II Countries and Regions, 22 Constitutional Erosion and the Challenge to Secular Democracy in India

In august 2017, India celebrated the seventieth anniversary of its independence from British colonial rule, and nearly seven decades of its experiment with constitutional democracy. The Indian Constitution has arguably functioned somewhat effectively in structuring the operations of national, state, and local governance; in managing India’s complex religious, cultural, and ethnic pluralism; and in creating a constitutional and legal framework for effectuating the protection of fundamental rights.1 However, assessing the current state of India’s constitutional...