The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution

The Indian Constitution is one of the world's longest and most important political texts. Its birth, over six decades ago, signalled the arrival of the first major post-colonial constitution and the world's largest and arguably most daring democratic experiment. Apart from greater domestic focus on the Constitution and the institutional role of the Supreme Court within India's democratic framework, recent years have also witnessed enormous comparative interest in India's constitutional experiment. The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution is a wide-ranging, analytical reflection on the major themes and debates that surround India's Constitution. The Handbook provides a comprehensive account of the developments and doctrinal features of India's Constitution, as well as articulating frameworks and methodological approaches through which studies of Indian constitutionalism, and constitutionalism more generally, might proceed. Its contributions range from rigorous, legal studies of provisions within the text to reflections upon historical trends and social practices. As such the Handbook is an essential reference point not merely for Indian and comparative constitutional scholars, but for students of Indian democracy more generally.

1 - Locating Indian Constitutionalism
2 - Constitutional Antecedents
3 - Indian Constitutionalism: Crisis, Unity, and History
4 - The Indian Founding: A Comparative Perspective
5 - Constitutional Interpretation
6 - Law, Politics, and Constitutional Hegemony: The Supreme Court, Jurisprudence, and Demosprudence
7 - Constitutional Identity
8 - Constitutional Change: A Public Choice Analysis
9 - International Law and the Constitutional Schema
10 - Citizenship
11 - Language
12 - Elections
13 - Emergency Powers
14 - Constitutional Amendment
15 - Separation of Powers
16 - Legislature: Composition, Qualifications, and Disqualifications
17 - Legislature: Privileges and Process
18 - Executive
19 - Judicial Architecture and Capacity
20 - Judicial Independence
21 - Jurisdiction
22 - The Administrative and Regulatory State
23 - Tribunals
24 - Review of Administrative Action
25 - The Federal Scheme
26 - Legislative Competence: The Union and the States
27 - Inter-State Trade and Commerce
28 - Inter-State River Water Disputes
29 - Fiscal Federalism
30 - Asymmetric Federalism
31 - Local Government
32 - Rights: Breadth, Scope, and Applicability
33 - Horizontal Effect
34 - Writs and Remedies
35 - Savings Clauses: The Ninth Schedule and Articles 31A-C
36 - Directive Principles of State Policy
37 - Public Interest Litigation
38 - The Constitutionalization of Indian Private Law
39 - Equality: Legislative Review under Article 14
40 - Reservations
41 - Gender Equality
42 - Life and Personal Liberty
43 - Due Process
44 - Criminal Law and the Constitution
45 - Speech and Expression
46 - Assembly and Association
47 - Movement and Residence
48 - Profession, Occupation, Trade, and Business
79 - Secularism and Religious Freedom
50 - Personal Laws
51 - Minority Educational Institutions
52 - Property
53 - Government Contracts
54 - Sovereign Immunity
55 - Public Employment and Service Law
56 - The Indian Constitution Seen from Outside

Sujit Choudhry is Dean and I. Michael Heyman Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law. His books include The Migration of Constitutional Ideas (Cambridge, 2006) and Constitutional Design for Divided Societies: Integration or Accommodation (Oxford, 2008). Madhav Khosla is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government, Harvard University. His books include The Indian Constitution (Oxford, 2012), Letters for a Nation: From Jawaharlal Nehru to His Chief Ministers (Penguin, 2014) and Unstable Constitutionalism: Law and Politics in South Asia (with Mark Tushnet, Cambridge, 2015). Pratap Bhanu Mehta is President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. His books include The Burden of Democracy (Penguin, 2003), Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design (with Devesh Kapur, Oxford, 2005), and The Oxford Companion to Politics in India (with Niraja Gopal Jayal, Oxford, 2010).