ABSTRACT
Constitutions provide a useful starting point for understanding government structures and procedures, and the evolution of constitutions over time tells us much about political values and behavior. The drafting of the Indian Constitution was heavily influenced by the experience of British colonialism and by the nationalist movement, particularly the Indian National Congress, as well as by the interests and backgrounds of the delegates to the Constituent Assembly. The rebirth of Japan's political parties, in turn, brought a surge of debate about reform, particularly among those on the left whose voices had been silenced by political repression in the 1930s and early 1940s. China's history of constitutionalism is both checkered and disjointed. The essence of European and American constitutions—that the power of the state is defined and restrained by basic law—is absent from the Chinese political tradition.
