BETWEEN INEQUALITY AND IDENTITY: THE INDIAN CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY AND RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCE, 1946-50

Author (s) : S. MANJULADEVI

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Abstract :
Recent attention to the history of constitution making in India reflects ongoing concerns about the difficulties and limitations of India’s secular and democratic experiment. Scholars assessing India’s secularism have pointed to the failure to separate the state from its involvement in religion from the outset. Through a study of the Constituent Assembly debates, this article suggests that the emphasis on ‘religion’ as the problem for secularism has been a distraction, taking the gaze away from the substantive arguments minorities were making about how their equal citizenship should be guaranteed. It remained unclear what recognition of ‘minority’ status was meant to achieve in postcolonial India and what it signified. In failing to recognize the claims of religious minorities for their equality, the Constituent Assembly reified their position as permanently unequal communities in the newly independent state.

Keywords : backward classes, Constituent Assembly, identity, India, minority protection, nationalism, religious minorities, reservations, Scheduled Castes, Secularism

Conference Date : 13/11/2020

Pages : 272

Paper ID : 20272