CONSTITUTING A PEOPLE: THE CHALLENGE OF THE INDIAN FOUNDING.

• Date: 22 September 2020
• Author: Saunders, Cheryl

INDIA'S FOUNDING MOMENT: THE CONSTITUTION OF A MOST SURPRISING DEMOCRACY. By Madhav Khosla. (*) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 2020. Pp. 240. $45.00 (Hardcover).

A mark of a very good book is that it makes the reader think, think differently, and reflect on the application of the insights that it offers in other, broadly comparable, contexts. India's Founding Moment, by Madhav Khosla, had this effect on me. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in India, in the challenges that democracies face, in global constitution-making, or in all three.

In India's Founding Moment, Khosla explores the challenges that India faced in 1946-1949 in framing a constitution for a people emerging from colonization who were "poor and illiterate; divided by caste, religion, and language; and burdened by centuries of tradition" (p. 6). Khosla gives his account both meaning and depth by focusing on three characteristics of the constitution as it emerged in 1949, in three tightly argued, substantive chapters. These chapters deal, respectively, with the codification of the Indian Constitution, with particular reference to its length, the directive principles and express limitations on rights; with the considerable centralization of power at the level of the state; and with the conceptualization of representation, in the face of problems stemming from sectarianism and communalism. In each case, Khosla examines the explanation of the phenomenon that is standard in the constitutional literature; traces relevant strands of the debate in India as the prospect of self-government emerged; and suggests a new perspective that demonstrates how the choices that Indian leaders made contributed to the creation of a "democratic citizen[]" (p. 3).

At one level, the book has value as a fascinating window into the framing of the Indian Constitution. This is not Khosla's declared intention, however, and the account of the framing does not seek to be comprehensive. Nevertheless, the meticulous research for the three core chapters of the book, themselves dedicated to some of the most difficult questions for the underpinnings of the new constitution, throw light on important aspects of that historical point in time. These include the constitution of the Constituent Assembly; the greater freedom of action that the Assembly, ironically, derived from partition; the manner in which the Assembly went about its task, including as an interim legislature; and the nature and extent of Indian engagement with international constitutional experience.

Importantly also, in this regard, the book engages with the ideas of the Indian leadership throughout the first part of the twentieth century as they evolved and as they interacted with each other. In this way the book is, as Khosla claims, a...