Beyond the Courtroom: Reflections on Law, Constitution, and Nationhood

Ever since its creation, the Indian Constitution has been a deeply studied document. It has been discussed and dissected by citizens, scholars, lawyers and politicians.

The Indian Constitution: Conversations with Power takes a new approach in discussing the Constitution: as a document that creates, shapes, channels and constrains power. It shows how the seventy-five years of constitutionalism in India have been characterized by a drift towards centralized and homogenous power located within the union executive. It also examines how certain Supreme Court judgments, especially in recent years, have accelerated this drift towards centralization.

However, it is for us citizens to decide, ultimately, what vision(s) of constitutional power we want to adopt and give to ourselves.

A timely and critical interrogation of the Constitution through the lens of power, this book asks certain fundamental, first-principle questions about the Indian Constitution that all Indian citizens need to think about.