Dec 16 2025 to Dec 16 2025 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

The Preamble of the Indian Constitution begins with “We, the people of India,” but do we really know how true that rings? 

In popular memory, the Constitution often appears as the work of a few eminent figures. Assembling India’s Constitution reveals a more layered story; one in which citizens, communities, labour groups, women’s organisations, and emerging political movements actively influenced constitutional ideas. Across the country, people petitioned, campaigned, debated rights, and pushed the Assembly to consider questions of citizenship, minority protections, gender equality, land reform, labour, and democratic participation. And crucially, the Assembly listened.

Drawing on years of archival research, authors Ornit Shani and Rohit De illuminate how debates unfolding outside the Constituent Assembly; sometimes in distant or overlooked regions, filtered into its deliberations, shaping decisions that continue to define India’s democracy. They sought to make constitutional history accessible, grounded, and alive, inviting readers to see the Constitution not as a static text but as a living achievement of millions.

The authors will offer a short presentation of the book, followed by reflections from panelists Arvind Narrain and Arun Thiruvengadam. The event concludes with an audience Q&A.

Speakers

Ornit Shani
Associate Professor of Asian Studies, University of Haifa
Ornit Shani is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Haifa and the author of How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise, winner of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay New India Foundation Prize (2019). Her research explores citizenship, bureaucracy, and the making of democratic institutions in India, with particular focus on archival histories of political processes.

Rohit De
Associate Professor of History, Yale University
Rohit De is Associate Professor of History at Yale University and the author of A People’s Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic (2018), which won the Willard J. Hurst Prize (2019). His work examines how ordinary citizens shape constitutional life, with research spanning legal history, political culture, and the lived experience of law in modern South Asia.

Arvind Narrain
Lawyer & Author
Arvind Narrain is a lawyer and writer, currently visiting faculty at the National Law School. He is the author of India’s Undeclared Emergency: Constitutionalism and the Politics of Resistance, and co-editor of Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India and Law Like Love: Queer Perspectives on Law. As part of the legal team challenging Section 377 from the High Court to the Supreme Court, he has been a key voice in India’s queer rights movement.

Arun Thiruvengadam
Professor of Law, NLSIU, Bangalore
Arun Thiruvengadam is Professor of Law at the National Law School, Bangalore, with degrees from NLS and New York University School of Law. His teaching and research span Indian constitutional and regulatory law, comparative constitutional law, South Asian law and politics, and welfare rights. He is the author of The Constitution of India: A Contextual Analysis (2017) and co-editor of five other books. Hehas held academic positions at NYU School of Law, the National University of Singapore, and Azim Premji University, and has taught as visiting faculty at institutions across the world, including the University of Zurich, Central European University, City University of Hong Kong, and the University of Toronto.