The Book
Marking seventy-five years of the Indian Constitution, this compelling volume explores how India’s foundational text lives and evolves through everyday struggles. Moving beyond traditional legal histories, the collection brings together scholars and activists to examine constitutional life through diverse perspectives. From farmers’ movements, indigenous resistance and queer rights, to digital surveillance and environmental ethics, this book reveals how citizens negotiate, interpret and resist state power. Ultimately, it frames the Constitution as a shared space shaped by human and non-human lives, offering hope, agency and democratic resilience.
The Author(s)
Kalpana Kannabiran is Advanced Fellow, Vienna Centre for Advanced Studies, University of Vienna (2026–27).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The ‘Readerly’ Constitution: Dialogic Imaginations and Creative Ruptures
Kalpana Kannabiran
1. India’s Two Constitutions
Suryapratim Roy
2. Not Your Divyang: A Crip ‘Misreading’ of the Indian Constitution
Vijay Kishor Tiwari
3. The Constitution in Our Lives: An Experiential Reflection
Rumi Harish and Sunil Mohan R.
4. Patchwork Futures: Directive Principles of State Policy as an Archive of Constitutional Ambitions
Ghazala Jamil
5. Towards Equality: Unravelling Gender Troubles in Text and Interpretation
Kalpana Kannabiran
6. Constitutional Imaginaries Beyond the Human
Atreyo Banerjee and Shardha Rajam
7. How Do Tribal Communities Rethink the Constitution in Northeast India?
Struggles over Recognition, Autonomy, and Sovereignty
John Ginsuanmung Simte and Golan Suanzamung Naulak
8. Indigenous Resistance and Constitutional Reclamation in South Chhattisgarh
Akash Poyam
9. Kisan Andolan and the Possibilities of a New Constitutional Imagination
Navsharan Singh
10. Routinising the ‘Dharma’ of ‘Targeted’ Surveillance: Tracing the Constitutional Evolution of
Digital Surveillance in India
Nikita Sonavane
11. A Fantasy of Abolition: Imaginations of Criminal Law, State Coercion and Constitutionalism
Radhika Chitkara
Editor and Contributors