Democracy and Constitutionalism in India

Democracy and Constitutionalism in India
Author: Sudhir Krishnaswamy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2010-11-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199088446

The basic strucure doctrine articulated by the Indian Supreme Court in 1973 made it amply clear that the basic features of the Constitution must remain inviolable. The doctrine has generatd serious debates ever since as it placed substantive and procedural limits on the amending powers of the Execuive. Despite the lack of clarity as to its nature, the scope of the doctrine has been broadened in recent years, and a wide range of state actions are covered in its purview. In this book, Krishnaswamy analyses its legitimacy in legal, moral and sociological terms, and argues that the doctrine has emerged from a valid interpretation of the constituitional provisions. This book will be of interest to scholars of Indian Constitutional law, political theory and jurisprudence as well as judges and legal practitioners.

India's Founding Moment

India's Founding Moment
Author: Madhav Khosla
Publisher:
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020
Genre: Constitutional history
ISBN: 0674980875

"How did the founders of the most populous democratic nation in the world meet the problem of establishing a democracy after the departure of foreign rule? The justification for British imperial rule had stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. At the heart of India's founding moment, in which constitution-making and democratization occurred simultaneously, lay the question of how to implement democracy in an environment regarded as unqualified for its existence. India's founders met this challenge in direct terms-the people, they acknowledged, had to be educated to create democratic citizens. But the path to education lay not in being ruled by a superior class of men but rather in the very creation of a self-sustaining politics. Universal suffrage was instituted amidst poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. Under the guidance of B. R. Ambedkar, Indian lawmakers crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable of conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian constitution-the longest in the world-came into effect. More than half of the world's constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late-eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries that are characterized by low levels of economic growth and education; are divided by race, religion, and ethnicity; and have democratized at once, rather than gradually. The Indian founding is a natural reference point for such constitutional moments-when democracy, constitutionalism, and modernity occur simultaneously"--

Democratic Constitutionalism in India and the European Union

Democratic Constitutionalism in India and the European Union
Author: Philipp Dann
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2021-02-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 178990157X

Comparing the structures and challenges of democratic constitutionalism in India and the European Union, this book explores how democracy is possible within vastly diverse societies of continental scale, and why a constitutional framework is best able to secure the ideals of collective autonomy and individual dignity. It contributes to an emerging comparative discussion on structures of power, separation of powers and a comparative law of democracy, which has long been neglected in comparative constitutional studies.

Dimensions of Constitutional Democracy

Dimensions of Constitutional Democracy
Author: Anupama Roy
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2020-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9811538999

This book examines a selection of themes that have become salient in contemporary debates on constitutional democracies. It focuses in particular on the experiences of India and Germany as examples of post-war and post-colonial constitutional democracies whose trajectories illustrate democratic transitions and transformative constitutionalism. While transformative constitutionalism has come to be associated specifically with the post-apartheid experience in South Africa, this book uses the transformative as an analytical framework to transcend the dichotomy of west and east and explore how temporally coincident constitutions have sought to install constitutional democracies by breaking with the past. While the constitution-making processes in the two countries were specific to their political contexts, the constitutional promises and futures converged. In this context, the book explores the themes of Constitutionalism, Nationalism, Secularism, Sovereignty and Rule of Law, Freedoms and Rights, to investigate how the contestations over democratic transitions and democratic futures have unfolded in the two democracies. It offers readers valuable insights into how the normative frameworks of constitutional democracy take concrete form at specific sites of democratic and constitutional imagination in Dalit and Islamic writings, as well as the relationship between state and religion in the writings of public intellectuals, political and legal philosophers. The book also focuses on specific sites of contestation in democracies including the relationship between sovereignty and citizenship in post-colonial India, free speech and sedition in liberal democracies, questions of land rights in connection with economic and political changes in contemporary contexts, and the rights of indigenous communities with regard to international conventions and domestic law. Given its scope, it will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, political philosophy, comparative constitutionalism, law and human rights.

Democracy and Constitutions

Democracy and Constitutions
Author: Allan C. Hutchinson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2021
Genre: Constitutional law
ISBN: 1487507933

Bold and unconventional, this book advocates for an institutional turn-about in the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism.

Constitutionalism and Democracy

Constitutionalism and Democracy
Author: American Council of Learned Societies
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 416
Release: 1993
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0195071077

"The American Council of Learned Societies comparative constitutionalism papers."--T.p.

Dimensions of Constitutional Democracy

Dimensions of Constitutional Democracy
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2020
Genre: Constitutional law
ISBN: 9789811539008

This book examines a selection of themes that have become salient in contemporary debates on constitutional democracies. It focuses in particular on the experiences of India and Germany as examples of post-war and post-colonial constitutional democracies whose trajectories illustrate democratic transitions and transformative constitutionalism. While transformative constitutionalism has come to be associated specifically with the post-apartheid experience in South Africa, this book uses the transformative as an analytical framework to transcend the dichotomy of west and east and explore how temporally coincident constitutions have sought to install constitutional democracies by breaking with the past. While the constitution-making processes in the two countries were specific to their political contexts, the constitutional promises and futures converged. In this context, the book explores the themes of Constitutionalism, Nationalism, Secularism, Sovereignty and Rule of Law, Freedoms and Rights, to investigate how the contestations over democratic transitions and democratic futures have unfolded in the two democracies. It offers readers valuable insights into how the normative frameworks of constitutional democracy take concrete form at specific sites of democratic and constitutional imagination in Dalit and Islamic writings, as well as the relationship between state and religion in the writings of public intellectuals, political and legal philosophers. The book also focuses on specific sites of contestation in democracies including the relationship between sovereignty and citizenship in post-colonial India, free speech and sedition in liberal democracies, questions of land rights in connection with economic and political changes in contemporary contexts, and the rights of indigenous communities with regard to international conventions and domestic law. Given its scope, it will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, political philosophy, comparati ve constitutionalism, law and human rights.

Political Culture and Constitutionalism: A Comparative Approach

Political Culture and Constitutionalism: A Comparative Approach
Author: Daniel P. Franklin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2016-09-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315483238

This work is a cross-national examination of the relationship between political culture and constitutionalism. The countries studied include Nigeria, Turkey and Japan. Questions explored include whether constitutions must evolve and whether constitutionalism is only a western concept.

India's Living Constitution

India's Living Constitution
Author: Zoya Hasan
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2005
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1843311372

India became independent in 1947 and, after nearly three years of debate in the Constituent Assembly, adopted a Constitution that came into effect on 26 January 1950. This Constitution has lasted until the present, with its basic structure unaltered, a remarkable achievement given that the generally accepted prerequisites for democratic stability did not exist, and do not exist even today. Half a century of constitutional democracy is something that political scientists and legal scholars need to analyze and explain. This volume examines the career of constitutional-political ideas (implicitly of Western origin) in the text of the Indian Constitution or implicit within it, as well as in actual political practice in the country over the past half-century.