Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moaa078
Abstract
For some years, the endurance of constitutional democracy in India has been a puzzle for political scientists and public law scholars. The creation of self-government on Indian soil challenged Western political theory and history, and its survival in atypical and unusual circumstances has mystified students of comparative politics. If the conventional wisdom is believed, self-rule in a country with major levels of poverty, illiteracy, and diversity should neither have been instituted nor sustained. India has managed to hold elections with remarkable regularity, and it boasts of a constitutional culture where conflict has, for the most part, been articulated through legal means. The troubling reality of contemporary Indian political life — where the principles of constitutional democracy appear to be under serious threat — does not take away from the achievement of modern India or from the puzzle that the nation’s history invites. Regardless of whether India will remain a constitutional democracy, it is somewhat astonishing that it was ever one to begin with.
Disciplines
Constitutional Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Madhav Khosla,
Democracy and Decolonization: How India Was Made,
18
Int'l. J. Const. L.
1031
(2020).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4587