ABSTRACT
The chapter provides a reading of the constituent assembly debates in order to understand how the constitution combines citizenship rights with group-differentiated rights. It focuses on the constitutional assembly debates in India that led to the framing of the Indian Constitution. The fierce debates of the assembly are laid down in the chapter, which reflect the dilemmas between individual rights and group rights. It argues that the constitution is both a deviation from and derivation of the colonial model, and that the constitution, by providing special representation rights to the disadvantaged groups, has pre-empted the idea of multiculturalism.
