The primary aim of this volume is to resuscitate political theory in India, evolve a form of political theory that is suitable for us, and to simultaneously open up Western political theory as it exists today. The study of the Constitution provides a platform on which extensive political deliberations and arguments over procedural and substantive issues relating to Indian society can be found. The volume provides discussions on equality, the idea of citizenship and property, notion of minority rights, conception of democracy and welfare found in the Constitution. It also asks questions like: Does the Constitution recognize all moral rights possessed by citizens? What importance does the Constitution accord to the rights that it recognizes? Is the section on duties consistent with the section on fundamental rights? If it is, then why do tensions between rights and duties still exist? Is it because the Constitution prescribes duties over and above rights? Is the Indian Constitution predominantly right-based? Does the Constitution support liberty, equality and fraternity in equal measure? The aim of the volume, thus, is to arbitrate between contesting interpretations of the many core values of our polity. It points to the need to examine whether or not serious disjunction exists between the constitutional ideals and its expression.
Author(s): Rajeev Bhargava
Series: Oxford India Paperbacks
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 441
City: New Delhi
Tags: Constitutional Ethics and Politics
1. The Constitution as a Statement of Indian Identity 43
Bhikhu Parekh
2. Gandhi and the Constitution:
Parliamentary Swaraj and Village Swaraj 59
Thomas Pantham
3. Institutional Visions and Sociological Imaginations:
The Debate on Panchayati Raj 79
Peter Ronald deSouza
4. Outline of a 'Theory of Practice' of Indian Constitutionalism 92
Upendra Baxi
5. A Text Without Author:
Locating the Constituent Assembly as Event 119
Aditya Nigam
SECTION II
6. The Indian State: 143
Constitution and Beyond
Suhas Palshikar
7. Citizenship and the Indian Constitution 164 Valerian Rodrigues
8. Citizenship and the Passive Revolution:
Interpreting the First Amendment 189
Nivedita Menon
9. Democracy and Constitutionalism 211
Sanjay Palshikar
10. Constitutional Justice:
Positional and Cultural 230
Gopal Guru
SECTION III
11. Containing the Lower Castes:
The Constituent Assembly and the Reservation Policy 249
Christophe Jaffrelot
12. Affirmative Action for Disadvantaged Groups:
A Cross-constitutional Study of India and the US 267
Ashok Acharya
SECTION IV
13. Religion and the Indian Constitution:
Questions of Separation and Equality 297
Gurpreet Mahajan
14. Passion and Constraint:
Courts and the Regulation of Religious Meaning 311
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
15. Rights versus Representation
Defending Minority Interests in the Constituent Assembly 339
Shefali Jha
16. Minority Representation and the Making of the Indian
Constitution 354
Rochana Bajpai
Notes on Contributors 392
Index 394
