India became independent in 1947 and, after nearly three years of debate in the Constituent Assembly, adopted a Constitution that came into effect on 26 January 1950. This Constitution has lasted until the present, with its basic structure unaltered, a remarkable achievement given that the generally accepted prerequisites for democratic stability did not exist, and do not exist even today. Half a century of constitutional democracy is something that political scientists and legal scholars need to analyze and explain. This volume examines the career of constitutional-political ideas (implicitly of Western origin) in the text of the Indian Constitution or implicit within it, as well as in actual political practice in the country over the past half-century.

Zoya Hasan is Professor of Political Science, Centre for Political Studies, and Director of the Women's Studies Programme, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

E. Sridharan is Academic Director of the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India, New Delhi.

R. Sudarshan is Senior Governance Advisor to the UNDP in Indonesia, and has worked for the UNDP since 1991, heading divisions in the India Office dealing with public policy and human development.