministers. Ours is not parliamentary democracy. It is Republican Democracy under which, there would be only one government in India which is of the President, with Governors as his subordinates in states. 30 mutually conflicting governments and perennial elections to them cannot make India one country; much less a “Sovereign Democratic Republic”. How, India is federal if Ambedkar refused to add “Federal” in the preamble? 42nd amendment of 1976 too added only “Socialist and Secular”. Constitution is ignored, President is made ineffective, people are divided on caste lines and religious lines, regional parties are formed to rake up regional issues, press became pure business, courts turned late comers, corruption and immorality in politics reached its peak. External commercial aggression is on the rise. How long India can stay independent and united?
Download or read book Democracy and Constitutions written by Allan C. Hutchinson and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bold and unconventional, this book advocates for an institutional turn-about in the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism.
Download or read book The Promise of Power written by Maya Tudor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under what conditions are some developing countries able to create stable democracies while others have slid into instability and authoritarianism? To address this classic question at the center of policy and academic debates, The Promise of Power investigates a striking puzzle: why, upon the 1947 Partition of British India, was India able to establish a stable democracy while Pakistan created an unstable autocracy? Drawing on interviews, colonial correspondence, and early government records to document the genesis of two of the twentieth century's most celebrated independence movements, Maya Tudor refutes the prevailing notion that a country's democratization prospects can be directly attributed to its levels of economic development or inequality. Instead, she demonstrates that the differential strengths of India's and Pakistan's independence movements directly account for their divergent democratization trajectories. She also establishes that these movements were initially constructed to pursue historically conditioned class interests. By illuminating the source of this enduring contrast, The Promise of Power offers a broad theory of democracy's origins that will interest scholars and students of comparative politics, democratization, state-building, and South Asian political history.
Download or read book To Kill A Democracy written by Debasish Roy Chowdhury and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India is heralded as the world's largest democracy. Yet, there is now growing alarm about its democratic health. To Kill a Democracy gets to the heart of the matter. Combining poignant life stories with sharp scholarly insight, it rejects the belief that India was once a beacon of democracy but is now being ruined by the destructive forces of Modi-style populism. The book details the much deeper historical roots of the present-day assaults on civil liberties and democratic institutions. Democracy, the authors also argue, is much more than elections and the separation of powers. It is a whole way of life lived in dignity, and that is why they pay special attention to the decaying social foundations of Indian democracy. In compelling fashion, the book describes daily struggles for survival and explains how lived social injustices and unfreedoms rob Indian elections of their meaning, while at the same time feeding the decadence and iron-fisted rule of its governing institutions. Much more than a book about India, To Kill A Democracy argues that what is happening in the country is globally important, and not just because every third person living in a democracy is an Indian. It shows that when democracies rack and ruin their social foundations, they don't just kill off the spirit and substance of democracy. They lay the foundations for despotism.
Download or read book Working a Democratic Constitution written by Granville Austin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Working a Democratic Constitution tells a very human story of how the social, political and day-to-day lived realities of the Indian people has been reflected in, and in turn directed the course of, constitutional reforms in the country. Through the post independence euphoria to the turbulentyears of Indira Gandhi's 'Emergency' and Rajiv Gandhi's brief period of power, the way in which the constitution has evolved to suit the changing needs of the times is an important indicator of India's successful experience with democracy. Granville Austin is one of the world's leading experts on the Indian constitution. Since his classic work The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (OUP, 1966), he has been working on this long-awaited book, which not only presents archival sources, but also first-hand interviews with andrare documentation by many of the key political and legal figures of the last fifty years. With its wide historical sweep, and meticulously detailed research, this is Austin's magnum opus described by Fali Nariman as a 'great and compassionate work'. The clarity and elegance of Austin's writing makes this book not only a necessary but a pleasurable read for anyone interested in comparative constitutional law and the recent political history of India, and for students, teachers and researchers of the subject.
Download or read book Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution written by Rajeev Bhargava and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the germinal work on the Indian Constitution has been done by legal experts and historians. The distinctiveness of this collection of essays is its focus on the Indian Constitution from the perspective of political theory. Contributors to this volume view the Constitution either as a political or as an ethical document, reflecting configurations of powr and interests or articulating a moral vision. Critically analysing the various aspects of the constitution, the essays discuss equality, freedom, citizenship, minority rights, democracy, rights, property and welfare.
