Our Living Constitution: A Concise Introduction & Commentary

The Constitution of India is of paramount importance to every Indian. It bestows fundamental rights on all citizens, speaks in their name, charges those it empowers to protect these rights, and seeks to shield the people from abusers of power and privilege. It creates the basic framework of our democracy, including the three main organs of the state—the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. The Constitution defines their powers, delimits their jurisdictions, demarcates their responsibilities, and regulates their relationships with one another, and with the people. It privileges an idea of India that transcends religious, ethnic, linguistic, and other sub-national identities. In the words of its principal architect, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: ‘Our Constitution provides us a magnificent structure beneath which all Indians, of all castes, creeds and languages, can equally seek shelter.’

Yet, despite its significance and value, and the fact that it seems to be in vogue at the moment, not many have a proper understanding of the various aspects of the Constitution that are currently being debated and challenged. Although there have been numerous studies and interpretations of the Constitution there are few accessible books available to intelligent lay readers to enable them to familiarize themselves with its essential elements, history, and immeasurable grandeur. Our Living Constitution seeks to fill that gap.

With the clear-eyed scholarship, cogent arguments, and readable prose that are the hallmarks of his books, bestselling writer and leading public intellectual Shashi Tharoor provides readers with a compelling narrative about the world’s longest written national Constitution. He describes the various parts of the Constitution, beginning with its resounding preamble and then goes on to explain its historical roots. He explores the civic nationalism that animated India’s Founding Fathers, which in turn invested the Constitution with its progressiveness, pluralism, tolerance, liberalism, and concern for the individual. He analyses how it has been able to resist attempts by autocrats and religious fanatics to change its basic structure. However, the perils remain—in the twenty-first century, the growth of sectarianism and illiberalism has threatened to undermine Indian society, and the Constitution which undergirds it, and constant vigilance is necessary to ensure these threats to the idea of India do not succeed. Yet, as the author writes: ‘There is no reason to lose hope. Over the past five years, democracy- and liberty-loving citizens of India have risen to reclaim our republic....’ Will they prevail? Will the Constitution continue to protect and advance the idea of India? Our Living Constitution provides nuanced answers to these important questions. Informative, learned, and lucid, this is a book that must be read by all Indians to gain an understanding of the Constitution that safeguards every aspect of our lives.

Shashi Tharoor is the bestselling author of twenty-seven books, both fiction and non-fiction. His latest books are A Wonderland of Words: Around the Word in 101 Essays, Pride, Prejudice, and Punditry: The Essential Shashi Tharoor, and Ambedkar: A Life.

He is a former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and a former Minister of State for Human Resource Development, and Minister of State for External Affairs in the Government of India. In his fourth term, he is the longest-serving member of the Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram and has chaired Parliament’s Standing Committees on External Affairs and on Information Technology. He has won numerous literary awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Books (non-fiction), Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award.