Conversational Constitutional Law

In support of my new blog on Discovering the Constitution of India, which can be accessed from my links elsewhere on this page...

The combination of the fact that the Constitution and its amendments make a fascinating dinner table conversation and that our media generally doesn't deem such news items important enough to displace page three stories to page three tends to leave one struggling to avoid awkward silences and sheepish grins at the aforementioned dinner tables. Not finding a suitable guide to conversational constitutional law anywhere, I think I will have a go at creating one myself...

• A strictly entry-level conversation: The trick is to first ensure that you are in such a conversation. A dead giveaway is when people (otherwise known as the Uninformed Skeptics, or the US for short) keep snidely repeating that we have the longest constitution in the world and the snideness increases with each iterative repetition. "Yeah, I know, and this despite we being only the 7th largest country in the world" is one of the many easily made equally pointless remarks that you can respond with when in such a conversation.
• A conversation involving informed novices: These are usually the folks that have read one of the many Indira Gandhi biographies or were born before 1960. They actually mention something about the Emergency provisions in our Constitution and give smug smiles. To gain the immense pleasure of watching smug smiles turn to dropped jaws, mention the 44th Amendment and how Indira's dictatorial incursions into the Constitution were thwarted and nullified using the same tool that she had used. For further effect and to ensure that the conversation doesn't ever return to these troubled waters, spring the info on them that the Emergency provisions in our Constitution were borrowed from the Weimar Constitution of Germany and these original Weimar provisions were the ones that Adolf Hitler had used to gain dictatorial control around the time these folks' parents were born.
• A conversation with informed reverents: As soon as you hear your fellow-diners gushing things like how the Constitution had successfully managed to weave a seamless web out of the three strands of unity, social revolution and democracy, you know that you are in the company of those held in thrall, and rightly so, by the superb work done by Dr. Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Acharya Kripalani et al. You would do well to agree with them, and gain their respect by mentioning the work of other lesser known members of the Constituent Assembly such as Mrs. Durgabai, wife of our first Finance Minister C. D. Deshmukh, or Satyanarayan Sinha, Chief Whip of the Constituent Assembly, or Mrs. Hansa Mehta, member of the Fundamental Rights sub-committee in the Constituent Assembly. Also, since the seamless web metaphor is given by the American Granville Austin - an expert on the Indian Constitution - be sure to talk about how unfortunate it is that his books are not easily available in India.
• A conversation with informed skeptics: Everybody who doesn't fit into any of the above categories - it could be anyone from a descendant of a former princely family whose grandfather had his privy purse snatched from him in 1971, or a subscriber to any ideology other than that of the Congress in the 70s, meaning his acquaintances and friends include someone who spent a year or so in prison due to the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (which caused one such prisoner - later Bihar CM and Union Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav to name his daughter Misa). Since they are skeptics anyway, it is a wonder that the conversation drifted into this territory. I would therefore expect you to comfortably steer it into more sedate waters - easiest way would be to state something like "Oh, I am such a big skeptic that I never even tried to find out much about the Constitution at all..."

So there you are - Conversational Constitutional Law 101. Brickbats and bouquets (within reasonable limits) welcome as usual. Article 19, Clause 1, sub-clause (a), after all, guarantees every citizen the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression :o)