When Law Matters: the Everyday Life of the Indian Constitution

Wednesday, November 18, 2015
12:30 PM - 3:00 PM
(Pacific)
Speaker: 
  • Rajeev Bhargava,
  • Rohit De

This event is sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for South Asia.

 

When the Indian Constitution was adopted in 1950, its egalitarian and inclusive spirit was widely seen as ahead of its time and out of sync with India’s many entrenched inequalities. Due to the efforts of its main author, the renowned Dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar, the Constitution contained multiple safeguards of cultural, religious and political rights as well as the most ambitious affirmative action program in the world. Over the following six decades, the Constitution shaped Indian society in numerous ways but its most profound impact was in framing public discourse and the way citizens and communities present their claims and demands in public. Despite deep and often violent social and political conflicts, the Constitution and many of its key provisions – religious tolerance, uplift of the historically disadvantaged, recognition of the rights of distinct communities, unity of the nation – are invoked and claimed by all sides in these conflicts. At the same time, the Supreme Court of India has emerged as an active and activist court that is widely respected as the guardian of the Constitution.

 

In this seminar, two distinguished speakers will highlight and analyze why and how the Indian Constitution acquired this key role in the nation’s life.

Professor Rajeev Bhargava is a renowned political theorist who has published seminal studies of Indian secularism and law, and the Director of the well known Center for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. 

Dr. Rohit De is a legal scholar and Assistant Professor of History at Yale University. His forthcoming book is entitled Litigious Citizens, Constitutional Law and Everyday Life in the Indian Republic.

 

The two presentations will be followed by shorter commentaries from:

Francis Fukuyama, Senior Fellow at FSI and Director of CDDRL

Erik Jensen, Professor at the Stanford School of Law

Dr. Vivek Srinivasan, Program Manager for CDDRL's Program on Liberation Technology