ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how constitutional democracy evolved in India and in what context it emerged as perhaps the best option for the founding fathers when they got together in the Constituent Assembly to frame the 1950 Constitution of India. It helps the reader to conceptualize the phenomenon of constitutional democracy in India not in juridical terms but as a process that unfolded in a specific historical context in which the role of the colonizers were as critical as the colonized. The book focuses on the ideational battle that began with the arrival of the British rule in India. It then shows how these constitutional designs that were adopted by the British rulers evolved as organic to India's governance in the wake of colonialism. The book explains the role that the Constituent Assembly played in consolidating constitutional democracy in India following decolonization in 1947.
