Working A Democratic Constitution (A History of the Indian Experience)

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Description
This widely acclaimed book offers critical insights into the first four decades of the Indian constitutional experience. It analyses the course of developments from the euphoric idealism of the post-independence period, through the crisis years of the Emergency, and up to the early 1990s. It examines the ways in which various legal and political issues, thrown up by the vicissitudes of democracy have affected the working of the Indian Constitution. Accessible, informative, and thought-provoking, this book is indispensable  reading for scholars and students of law, modem history,politics, and general readers interested in democratic governance in India.
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Contents
Part I - The Great Constitutional Themes Emerge, 1950-66
1.    Settling into Harness
2.    Free Speech, Liberty, and Public Order
3.    The Social Revolution and the First Amendment
4.    The Rights and the Revolution: More Property Amendments
5.    The Judiciary: 'Quite Untouchable'
6.    Making and Preserving A Nation Forces
Part II - The Great Constitutional Confrontation: Judicial versus
Parliamentary Supremacy, 1967-73
7.    Indira Gandhi: in Context and in Power
8.    The Golaknath inheritance
9.    Two Catalytic Defeats Bank
10.  Radical Constitutional Amendments
11.  Redeeming The Web: The Kesavananda Bharati Case
12.  A ‘Grievous below’: the Supersession of Judges
Part III - Democracy Rescued Or the Constitution Subverted?:
The Emergency and the Forty-second Amendment, 1975-7
13.  26 June 1975
14.  Closing the Circle
15.  The Judiciary under Pressure
16.  Preparing for Constitutional
17.  The Forty-Second Amendment: Sacrificing Democracy to Power
Part IV - The Janata Interlude: Democracy Restored
18.  Indira Gandhi Defeated- Janata forms a Government
19.  Restoring Democratic Governance
20.  Governing under the constitution
21.  The Punishment that failed
22.  A Government Dies
Part V - Indira Gandhi Returns
23.  Ghosts of Governments Past
24.  The Constitution Strengthened and Weakened
25.  Judicial Reform or Harassment?
26.  Turbulence in federal relations
Part VI - The Inseparable Twins: National Unity and Integrity and the
Machinery of Federal Relations
27.  Terminology and its Perils
28.  The Governor’s ‘Acutely Controversial’ Role
29.  New Delhi’s Long Arm
30.  Coordinating Mechanisms: how ‘Federal’?
Part VII - Conclusion
31.  A Nation’s Progress
Bibliography
Index
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Author Details
Granville Austin is an independent historian and a leading authority on the Indian Constitution
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