The Constitution of India, circa 2022
Any constitutional document is designed to provide a reference point to guide popularly elected governments. For a reference point to be relevant over the years, it must both be able to capture the founding principles of the nation, as well as their evolution across time. This can only happen if the original document is nourished periodically, reinforcing the original vision while also ensuring that it speaks to today’s challenges.
2022 is the 75th year of India’s independence and the eighth decade of the functioning of the Constitution of India. While constitutional principles have largely remained resilient during this period, this juncture is an opportune one to reflect particularly on four basic facets of India’s identity—federalism, secularism, multilingualism and underpinning them all, liberty.
All four have faced significant challenges over the course of India’s independent history and are being severely tested today. Federalism has often been reduced to an academic concept when powerful Union governments dismiss state governments led by opposing political parties; Hindi imposition was a real possibility in the early 1960s when the honeymoon period for the usage of English was coming to an end and has come up intermittently since then; threats to secularism have been endemic since the communally charged days of partition and are even more acute today with the evolution of Hindutva as a mainstream ideology; and the space for liberty, best captured through discordant views, independent opinions and free thinking, has been fast shrinking.
We are now at an appropriate time, neither too early, when these challenges are academic, nor too late, when the challenges have ripened, to understand what the constitutional vision of secularism, federalism, multilingualism and liberty is. Once the challenges, real and perceived, are identified, an evolved vision of what these concepts ought to mean can be articulated.
Deriving from Ramakrishna Paramhansa’s pithy statement ‘joto mot, toto poth’ (as many views, as there are paths), India is one nation with many paths—religions, languages, governments, voices. It is this plurality that defines India as a nation where opposites cohabit, intermingle and get along. Out of this plurality arises many rich possibilities.
While some may grow tired today of hearing old slogans like “unity in diversity”, it is our Constitution that epitomises this slogan and has held India together by allowing us to live, work, learn, and grow alongside those different from us. Central to this achievement is the constitutional celebration of differences. An India filled with clones, yes-men and parroted views would neither capture the nation’s vast plurality nor create any meaningful possibilities.
The Constitution remains our best hope of ensuring that this spirit of plurality is sustained in India over time. With this objective, Vidhi is undertaking a multi-year research project on the Constitution, its relevance and need at a crucial moment in India’s journey as a constitutional democracy. We invite you to join us in this reflection. In the spirit of pluralism we hold so dear, we hope we can encourage you to explore your own visions of India and its challenges, whether or not they are the same as ours.
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About the Authors
Kadambari joined Vidhi in 2019 as an intern with Nyaaya. Since then, she has worked with teams at Vidhi on various subject-matters such as constitutional law, regulatory practices, and education policies. She now works as a Senior Associate with the Impact Collective at Vidhi where she works on the areas of strategy and operations, impact facilitation and measurement, and organisational development.
Richa Bansal was the Head of Communications at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. She has nearly 15 years of combined work experience in development communications and journalism. She worked as the Director of Communications at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi for five years from 2014-2019, re-branding the think tank and building its communication department, including regular outreach of CPR's research through blogs, videos, podcasts, annual reports etc. Prior to this, she has worked in communications roles for over five years primarily in gender rights organisations based out of India and the United Kingdom, including CAMFED, UK, Engineers Without Borders, UK, International Center for Research on Women (regional office in Delhi) and the Population Foundation of India. She started her career as a journalist and worked for different newspapers in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata for nearly four years before switching fully to the development sector after pursuing an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, UK. She also holds a master’s degree in mass communication and an undergraduate degree in English literature.
Lalit is a graduate of the Gujarat National Law University and has been working at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy since 2017. Prior to joining Vidhi, he worked briefly as a Consultant with the 21st Law Commission of India. At Vidhi, he has worked in the broad areas of law and technology, regulation and constitutional law, covering subjects such as data protection, higher education, election law, fiscal federalism, and state governors. As a 2020 Samvidhaan Fellow, he conducted interdisciplinary research into the right to equality, including from the perspective of law & economics. He worked in Vidhi's constitutional law team, Charkha, engaging with contemporary issues such as the right against discrimination and secularism. He writes regularly for news outlets such as The Times of India, Economic Times and The Telegraph, and has published research in the Indian Journal of Constitutional Law, Indian Journal of Law & Technology, and Journal of Intellectual Property Studies.
Arghya is the Founder and Research Director at Vidhi. His areas of specialisation are constitutional law and regulation of the digital economy. He has served on a number of government committees including the B.N. Srikrishna-led committee of experts on a data protection framework for India. Arghya has a number of academic publications on the Supreme Court and the Constitution in leading law journals such as Law Quarterly Review and Public Law. He is also a columnist at The Telegraph and The Times of India. He is the author of three books: "Independence and Accountability of the Indian Higher Judiciary" (Cambridge, 2019), "Hamīñ Ast? A Biography of Article 370" (co-authored - Navi Books, 2022) and most recently "The Colonial Constitution" (Juggernaut, 2023). Prior to founding Vidhi, he was at Oxford as a Lecturer in Administrative Law at Pembroke College.
Kanav N Sahgal is the Programme and Communications Manager at Nyaaya. He holds a Master's in Development from Azim Premji University in Bengaluru and his expertise centers on global gender politics and the law, particularly focusing on gay rights and abortion rights. Kanav also has extensive experience in development communications, volunteer management, program management, and human resources management. He has worked with NGOs, not-for-profits, and for-profits engaged in various domains, including international development, environmental and social consulting, student leadership development, anti-human trafficking, and LGBTQIA+ advocacy. His writings appear regularly in platforms like The Hindu, Deccan Herald, Hindustan Times, The Diplomat Magazine, Cosmopolitan India, JURIST, The LSE Review of Books, and The Cambridge Global Affair. His perspectives have been quoted in publications like Mint Lounge, Outlook India, Time, DW News, The Telegraph, Bloomberg, and The Washington Blade, among others.
Aditya is currently a Senior Resident Fellow in the Research Director's Office at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. He graduated from the NLSIU Bangalore in 2021 with a BA LLB (Hons). His areas of interest include constitutional law, civil procedure, and dispute resolution. He has academic publications on constitutional law, legislative drafting, and arbitration law in journals such as Statute Law Review and Arbitration International. At Vidhi, he has been providing legislative drafting assistance to various Ministries, Departments, and Authorities of the Central Government and various State Governments.
Alok Prasanna Kumar is Co-Founder and Lead, Vidhi Karnataka. His areas of research include judicial reforms, Constitutional law, urban development, and law and technology. He graduated with a B.A. LL.B. (Hons) from the NALSAR University in 2008 and obtained the BCL from the University of Oxford in 2009. He writes a monthly column for the Economic and Political Weekly and has published in the Indian Journal of Constitutional Law and National Law School of India Review apart from media outlets such as The Hindu, Indian Express, Scroll, Quint and Caravan. He has practiced in the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court from the chambers of Mr Mohan Parasaran, and currently also co-hosts the Ganatantra podcast on IVM Podcasts.
Manmayi is a Senior Resident Fellow working with Disability (Inclusion & Access). Manmayi is a graduate of the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi (2016). Prior to joining Vidhi, Manmayi worked at the law firm of Dhir & Dhir Associates, where she litigated and provided advisory services to various clients in matters pertaining to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. She has also previously worked with the Centre for Law and Policy Research, where she litigated in the areas of public health, women's rights and rights of disabled.
Ritwika is a Senior Resident Fellow and Lead at Charkha, Vidhi’s Constitutional Law Centre. Her current research is focused on comparative federalism, local governments, and electoral reforms. From 2014-17, Ritwika was a Research Fellow in the Public Law vertical at Vidhi. She advised several departments and regulatory authorities under the Government of India, on questions concerning constitutional validity of proposed legislation, legislative competence of the Union and states, and contours of the powers and functions of regulators. Ritwika also assisted the Union of India in preparing its written submissions in the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Case. Between 2019-2020, Ritwika worked as a Research Associate at DAKSH, Bengaluru. She obtained her LL.M. from the University of Cambridge in 2018. She graduated with a B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)) from the Indraprastha University, Delhi in 2013, and the LL.M. from the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad in 2014. Ritwika is the co-editor of “Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence” (Oxford University Press, 2018), a volume of essays addressing the politics, doctrine, and crucial developments pertaining to judicial appointments in India.
