A People's Constitution

This book offers genuinely original insights into the transformation of India's Constitution into a living reality of social and economic life. Its emphasis on the role of ordinary citizens, and civil society organizations, provides a fascinating perspective ignored in standard accounts focusing on the statecraft of political elites in New Delhi. --Bruce Ackerman, Yale University Rich and deeply researched, this groundbreaking legal history will speak to readers in many fields and countries. De shows how ordinary citizens played a disproportionate role in giving meaning to India's Constitution, how it became a vehicle for arguing about unresolved tensions among the many groups constituting the new nation, and why constitutionalism became such an important part of modern Indian society. I learned a great deal from this wonderful book. --Kenneth W. Mack, Harvard University The study of India's Constitution, perhaps one of the most important documents of the twentieth century, has long been neglected. In A People's Constitution, De shows how it generated forms of democratic behavior among the nation's less elite subjects--an important idea, given that India is the world's largest democracy. No other work so lucidly explains the Indian Constitution, and this informative and original book will be widely read. --Durba Ghosh, Cornell University