India’s Founding Moment

This is a sensitive analysis of the moral imagination behind the Indian Constitution, a document intended to free the democratic process from sectarian identities and to strengthen centralized state power. As Indian democracy struggles to stay on the rails, Khosla's book is a timely reminder of what it was meant to be. -- Partha Chatterjee, author of <i>The Black Hole of Empire</i> Khosla's superb study of the almost miraculous emergence of Indian democracy is an exceptional interweaving of complex and subtle insights from jurisprudence, political theory, and intellectual history. -- Sudipta Kaviraj, author of <i>The Enchantment of Democracy and India</i> This brilliant and challenging book shows how political choices-what to put in a constitution, the locus of effective power, and the forms of representation-can create citizens who can and must govern themselves in a modern democracy while facing deep challenges caused by poverty, caste, and illiteracy. It is at once a contribution to Indian constitutional history, constitutional theory, and political theory, and is a 'must read' for everyone in those fields. -- Mark Tushnet, author of <i>Taking Back the Constitution</i> Erudite, analytically dazzling, and with a rare understanding of both India's and democracy's challenges, Madhav Khosla's India's Founding Moment gives readers unparalleled access to the ideas behind India's radical experiment in democratic constitution-making. As that noble vision is now under assault from sinister forces that Gandhi, Nehru, and Ambedkar knew well, we all should ponder Khosla's all-too-timely book and do whatever we can to prevent the demise of India's constitutional order. -- Martha C. Nussbaum, author of <i>The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal</i> and <i>The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future</i> Democratic citizenship, for India's founders, meant individual freedom for all, regardless of religion, caste, class, or culture. In this insightful analysis of one of the most significant postcolonial constitutions in the world, Madhav Khosla provides an essential framework for understanding current challenges to the fundamental principles upon which the country was built. -- Bruce Ackerman, author of <i>Revolutionary Constitutions</i> In demonstrating how India's democratic tendencies were founded by the constitution rather than vice versa, [Khosla] succeeds in his aim of placing the Indian constitution at least on a par with that of the U.S. * Financial Times *