ABSTRACT
This chapter helps readers to understand the trajectory of constitutional liberalism in India in the context of the nationalist movement and its immediate aftermath, especially during the making of the Constitution of India when Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar's choice of the individual being the basic unit of governance was preferred to Gandhi's village-centric constitutional structure of governance. The Poona Pact was a political response, authored by Gandhi and Ambedkar. This also triggered debates on the relevance of caste in Indian society. While Gandhi's faith in caste was unquestionable, Ambedkar attributed untouchability to caste and other obnoxious and archaic practices, justified in the name of Hinduism. Seeking to involve people in governance, the Constitution makers remained committed to this ideal which was never compromised. At another level, he allowed the future generations to accommodate the newer popular aspirations to sustain participatory democracy that the founding fathers so assiduously sought to build at the dawn of India's rise as an independent polity.
