Why does constitutionalism sustain itself as the primary language of politics in a postcolonial democracy like India? This dissertation answers this question by arguing that constitutionalism sustains itself as the primary language of politics for Indian democracy because of enduring anticolonial justifications for it that emerge from epistemically diverse worldviews in Indian society. In particular, this dissertation explores Islamic and anti-caste justifications for an anticolonial pluralist political conception of constitutionalism in India.
In studying constitutionalism as an outcome of diverse anticolonial justifications for it, this dissertation demonstrates that the political conception of constitutionalism in India is not merely a continuation of liberal-imperial ideas of constitutionalism. Instead, popular justifications of constitutionalism in India, even in its current moment of crisis, have a genealogy that emerges from epistemically diverse anticolonial justifications of constitutionalism that took shape during constitutionalism's moment of creation in India. It makes this argument in three steps. First, by interrogating how liberal imperialism constructed the political domain in colonial India. Second, by exploring how anticolonialism critiqued this liberal imperial construction of the political domain and used these criticisms to justify a pluralist political conception for postcolonial constitutionalism. Third, by analyzing how these anticolonial justifications of constitutionalism are employed in postcolonial Indian democracy to maintain constitutionalism as the language of politics even when it faces a severe threat from Hindu majoritarianism.
This dissertation demonstrates that anticolonial justifications of constitutionalism in India, which emerged from Islamic and anti-caste worldviews, remain relevant to the democratic discourse around constitutionalism and the political conception that it shapes for India by examining four significant justifications for constitutionalism in India. The first justification is captured by anticolonial worldmaking adopted by constitutionalism in India to acknowledge, forefront, and make legible to political life the background conditions for common life in India. This justification of worldmaking, which anticolonial thought regularly reflected on and brought to the fore of public life in India, includes (a) deeply ingrained dispositions about mutual coexistence that subconsciously shaped its participants for a millennium through the unfolding of overlapping geographical, linguistic, ethical and social worlds of diverse worldviews in India, and (b) agentic forms of participation, shaped by diverse groups in India coming into public spaces and employing constitutionally guaranteed political freedoms, to discursively construct the world that is India as one that is plural, progressive and enables self-respect despite being shaped by non-secular ideas.
The second form of justification for constitutionalism in India lies in the use of non-secular conceptions of progress, where progress is not simply captured by a developmental conception but by the ethical modes of learning and knowledge-building through which constitutionalism enables diverse people to learn about others in the political community and develop a conception of fraternity. This dissertation shows how conceptions of fraternity that justify constitutionalism in India enable a non-secular conception of progress, pluralism, and self-respect in democracy in India. However, it also examines how a majoritarian conception of constitutional democracy threatens this conception of fraternity in India's postcolonial democracy.
The third justification of constitutionalism emerges from endorsements for it that emerge from its capacity to enable self-respect, where diverse individuals who are shaped by the institutions and normative order established by constitutionalism demand that this order enable recognition, communication, association, and self-consciousness across the diverse groups that shape Indian society. Such a conception of self-respect, which derives its ideas from anticolonial conceptions of self-respect, is more expansive than conceptions of self-respect that emerge from Transatlantic liberalism because it reflects how colonialism shaped counter-concepts to self-respect across whole societies and worldviews, and not just as conditions that impact individuals alone.
When this pluralist and emancipatory political conception of constitutionalism is threatened by other interpretations of constitutionalism by those in power, as it is by religious majoritarianism in its current moment of crisis, it is reaffirmed in sites of civil disobedience across India's postcolonial democracy where epistemically diverse interpretations of constitutionalism are not only respected but esteemed as justifications for constitutionalism in India. Such a form of participation in democratic politics through civil disobedience has led to a justificatory discourse around constitutionalism that draws on a pluralist conception of participation as the fourth justification of constitutionalism in India.
These four interlinked justifications of constitutionalism in India have enabled a plural political conception of constitutionalism that survives in India, despite the threat to it from Hindu majoritarian politics. In exploring why justificatory discourse around constitutionalism enables democracy in India, this dissertation also develops an anticolonial u conception of justification as a form of making political principles legible to diverse peoples who were formerly colonized, as opposed to a strictly rational discourse of separating right from wrong in public reason that shapes democratic societies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:columbia.edu/oai:academiccommons.columbia.edu:10.7916/3sq9-k439 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Rodrigues, Shaunna |
| Source Sets | Columbia University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Theses |
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