Assembling India’s Constitution: A New Democratic History

by Rohit de, Ornit Shani

In this paradigm-shifting history, two leading historians of India re-examine the making of the Indian constitution from the perspective of the country's people. In a departure from dominant approaches that foreground the framing of the text within the Constituent Assembly, Ornit Shani and Rohit De instead demonstrate how it was shaped by diverse publics across India and beyond. They reveal multiple, parallel constitution-making processes underway across the subcontinent, highlighting how individuals and groups transformed constitutionalism into a medium of struggle and a tool for transformation. De and Shani argue that the deep sense of ownership the public assumed over the constitution became pivotal to the formation, legitimacy and endurance of India's democracy against arduous challenges and many odds. In highlighting the Indian case as a model for thinking through constitution making in plural societies, this is a vital contribution to constitutional and democratic history.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

371 pages, Hardcover

Published October 9, 2025

Reviews

[Arbaz Fahad · Rating 4 out of 5]

"During the three years of the Constituent Assembly, it was not in session for two years. During these times there were many other assemblies and diverse spaces of debates. While all that was happening, the Indian public, through their intense engagements with the constitution making, often outpacing the Constituent Assembly with their ideas, gained ownership over the new constitution, legitimated it and made it their own."

This is the view articulated by Rohit De and Ornit Shani in this meticulously researched book. The premise that ordinary citizens participated with zeal and vigour in the constitution making process and that even prior to the enactment of the constitution states like Manipur and a few other princely states had a "sufficiently - democratic" constitution speaks volumes of the ethos of democracy bring ingrained in the Indian psyche. The book contains copious examples of Indians imloring the constituent assembly to safeguard their right through constutional means. Right from, The Deaf and Dumb society of India writing to the Constituent Assembly demanding that their rights to marriage, security inheritance etc be enshrined in the constitution to upper caste Hindus demanding minority protection courtesy their politically dominant yet demographically small group, the book is full of such interesting examples.

This book is an extremely important book for our times. As the authors write, "At a time of global democratic decline, it is all the more urgent to understand how a deeply divided society, facing unprecedented challenges of poverty and mass violence, was able to consolidate and build a participatory constitutional culture in a relatively short time. We write at a time whenthe Indian constitutional order has been under considerable strain.Executive aggrandisement, judicial abdication and constitutional amendments have weakened long-standing institutional practices and expectationssince 2014.