Legalizing the revolution : India and the constitution of the postcolony / Sandipto Dasgupta.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dasgupta, Sandipto, author.

Series:

South Asia in the social sciences ; 24.

South Asia in the social sciences ; 24

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Constitutional law--India.

Constitutional law.

Constitutional history--India.

Constitutional history.

Decolonization--India--History--20th century.

Decolonization.

Anti-imperialist movements--India--History--20th century.

Anti-imperialist movements.

Postcolonialism--India--History.

Postcolonialism.

Democracy--India.

Democracy.

Physical Description:

xvii, 490 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Summary:

"Anticolonial movements of the twentieth century generated audacious ideas of freedom. Following decolonization, the challenge was to give an institutional form to those ideas. Through an original account of India's constitution making, Legalizing the Revolution explores the promises, challenges, and contradictions of that task. In contrast to familiar liberal constitutional templates derived from the metropole, the book theorizes the distinctively postcolonial constitution through an innovative synthesis of the history of decolonization and constitutional theory. The first half of the book traces the contentious transition from the tumult of popular anticolonial politics to the ordered calculus of postcolonial governance. The second half explains how major institutions - parliament, judiciary, civil liberties, and property - were formed by that foundational tension. A major contribution to postcolonial political theory, the book excavates the unrealized futures imagined during decolonization. At the same time, through a critical account of the making of the postcolonial constitutional order, it offers keys to understanding the present crisis of that order, including and especially in India"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : decolonization and constitution

The anticolonial movement

Transformations

They, the people

The constitutent administrator

Democracy and parliamentarism

Rights and repression

Property and labour

Judiciary and lawyers

Conclusion : postcolonial afterlives of law and revolution

Epilogue : the biographies of the Indian Constitution,

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Dasgupta, Sandipto. Legalizing the revolution

ISBN:

9781108490481

1108490484

9781009525244

1009525247

OCLC:

1408649459