In an interview to discuss his new book The Colonial Constitution, Arghya Sengupta explains why he believes India’s constitution is colonial and responds to a series of questions challenging his view and also the arguments upon which it is based. In a 45-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Sengupta – who is director, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy – is questioned about his two broad reasons for believing the constitution is colonial.
First, he says: “The Constitution of India is a colonial document. It’s colonial for the simple factual reason that it is heavily borrowed from the Government of India Act, 1935, a fact that has been widely glossed over.”
Second, he says: “The Indian Constitution is colonial in a more conceptual sense: it sets up a government that towers over the citizen much like colonial governments tend to do.”
The discussion centres around the constitution, its origin, its character, the structure it adopted as well as the possible structures it avoided. Watch the video for complete details.