Reading of the Indian Constitution

7/29/2019 Reading of the Indian Constitution

1/3march 16, 2013 vol xlviiI no 11 EPW Economic & Political Weekly34

book review

Reading of the Indian Constitution

Dipankar Sinha

Political Transition and DevelopmentImperatives in India edited by Ranabir Samaddar andSuhit K Sen (New Delhi and Abingdon: Routledge), 2012;

pp viii + 296, Rs 795.

It seems that postcolonial Indias fate

is to forever remain on tenterhooks

having witnessed not just one but

two paradigmatic transitions in its not-

so-old life. The first transition from the

colonial rule to constitutional rule coin-

ciding with the birth of postcolonial

India has been marked by a bewildering

variety of negotiations, tensions, dilem-

mas, paradoxes and contradictions.While

Indias case is not the sole instance in

this regard, her experience has been

particularly challenging and proble-

matic, if not for anything else but for the

sheer number, spread and depth of con-

tentious issues and factors to be addre-

ssed. Then again, before the dust of the

first transition could settle down, the

second one would emerge with Indias

much-controversial but much less-

debated entry to the domain of market-

led development.

The book under review deals over-whelmingly with the first transition

while acknowledging the connection

between the two. It is broadly divided

into two sections The Juridical-Politi-

cal Route to Norms of Governance and

Paradigms of Inequality, Pathways to

Entitlement with instances of shut-

tling back and forth between the two.

At the very outset the editors note

that they seek to explore the configu-

rations of power and legitimacies of

the emerging constitutional India, with

particular focus on the developmen-

talist structures and paradigms, which

provide the context for the transition and

the establishment of the postcolonial

state. Indeed, the whole process was

multifaceted, involving an enthusiastic

but exploratory, if not uncertain, search

for identity not just for the nation but

also for its people. It was a process that

would compel the leaders of the newly-

independent country to confront thecomplex task of constructing the state-

society interface in general and, more

specifically, involving the negotiation of

governance and development under a

legal regime. Vitally important and sen-

sitive items like sovereignty, rights and

citizenship with no easy correspondence

between governance and democracy

would come up. A caveat: the decision

not to critique modernity and its claim

to universality in this otherwise deftly-

crafted introduction has its toll because

such a critique would have left more

epistemological and axiological cues

vis--vis the universal ideology of

developmentalism and its negotiation

with ground reality.

Encounter with Legalities

Ranabir Samaddars essay with its focus

on two constitutional tasks the set-

ting up of the Indian state and the Indian

government can be traced back to his

earlier works such asA Biography of the

Indian Nation 1947-97. In the essay

Samaddar brings to the fore from a re-

markably different vantage point Indian

democracys encounter with legalities

with Ambedkar, the chief architect of

the Indian Constitution at the centre

stage, in blow hot-blow cold exchange of

insights and rhetoric with T T Krish-

namachari and Thakurdas Bhargava,

among others.

With lengthy excerpts from the Con-

stituent Assembly debates, Samaddar

gradually reveals the nuances of the

process of construction of the prime

principles of governing India and their

implications for the right-bearing citizens.

The respective frictions and anxiety ofthe first stake in ensuring juridical

authority of the state and the second

stake in legally constituting a govern-

ment and a people, and those of the two

stakes combined, would take diverse

forms like lack of balance between state

power and government power, and an

array of undemocratic elements in theconstruction of a democratic polity,

including the unilateral imposition of

expertise (as in the power to provide

final immunity of law and in making

exceptions to the rules). It was no easy

task for the new leadership as they had

to come face-to-face with the reality of

divergence between their own radical

ideas and rhetoric of nation-building of

the colonial era and the later compul-

sions of self-governance.

The interplay of the abstraction and

the reality (the latter, however, relative)

sought to produce a specific genre of

governance and public power constru-

cted by rationalising techniques. In

asserting that the constitutional gaze

provides rights to the people but does

not provide righteousness, Samaddar

not only gives a new twist to the emerg-

ing debate but also provocatively notes

the emergence of new postcolonial poli-

tics in which the political subject is aproduct of legality, non-legality and

illegalities. Samaddar iterates his faith

in dialogue vis--vis the Constitution

and new illegalities, yet he observes that

all is not well with micro-level dialogue.

The essay provides possibilities of ex-

tending the parameters of various con-

cepts like deliberative democracy and

political society just when they are

threatened with some kind of theoreti-

cal dead end, but at the same time, it

leaves the solution tantalisingly open,

and justifiably so.

Harbinger of Development

If there is discussion on the rationalities

and technologies of governance vis--vis

the first political transition and develop-

ment, the Nehruvian state cannot be

far behind. Benjamin Zachariahs essay

relieves the readers of the axiomatic

bind of the Nehruvian state as the har-

binger of development, which marksmany of the writings on Indians devel-

opment scenario. He problematises the


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BOOK REVIEW

Economic & Political Weekly EPW march 16, 2013 vol xlviiI no 11 35

development imagination which had

been zealously promoted with a view to

showcase the legitimacy of the Indian

state. In explaining the manoeuvring of

the Nehruvian state in injecting our

values to the people within its borders

and restricting civic inclusion, Zachariah

harps on civic belonging rather thanthe more-familiar civic nationalism

thereby adding a new dimension to the

dominant good civic, bad ethnic logic.

The suction-mechanism of the over-

dominant, hyperactive Indian state,

which would poke its Pinocchio-like

nose in almost every sphere of peoples

life has come out well in the essay

revealing the ways and means through

which (civic) philosophical, ideological

and policy dimensions, by flaunting

legitimation as the trump card, enforced

limits to civic inclusion. However, the

conscious disengagement of nation and

state may leave out some vital dimen-

sions of the exclusionary strategies,

especially the marginalisation of the

other, of the state. Also, the essay could

have discussed the norm-laden symbols

and images of the Nehruvian state, which

form part of the political language.

Suhit K Sen has an unconventional

take on the internal tensions, contesta-tions and ambivalences of the Congress

Party during its transition from the do-

main of movement to that of governance

in the under construction Nehruvian

state. The party, which would take pride

in having unilaterally led India to free-

dom, would also have a tryst with its

own destiny, not exactly of a comforta-

ble kind. The formation of ground

rules of the emerging political system

would be marked by continuous tension

between the Congress Party and the

Congress government(s) at the centre

and at other levels.

In this process, as Sen shows, while

the government-centric ministerialists

would seek to ward off the interference

of the party in the day-to-day function-

ing of government, their colleagues in

the party organisation would, in explor-

ing a new motive force for the party after

achieving freedom, prefer to steer the

newly-established government. Sen pro-vides an intense account of the intra-

party tussle of personalities and groups

from 1946-57 but to what extent the

party was faced with this dilemma

remains an issue that requires further

introspection because from the very

beginning the balance was overwhelm-

ingly tilted in favour of the ministeria-

lists, vested directly with the power of

governing and having the gentle colo-ssus Nehru at the helm of affairs.

Politics of Development

In the second section Ashutosh Kumars

essay is a surprising inclusion as it is

more concerned with the second transi-

tion than the first. The essay explores

the predicaments of key political parties

vis--vis their encounter with electoral

politics in the specific context of the

adoption and ascendance of neoliberal

market reforms. The theme is relevant

in understanding the Indian politys un-

easy negotiations between participatory

democracy and market economy, both

having coincided in the early 1990s. Re-

ferring to election manifestos and some

survey data, Kumar tracks the dual com-

pulsions of the imperatives of neo-lib-

eral governance and the increasing dis-

approval, if not outright resistance, of

the people and the consequent strate-

gisation of major parties like the Con-gress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Kumar refers to the disconnect

between the two developments and

bemoans the lack of debate on such a

huge paradigmatic shift. We would add

that such an outcome was to be so, both

symbolically and strategically, from the

very beginning because market reforms

were adopted in 1991 by a government

lacking the majority status in Parliament,

which also resorted to the TINA (There

Is No Alternative) logic seeking to se-

verely restrict public debates on market

reforms. However, it did not work much

because ordinary people, notwithstand-

ing their lack of knowledge of the techni-

calities of neo-liberal reforms, continue

to articulate dissent in various ways. The

severely constricted space and scope of

debate, which paradoxically characterise

the act of governance of the largest de-

mocracy in the world is not necessarily

situation-specific, it has also been encodedin the very constitutive logic of the con-

stitutional jurisprudence.

If Samaddar had set the ball rolling

in his essay, Kalpana Kannabiran takes

the cue, especially that of constitu-

tional communication, and takes up

an emerging but still largely under-

researched theme of disability. Substan-

tiating her contentions with slices of ar-

ticles and case laws, she reveals how theblind spots of the apparently inclusive

and harmonious framing of Indian

constitutional jurisprudence unleashes

a process of depoliticisation when it

comes to the reading of non-discrimi-

nation in general, and the discourse

on discrimination based on disability

in particular.

Such codification and the construc-

tion of a zone of silence are not crude but

a very refined process. These rest on

the highly valued ambit of equality be-

fore law and equal opportunity on the

one hand, and less evidently, but no less

strongly, on measuring disability against

able-bodied norms. Kannabiran reverses

the dominant trend in the disability

analysis by problematising ability and

rescuing disability from the taken-for-

granted tag of problem.

The arrowhead of Swarna Rajagopalans

contribution is female infanticide. While

her locale is Tamil Nadu, the essayscritical tenor has two questions of much

broader relevance: Whose security?

Whose development?. The major focus

of the essay is on the campaign mode, a

communicative exercise that can reveal

a lot of things challenging our preset

assumptions. Rajagopalan thus high-

lights a lot of issues emerging from the

interplay of human security, human de-

velopment and human rights, especially

the issue of gender violence, while she

interrogates the efficacy of democratic

governance by exposing its underlying

techno-managerial orientation. In the

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BOOK REVIEW

march 16, 2013 vol xlviiI no 11 EPW Economic & Political Weekly36

process, she also raises the vital point

that the detachment and mutual indif-

ference of the state and civil society

groups do little good for the welfare of

ordinary people.

Ratan Khasnabis takes off with the

standard Marxian political economy

approach in his analysis of the evolutionof the rules of governance in rural India.

Beyond the much-discussed plot of class

contradictions and elite manipulations

of the Indian state in the Nehruvian

period, the essay becomes particularly

interesting in the context of the neo-

liberal era. Khasnabis shows how rural

India, especially its local government

institutions, are subject to a kind of gov-

erning strategy in which their participa-

tory character would be stressed but

within the limits of theLakshman rekha

drawn by the ruling elite in order to

ensure that the existing hegemonic order

is not disturbed by any radical change.

Khasnabis sharpens his analysis by

referring to the tension and predicament

caused by the decline in the agenda-

setting power of political parties on the

one hand and their compulsion of popu-

lar mobilisation on the other. In doing so

he does a good job in dealing with theparliamentary parties, including the

mainstream Left, but remains a bit too

soft on the extra-parliamentary Left,

particularly the Maoists, who are yet to

come up with an alternative develop-

ment agenda, while they fight the vio-

lence and repression of mainstream

development with counter-violence.

Conclusion

It was known that the formation of the

Indian republic and the establishment of

stable rules and institutions could

never be a one-shot affair. But gradually,

the classic works of Granville Austin, the

juridico-political writings of Upendra

Baxi and the more recent one by Ananya

Vajpayee (The Righteous Republic) have

sensitised us from different but related

vantage points to the ramifications and

implications of the intense, and often

excruciating, exercise in constitutio-nalism and the making of the Indian

Constitution and the republic. The pre-

sent volume makes its own contribution

to this admirable intellectual trajectory

by facilitating the reading of the Indian

Constitution not as a sacrosanct docu-

ment preserved high above but as some-

thing of our own rooted in development

imperatives and their everyday ground-

level manifestations.

Dipankar Sinha (sinhadipankar2007@gmail.

com) is associated with the Department of

Political Science, University of Calcutta.

Documents

Reading of the Indian Constitution