Assembling India's Constitution

A New Democratic History
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-009-33005-3
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 371 Seiten, Format (B × H): 162 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 771 g

In this paradigm-shifting history, two leading historians of India re-examine the making of the Indian constitution from the perspective of the country's people. In a departure from dominant approaches that foreground the framing of the text within the Constituent Assembly, Ornit Shani and Rohit De instead demonstrate how it was shaped by diverse publics across India and beyond. They reveal multiple, parallel constitution-making processes underway across the subcontinent, highlighting how individuals and groups transformed constitutionalism into a medium of struggle and a tool for transformation. De and Shani argue that the deep sense of ownership the public assumed over the constitution became pivotal to the formation, legitimacy and endurance of India's democracy against arduous challenges and many odds. In highlighting the Indian case as a model for thinking through constitution making in plural societies, this is a vital contribution to constitutional and democratic history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

De, Rohit

Shani, Ornit

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction. A new history of India's constitution making; 1. 'Our constitution'; 2. Making the constitution a public affair; 3. Competing constitutionalism: the princely states and the constitution; 4. The emerging state and the constitution; 5. The theatre of the assembly; 6. The horizons of India's constitutional imagination: tribes and constitution making; Conclusion. An open site of struggle.

Über Autor(innen)

Shani, Ornit
Ornit Shani is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at Haifa University. She is the author of How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise (2017), which won the Kamaladevi Chattophadyay New India Foundation Prize (2019).

De, Rohit
Rohit De is Associate Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic (2018), which won the Willard J. Hurst Prize (2019).