Yet, the book’s celebration of participatory constitutionalism occasionally risks romanticizing the democratic impulse. While De and Shani acknowledge that many public demands were unheeded, their treatment of exclusion remains understated. The book might have further examined the gendered hierarchies within these publics, or the tensions between caste solidarity and universal equality.
The next set of chapters move seamlessly from pure constitutional discourse to institutions of civil society, judiciary and federalism in India. Chapter four reiterates the liberal individualism that led to the preference for rule of law, a centralized state, rejection of localism, rejection of separate electorates and a preference for individual representation than the group.
The question is: Can Indian democracy survive the series of assaults on it, from Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in the mid-70s to the present decade, when such assaults have been exacerbated? According to Diego Maiorano, Manor’s optimism about the regenerative qualities of Indian democracy in the post-Emergency period is somewhat misplaced in today’s context. Maiorano sees the cumulative damage inflicted on Indian democracy as leaving permanent scars on its institutions.
Overall, Yechury’s analysis offers one of the most comprehensive examinations of the predicaments facing the Indian Republic from the benches of Indian political opposition. His Marxist training, academic background, and decades of experience as a senior CPI(M) politician have given his arguments analytical rigour and clarity. However, a significant lacuna remains regarding the question of ‘What is to be done?’.
Ujjwal Kumar Singh and Anupama Roy focus on the Emergency laws of the era. They trace back the emergence of such laws right from the Law Commission report that led to the enactment of the Indian Penal Code, all the way through colonial and postcolonial laws, till MISA and how it was implemented during the Emergency.
The book is embedded in and anchored on the copious exchange of letters among political actors from different parts of the country bringing to the fore the flux of events and imperfections with which they were tackled and reconfigured by political actors, particularly Nehru. It was Nehru, the man of great fortitude and partial failures, whose hands shaped the destiny of India.