Bidyut Chakrabarty - Indias Constitutional Identity: ideological beliefs and preferences

Dedicated to those fighting for justice amidst adversaries

Indias Constitutional Identity: ideological beliefs and preferences is a sequel to other books that I have recently published. There are three books which can be said to have provoked me to write the present one, namely Constitutional Democracy in India (Routledge, Oxford, 2018), Constitutionalizing India: An Ideational Project (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2018) and The Socio-Political Ideas of BR Ambedkar: Liberal Constitutionalism in a Creative Mould (Routledge, Oxford, 2019). Needless to say, I have drawn on them, rather liberally, because I believe that building one argument over another helps one to develop a mega-argument, which is useful to explore mega social processes and formations. My academic exercises, undertaken so far, have convinced me that one of the most persuasive ways of meaningful explorations is to approach themes from the conceptual point of view. One needs to be little careful here because concepts by themselves may not be always helpful since they are also context-driven. Hence, they may not have, for obvious reasons, universal applications; nonetheless, they provide useful inputs to comprehend themes which are intertwined in social, economic and political processes in similar circumstances. India is a good example. Given the long duration of colonial rule, it is conceptually apt to argue that colonial system of constitutionalism cannot be ignored while theoretically grasping Indias constitutional identity. It is equally true that the nationalist interventions also remained a significant source of conceptualization. A persuasive explanation is thus possible only by comprehending the dialectical interconnections between these multiple influences stemming from the prevalent socio-economic and political milieu. I have endeavoured to analytically dissect the processes that finally led to the rise and consolidation of a specific kind of constitutional democracy in India which is, simultaneously, both derivative and indigenous.