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.
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Notes
Khosla (2020).
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.
Fowkes (2022), present symposium.
See Guha (2014).
P Dann (2022), present symposium.
Khosla (2020), 31.
Shklar (1990), 67.
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.
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 Ackerman (2000), 712–718.
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).
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Khosla, M. Constituting India. Jus Cogens 4, 79–89 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-022-00056-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-022-00056-7