Neera Chandhoke is Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi. She was formerly Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Developing Countries Research Centre at the University of Delhi. She has held several fellowships abroad and has authored many research papers and books. Some of her recent books include Violence in Our Bones (2021), Rethinking Pluralism, Secularism, Tolerance: Anxieties of Co-Existence (2019), Democracy and Revolutionary Politics (2015) and Contested Secessions (2012). She is a frequent contributor to print and online publications such as The Hindu, The Wire, The Indian Express and The Tribune.
<p style="text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 1.25rem; caret-color: rgb(72, 79, 86); color: rgb(72, 79, 86); font-family: Poppins;"><span style="font-family: "Source Sans Pro";">The foundational ideas of Indian democracy—fraternity, equality, secularism, justice—are not alien concepts. As this book shows, from the earliest attempt with the ‘Constitution of India Bill’ in 1895, whose authorship is unknown, to the 1925 Commonwealth of India Bill, the Motilal Nehru Constitutional Draft of 1928 and various Congress resolutions to the Constituent Assembly of 1946, we see these basic ideas reiterated again and again. With the adoption of the Constitution, ‘we, the people’ merely affirmed our faith in an idea of freedom that thousands of Indians had fought and died for. </span><span style="font-family: "Source Sans Pro"; font-size: 1rem;">Among the many distinguishing features of our Constitution is the role it has played in realizing the promises of the freedom struggle. We see how, creative interpretations by the judiciary aside, it has provided the blueprint for interventions by civil society to protect the citizen from both the brazenness of political power as well as the uncertainties of a developing economy. No wonder, then, that in the decades since Independence, the Constitution has become our very identity as Indians. For all its shortcomings, it has held our democracy together, and the people have, likewise, stepped up in its defence when needed, like they did in 2019 to protest the ominous amendments to the Citizenship Act.</span></p>
