Tag: Constitutionalism

Shri Ram janmabhoomi: Reconciling truth & secularism

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The Daily Guardian

The Bhoomi Pujan ceremony performed at the Shri Ramjanmabhoomi in Ayodhya two days ago has predictably evoked diametrically opposite reactions from various quarters. These reactions include celebrations by those who succeeded in proving their case before the Allahabad High Court as well as the highest Court of the land after struggling for half a millennium to secure justice in their civilizational homeland…

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The places of Worship Act 1991, decoloniality and indigenous rights

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The Daily Guardian

The Bhoomi Pujan for the proposed Shri Ram Temple in Ayodhya is scheduled to take place in five days, marking the culmination of a five-century old indigenous movement to reclaim a site which is of both religious and civilizational importance…

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The deep-seated coloniality in the Indian legal system

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The Daily Guardian

Last week, this author had the occasion to take part in a virtual panel discussion on the intersection between faith and law organised by the department of law of a Pune-based institution. The specific theme of the discussion was the continued relevance of the Bombay High Court’s well-known and widely debated judgement in The State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali (1951)…

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For God’s Sake

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Openthemagazine.com

On July 13th, a Bench of the Supreme Court of India comprising Justice U.U. Lalit and Justice Indu Malhotra delivered a historic verdict in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple case. The verdict was delivered in two special leave petitions and a writ petition preferred against the judgment of January 31st, 2011 of the Kerala High Court…

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Bharat, China and civilisational conviction

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The Daily Guardian

From the first week of May this year, the Sino-Bharat standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh has hogged the news cycle despite the Covid-19 pandemic and, perhaps, rightly so. While experts on the subject are better placed to comment on the goings-on at the border, this author is interested in the big picture significance…

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India that is Bharat

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The Daily Guardian

In the previous piece, this author had contended that the use of (a) “ancient land” to refer to this country in the Objectives Resolution of January 22, 1947 by the Constituent Assembly, and (b) “Bharat” in Article 1 as a synonym for “India”, was proof that the framers of the Constitution were conscious of the civilizational heritage and legacy of the Republic of India/Bharat…

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Bharat: An Indic Civilisation State

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The Daily Guardian

In the last piece, this author had presented a broad summary of historian Radhakumud Mookerji’s book The Fundamental Unity of India to understand how indigenous scholarly voices, which existed well before 1947, saw Bharat. In reading and interpreting works of history, it is critical to understand that history has always been a fertile battleground…

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The Nation State, Decoloniality and the Non-Nation State

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The Daily Guardian

For quite a few decades now, decoloniality has emerged in Latina America as a powerful critique of the Eurocentric or Western-centric nature of the Post-colonial discourse. Broadly, as a construct, decoloniality posits that despite legal and physical decolonization of former colonies, overt and subconscious coloniality: (a) persists in the State institutions inherited by Post-colonial States; (b) affects their thinking at the societal level and (c) manifests itself even at the level of an individual. …

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Reclaiming a civilisational approach to the Constitution?

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The Daily Guardian

Last November, India celebrated 70 years of the adoption of its Constitution, which by itself ought to have led to a renewed interest in the document, its origins, nature, journey, current status and the way forward. What made such a discussion even more imperative were the landmark changes effected to the Constitution, namely the introduction …

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A Dharmic Document : What’s constitutional morality?

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Openthemagazine.com

The year 2019 proved that the battle for the soul of this country and its identity is far from over and perhaps has reached a point of inflection, hopefully for the better but not before it gets worse. Some would say 2014 marked the point of inflection, and they may be right …

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