Author: Granville Austin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2000/2011
Language: English
Pages: 390
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195649591
Description
This work - an often-cited 'classic' on the subject , is the political history of the Constitution, and analyses how past and present, aims and events, ideals and personalities influenced the framing of the Constitution.
This is an engaging story that describes how the founders laid the cornerstone for a new India and provides an interesting background to the controversial issues surrounding the development of constitutional democracy in the country. With a new preface that brings the work up-to-date with contemporary developments, the book provides the general reader some invaluable insights into the political motivations of Indian life and the close student of Indian affairs the first published account to be based on documentary sources, of the working of the constituent assembly.
Discussing such issues as the underlying social purposes of the Constitution, the establishment of the traditional institution of democratic government, the peculiar nature of Indian federalism, framing of the language provisions, and the nature of the constituent assembly, Austin develops the idea of unity, social revolution and democracy as three distinct strands of a 'seamless web'.