“Our Living Constitution: A Concise Introduction & Commentary” by Shashi Tharoor
Our Living Constitution: A Concise Introduction & Commentary by Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a slim hardback, an essential commentary on the workings of the longest written constitution in the world. It is published by Aleph Book Company. Our constitution is truly a visionary document. A fact that Dr. Tharoor chooses to spell out in the nine chapters.
The opening passages of the prologue encapsulate the arguments laid out in this slim treatise.
On 26 November 2024, Parliament held an unprecedented special session to celebrate the day seventy-five years earlier, on 26 November 1949, when the Constitutent Assembly, the indirectly-elected 299-member body in charge of the task, finished its daunting task and agreed on a Constitution that was to be formally adopted two months later, on 26 January 1950.
That day, 26 November 1949, marked the conclusion of a long process of Constitution-making. The nationalist movement that gave our Constitution its legitimacy and sanctity had itself used many arguably non-constitutional methods in its struggle against imperial rule — non-cooperation, civil disobedience, satyagraha. Yet, it culminated in a democratic Constitution, the world’s longest written Constitution for any nation and (or so many thought at the time) its most imperilled. Handwritten exquisitely in both English and Hindi by calligraphist Prem Behari Narain Raizada, each page adorned with intricate artwork inspired by Indian culture and heritage and designed by famous artists led by Nandlal Bose, the Constitution was not merely a legeal document: it was a work of art. In its pages, to borrow Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous metaphor, the soul of a nation, long suppressed, had found utterance.
On that occasion, Dr B. R. Ambedkar, chairman of the Drafting COmmittee of the Constituent Assembly, rose in what is now the Central Hall of the Samvidhan Sadan (the old Parliament House) to address his colleagues, his fellow Founding Fathers, with a prescient warning to the nation, ‘Howveer good a Constitution may be,’ he said, ‘it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution.”
It was a sobering reminder that the Constitution we celebrated then, as we celebrate it today, can be distorted and misused by ‘wrong-minded’ people in power.
As a staunch defender of democracy in both principle and practice, Dr Ambedkar anxiously wondered whether Indians would place ‘the country above their creed’. He recalledd the history of the Buddhist Bhikshu sanghas, which were known to have observed rules of modern-day parliamentary procedure, and added: ‘The democractic system India lost. Will she lose it a second time? I do not know. But it is quite possible, in a country like India . . . there is danger of democracy giving place to dictatorship. Iti s quite possible for this newborn democracy to retain its form but give place to dictatorship in fact. If there is a landslide [victory], the danger of the second possibility becoming actuality is much greater.’
p. ix – xi.
Later, in the chapter “The Vision of the Founders” the context behind the Constitution’s adoption is detailed. Read an extract published on Moneycontrol ( Friday, 16 May 2025). It is a sobering reminder of the incredibly diverse history of this sub-continent. This diversity was represented in the constitutent assembly and is apparent even today, in modern India. It is at the very heart of this nation that we call India.
The book is being launched on 10 May 2025 in New Delhi.
9 May 2025
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