The Indian Constituent Assembly: Deliberations on Democracy

The Indian Constituent Assembly laid the foundations of the largest democracy in the world. The debates between the members of the Assembly form the bedrock of the Indian Constitution. The chapters in this volume propose a range of methodological perspectives from which these critical debates might be read. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, they explore themes such as party politics, ideas of rights, including caste and minority rights, social justice and the philosophy of free speech.

A major contribution to the study of Indian politics, this book will be indispensable to political scientists, political theorists, legal scholars, historians, lawyers and general readers interested in the history of the Indian Constitution.

Udit Bhatia is Lecturer in Political Theory at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, UK. He is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford, and his research interests lie at the intersections of democratic theory, political representation and social epistemology. He is currently examining the normative case against exclusion of persons from democratic citizenship on the basis of epistemic inferiority.