Constituting India

Khosla, Madhav

doi:10.1007/s42439-022-00056-7

Original Article
Published: 02 February 2022

Constituting India

Madhav Khosla¹

Jus Cogens volume 4, pages 79–89 (2022)Cite this article

138 Accesses
Metrics details

Abstract

Even though revolutions are central to the history of modern constitutionalism, some revolutions have invited more attention than others. This essay, a response to a symposium on India’s Founding Moment, underlines the significance of India’s constitutional founding and highlights ways in which India’s founders sought to create and develop democracy in a land where its supposed ingredients did not exist. The essay then turns to contemporary politics and considers the possibilities and limitations of the constitutional framework to address the current concerns over democratic backsliding in India.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Notes

On constitution-making, see Ginsburg et al. (2009); Tushnet (2013); Landau and Lerner (2019).
Khosla (2020).
Fowkes (2022). The remarkability of the exercise in administrative and bureaucratic terms has been powerfully demonstrated by Shani (2017).
Jackson is correct to observe that India’s Founding Moment attempts at studying India’s constitutional founding in its best light. I take this to be central to an interpretive endeavor. See generally Dworkin (1986), 45–86; Dworkin (1996).
On voting and agency, see Tuck (2016), 257–263.
For a recent assessment of ongoing controversies and challenges in this regard, see Klarman (2020), 45–66.
Khosla (2020), 6.
On empire and its justifications, see U S Mehta (1999); Pitts (2006); Mantena (2010).
Fowkes (2022), present symposium.
See Guha (2014).
See Tushnet (2008); Khosla (2010).
P Dann (2022), present symposium.
See Tomkins (2003), 7; Young (2007); Gardner (2012), 89–97.
Khosla (2020), 31.
Shklar (1990), 67.
On political pluralism, see Runciman (1997); Mantena (2012).
On the origins of India’s centralized framework, see Tillin (2021).
See Babulal Parate v. State of Bombay, AIR 1960 SC 51; Mangal Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1967 SC 944; Pradeep Chaudhary v. Union of India, (2009) 12 SCC 248.
Khosla (2020), 106. Despite this explicit discussion of the matter, Dann rather oddly regrets the fact that the book “does not discuss a third alternative of constitutional design, namely federalism”. Dann (2022), present symposium.
See Tuck (2004), 125–138.
Remarkably, such arguments continue until today. See Kaviraj (2014).
Saunders (2022), present symposium.
I am grateful to Saunders for pushing me, with her careful comments, to think more carefully about the question of institutional design.
See M Khosla, Vaishnav (2021).
For a recent assessment of India’s electoral integrity, see Citizens’ Commission on Elections (2021).
See Vaishnav (2017); Vaishnav (2019b); Vaishnav (2019a). On political finance in India, see generally D Kapur, Milan Vaishnav (2018).
See Ackerman (2000), 712–718.
Vaishnav (2021). On the Election Commission, see generally Sridharan and Vaishnav (2017), 417–463.
See Aiyar and Kapur (2019); Aiyar and Tillin (2020).
See generally Chandra (2017). On variations across India’s states, see Harbers et al. (2019).
See Michelutti et. al (2018); Harriss-White and Michelutti (2019). The presence of dynastic politics is also worth considering here, encouraging us to think about how the nature of power within political parties extends outside the party. On dynastic politics, see Chandra (2016).
On competitive authoritarianism, see Levitsky and Way (2002).
On the limitations of constitutional design, see Sadurski (2020), 330–331.
See generally Gardner (2012), 89–124.
See Rosenblum, Muirhead (2019).

References

Ackerman B (2000) The new separation of powers. Harv Law Rev 113(3):633–729
Article Google Scholar
Aiyar Y, Kapur A (2019) The centralization vs decentralization tug of war and the emerging narrative of fiscal federalism for social policy in India. Reg Fed Stud 29(2):187–217
Article Google Scholar
Aiyar Y, Tillin L (2020) “One Nation”, BJP, and the future of Indian federalism. India Review 19(2):117–135
Article Google Scholar
Babulal Parate v. State of Bombay, AIR 1960 SC 51
Chandra K (2016) Democratic dynasties: state, party, and family in contemporary Indian politics. Cambridge University Press, New York. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316402221
Chandra K (2017) Authoritarian elements in democracy. https://www.india-seminar.com/2017/693/693_kanchan_chandra.htm. Accessed 14 June 2021
Choudhry S (2022) Can federalism save India’s constitutional democracy? Jus Cogens. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-021-00054-1
Citizens’ Commission on Elections (2021) An inquiry into India’s election system. https://68df2dd4-cd8b-42a5-9d9d-6e0c5befdb3b.filesusr.com/ugd/528a17_e25fcdb755984e5b838d51f0a2badb83.pdf. Accessed 14 June 2021
Dann P (2022) Choices and contexts in India’s constitutional founding. Jus Cogens 2022 (present symposium). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-021-00051-4
Dworkin R (1996) Objectivity and truth: you’d better believe it. Philos Public Aff 25(2):87–139
Article Google Scholar
Dworkin R (1986) Law’s empire. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Fowkes J (2022) A suitable paradigm: the Indian founding and the world. Jus Cogens 2022 (present symposium). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-021-00053-2
Gardner J (2012) Law as a leap of faith. Oxford University Press, New York. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695553.001.0001
Ginsburg T, Elkins Z, Blount J (2009) Does the process of constitution-making matter? Annual Review of Law and Social Science 5:201–223. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.4.110707.172247
Article Google Scholar
Guha R (2014) Gandhi Before India. Penguin Books, London.
Harbers I, Bartman J, van Wingerden E (2019) Conceptualizing and measuring subnational democracy across Indian states. Democratization 26(7):1154–1175
Article Google Scholar
Harriss-White B, Michelutti L (eds) (2019) The wild east criminal political economies in South Asia. UCL Press, London.
Jackson VC (2022) Equal voting and common knowledge: “Best Lights” understandings of India’s founding democratic constitutionalism. Jus Cogens 2022 (present symposium). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-021-00052-3
Kapur D, Vaishnav M (eds) (2018) Costs of democracy: political finance in India. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199487271.001.0001
Kaviraj S (2014) The curious persistence of colonial ideology. Constellations 21(2):186–198
Article Google Scholar
Khosla M (2010) Making social rights conditional: lessons from India. Int J Const Law 8(4):739–765. https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/mor005
Article Google Scholar
Khosla M, Vaishnav M (2021) The three faces of the Indian state. J Democr 32(1):111–125
Article Google Scholar
Khosla M (2020) India’s founding moment: the constitution of a most surprising democracy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Klarman MJ (2020) Foreword: the degradation of American democracy – and the court. Harv Law Rev 134(1):1–264
Google Scholar
Landau D, Lerner H (eds) (2019) Comparative constitution making. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785365263
Levitsky S, Way LA (2002) The rise of competitive authoritarianism. J Democr 13(2):51–65
Article Google Scholar
Mangal Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1967 SC 944.
Mantena K (2012) On Gandhi’s critique of the state: sources, contexts, conjectures. Mod Intellect Hist 9(3):535–563. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244312000194
Article Google Scholar
Mantena K (2010) Alibis of empire: Henry Maine and the ends of liberal imperialism. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Mehta U S (1999) Liberalism and empire: a study in nineteenth-century British liberal thought. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Michelutti L et al. (2018) Mafia Raj: the rule of bosses in South Asia. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto
Pitts J (2006) A turn to empire: the rise of imperial liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Pradeep Chaudhary v. Union of India, (2009) 12 SCC 248
Rosenblum N L, Muirhead R (2019) A lot of people are saying: the new conspiracism and the assault on democracy. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Runciman D (1997) Pluralism and the personality of the state. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511582967
Sadurski W (2020) Constitutional democracy in the time of elected authoritarians. Int J Const Law 18(2):324–333. https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moaa038
Article Google Scholar
Saunders C (2022) Democracy, constitutionalism, modernity, globalization. Jus Cogens 2022 (present symposium). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-021-00048-z
Shani O (2017) How india became democratic: citizenship and the making of the universal franchise. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107705722
Shklar J N (1990) The faces of injustice. Yale University Press, New Haven
Sridharan E, Vaishnav M (2017) Election Commission of India. In: (Kapur D et al., eds), Rethinking Public Institutions in India. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199474370.003.0011, pp. 417–463
Tillin L (2021) Building a national economy: origins of centralized federalism in India. Publius 51(2):161–185. https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjaa039
Article Google Scholar
Tomkins A (2003) Public Law. Oxford University Press, New York
Tuck R (2004) The utopianism of Leviathan. In: Sorell T, Foisneau L (eds), Leviathan after 350 Years. Oxford University Press, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264612.003.0006, pp. 125–138
Tuck R (2016) The Sleeping Sovereign: The Invention of Modern Democracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316417782
Tushnet M (2013) Constitution-making: an introduction. Texas Law Review 91(7):1983–2013
Google Scholar
Tushnet M (2008) Weak courts, strong rights: judicial review and social welfare rights in comparative constitutional law. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Vaishnav M (2017) Finance bill makes funding for political parties more opaque than ever. https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/finance-bill-makes-funding-for-political-parties-more-opaque-than-ever/story-5qKRhtDK5qnuzis8JiI9FO.html. Accessed: 14 June 2021
Vaishnav M (2019a) Electoral bonds: the safeguards of Indian democracy Are Crumbling. https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/electoral-bonds-indian-democracy-narendra-modi_in_5ddb5d1ee4b0913e6f6ea769. Accessed: 14 June 2021
Vaishnav M (2019b) Political finance in India: déjà vu all over again. https://india-seminar.com/2019/713/713_milan_vaishnav.htm. Accessed: 14 June 2021
Vaishnav M (2021) The decay of Indian Democracy. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/india/2021-03-18/decay-indian-democracy. Accessed 14 June 2021
Young EA (2007) The constitution outside the constitution. Yale Law Journal 117:408–473
Article Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Columbia Law School, New York, NY, USA
Madhav Khosla

Authors

Madhav Khosla
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Madhav Khosla.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Khosla, M. Constituting India. Jus Cogens 4, 79–89 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-022-00056-7

Download citation

Accepted: 25 January 2022
Published: 02 February 2022
Issue Date: April 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-022-00056-7

Keywords

Constitution
India
Founding