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4 - The Emerging State and the Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2025

Rohit De
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Ornit Shani
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Israel
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Summary

The Indian constitution was poised to create a new map of power, transforming the relationship between existing state agencies and new authorities. This chapter demonstrates how the individuals staffing the state apparatus were not mere spectators, passively following the constitution-making process, but actors who actively sought to influence, change, or resist the emerging constitutional order through both public and private channels. The success of the future constitution of India required a smooth transition of the organs of the colonial state to the postcolonial order. Turning their loyalty and ambitions to the new state and its constitutional order was not an obvious outcome in 1947. The chapter examines how provincial legislators sought to guard their autonomy; how the higher judiciary endeavoured to protect their judicial independence; the contested constitutional status of Delhi; and finally, how the ‘neutral’ bureaucracy who were managing the process of constitution making actively sought to defend their own jurisdiction and interests at the time. This process, which paralleled the integration of territories, led to the functional integration of the units of the state.

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Chapter
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Assembling India’s Constitution
A New Democratic History
, pp. 164 - 200
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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