Mathew John | O.P. Jindal Global University (original) (raw)
Papers by Mathew John
Verfassung in Recht und Übersee, 2018
The legitimate source of governmental power in modern constitutional democracies is traced to a p... more The legitimate source of governmental power in modern constitutional democracies is traced to a people. Drawing on this tradition of founding political power, the Indian Constitution is a radical attempt to secure the consent of the Indian people to transform its colonized and traditional society. However, in what manner would the institutional imagination and practices of the Indian Constitution give concrete shape to a people in whose name this agenda for transformation would be carried out? In a Constitution committed to the protection of individual freedom one would assume that a commitment to equal freedom of all citizens would anchor its constitutional aspirations. By extension this would also mean that no one social group would be permitted to embody the people as a whole. However, by examining the organization and practice of religious freedom in the Indian Constitution this paper will argue that there is a parochial vision of the people ensconced in India’s liberal Constitution that is disposed to conceiving the people by entrenching parochial identities like Hindus and Muslims. This problem of the institutional entrenching of identities is elaborated through the adjudication of the dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid dispute at Ayodhya. However, even while describing the entrenching of these parochial identities, the paper attempts to argue that this parochial imagination runs contrary to social intuitions on the nature of identity and identification in Indian society.
Asian Journal of Comparative Law, 2020
This marvellous book by Rohit De flows from the meeting of two important aspects of Indian consti... more This marvellous book by Rohit De flows from the meeting of two important aspects of Indian constitutional practice. First, the organization of the republic fashioned at independence as an instrument of socio-political change granting the state vast power over social, economic, and cultural activity. Second, a state organized to separate institutional powers and to protect individual freedom in order to check the runaway exercise of institutional power. In De's own words, the book is organised as a ‘dialectic between the Indian Constitution as “politics of state desire” and the Constitution as “articulating insurgent orders of expectations from the state.”’ Set against these tensions in Indian constitutional practice, through a set of detailed ethnographies, De foregrounds citizen efforts to defend rights and freedoms that have operated to deepen constitutional culture in the early years of Indian independence.
Jindal Global Law Review, 2018
Constitutionalism beyond Liberalism
South Asian History and Culture, 2019
ABSTRACT Modern constitutional power is organized to secure ever-expanding state control over vas... more ABSTRACT Modern constitutional power is organized to secure ever-expanding state control over vast swathes of social and cultural life. Though religion is classically thought to be a domain of human experience that is to be left independent of state power, it is in fact deeply structured by contemporary government. Against this background, this paper examines the manner in which the Indian constitutional state exercises its power over religion and religious practices. It does so by arguing that the epistemic forms through which control is exercised over Indian religious practices operate to misunderstand, distort and flatten out local conceptions of religion, spirituality and ethical striving. That is, by following classic decisions on the bounds of religious freedom as decided by the Indian Supreme Court, it is argued that religion understood primarily as traditions of continued inter-generational practice are transformed in judicial description as practices founded in an imagined doctrinal foundation. This judicial transformation of religion is presented as being counter-intuitive to the nature of religious experience of almost all religious traditions in the Indian sub-continent. And in turn, this is presented as a challenge to secure the allegiance and consent of the Indian people to the ever-widening reach of state power over religion in contemporary India.
VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee, 2019
The legitimate source of governmental power in modern constitutional democracies is traced to a p... more The legitimate source of governmental power in modern constitutional democracies is traced to a people. Drawing on this tradition of founding political power, the Indian Constitution is a radical attempt to secure the consent of the Indian people to transform its colonized and traditional society. However, in what manner would the institutional imagination and practices of the Indian Constitution give concrete shape to a people in whose name this agenda for transformation would be carried out? In a Constitution committed to the protection of individual freedom one would assume that a commitment to equal freedom of all citizens would anchor its constitutional aspirations. By extension this would also mean that no one social group would be permitted to embody the people as a whole. However, by examining the organization and practice of religious freedom in the Indian Constitution this paper will argue that there is a parochial vision of the people ensconced in India’s liberal Constitution that is disposed to conceiving the people by entrenching parochial identities like Hindus and Muslims. This problem of the institutional entrenching of identities is elaborated through the adjudication of the dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid dispute at Ayodhya. However, even while describing the entrenching of these parochial identities, the paper attempts to argue that this parochial imagination runs contrary to social intuitions on the nature of identity and identification in Indian society.
Jus Politicum, 2017
The Indian Constitution was designed as a document that would facilitate fundamental social refor... more The Indian Constitution was designed as a document that would facilitate fundamental social reform. However, what was the character of the people in whose name this dramatic transition would be legitimately carried out? This paper argues that the task of imagining a people was fashioned primarily in colonial conditions as a project of education and carried into the contemporary constitution without significant change. However, the call to become a people founds constitutional institutions but sits uneasily with Indian social intuitions which task that this paper takes it upon itself to elaborate.
Drafts by Mathew John
Modern constitutional power is organised to secure ever expanding state control over vast swathes... more Modern constitutional power is organised to secure ever expanding state control over vast swathes of social and cultural life. Though religion is classically thought to be domain that is to be left independent of state power it is in fact deeply structured by contemporary government. Against this background this paper examines the manner in which the Indian constitutional state exercises its power over religion and religious practices to argue that the epistemic forms in which control is exercised over Indian religious practices operate to misunderstand, distort and flatten out local conceptions of religion, spirituality and ethical striving. This in turn is presented as a challenge to secure the allegiance and consent of the Indian people to the ever-widening reach of state power in contemporary India
Books by Mathew John
Cambridge University Press, 2023
This book speaks to debates on law, constitutionalism, and the contested terrain of political ide... more This book speaks to debates on law, constitutionalism, and the contested terrain of political identity in modern India. Set against the overwhelmingly liberal design of the Indian Constitution, the book demonstrates a tendency in the Constitution and its practice to identify the Indian people in parochial and communal terms. This tendency is identified as India's Communal Constitution and its imprint on contemporary constitutional practice is illustrated by drawing on the constitutional practice as it addresses religious freedom, personal law, minority rights and the identification of caste groups. Thus, casting the Constitution and its practice as a field of contest, the aspiration to define the Indian people as a community of individual citizens is brought face to face with its antagonists. The most significant of these antagonists is the tendency to cast the Indian people as a collection of communities which this book examines and details as India's Communal Constitution.
Verfassung in Recht und Übersee, 2018
The legitimate source of governmental power in modern constitutional democracies is traced to a p... more The legitimate source of governmental power in modern constitutional democracies is traced to a people. Drawing on this tradition of founding political power, the Indian Constitution is a radical attempt to secure the consent of the Indian people to transform its colonized and traditional society. However, in what manner would the institutional imagination and practices of the Indian Constitution give concrete shape to a people in whose name this agenda for transformation would be carried out? In a Constitution committed to the protection of individual freedom one would assume that a commitment to equal freedom of all citizens would anchor its constitutional aspirations. By extension this would also mean that no one social group would be permitted to embody the people as a whole. However, by examining the organization and practice of religious freedom in the Indian Constitution this paper will argue that there is a parochial vision of the people ensconced in India’s liberal Constitution that is disposed to conceiving the people by entrenching parochial identities like Hindus and Muslims. This problem of the institutional entrenching of identities is elaborated through the adjudication of the dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid dispute at Ayodhya. However, even while describing the entrenching of these parochial identities, the paper attempts to argue that this parochial imagination runs contrary to social intuitions on the nature of identity and identification in Indian society.
Asian Journal of Comparative Law, 2020
This marvellous book by Rohit De flows from the meeting of two important aspects of Indian consti... more This marvellous book by Rohit De flows from the meeting of two important aspects of Indian constitutional practice. First, the organization of the republic fashioned at independence as an instrument of socio-political change granting the state vast power over social, economic, and cultural activity. Second, a state organized to separate institutional powers and to protect individual freedom in order to check the runaway exercise of institutional power. In De's own words, the book is organised as a ‘dialectic between the Indian Constitution as “politics of state desire” and the Constitution as “articulating insurgent orders of expectations from the state.”’ Set against these tensions in Indian constitutional practice, through a set of detailed ethnographies, De foregrounds citizen efforts to defend rights and freedoms that have operated to deepen constitutional culture in the early years of Indian independence.
Jindal Global Law Review, 2018
Constitutionalism beyond Liberalism
South Asian History and Culture, 2019
ABSTRACT Modern constitutional power is organized to secure ever-expanding state control over vas... more ABSTRACT Modern constitutional power is organized to secure ever-expanding state control over vast swathes of social and cultural life. Though religion is classically thought to be a domain of human experience that is to be left independent of state power, it is in fact deeply structured by contemporary government. Against this background, this paper examines the manner in which the Indian constitutional state exercises its power over religion and religious practices. It does so by arguing that the epistemic forms through which control is exercised over Indian religious practices operate to misunderstand, distort and flatten out local conceptions of religion, spirituality and ethical striving. That is, by following classic decisions on the bounds of religious freedom as decided by the Indian Supreme Court, it is argued that religion understood primarily as traditions of continued inter-generational practice are transformed in judicial description as practices founded in an imagined doctrinal foundation. This judicial transformation of religion is presented as being counter-intuitive to the nature of religious experience of almost all religious traditions in the Indian sub-continent. And in turn, this is presented as a challenge to secure the allegiance and consent of the Indian people to the ever-widening reach of state power over religion in contemporary India.
VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee, 2019
The legitimate source of governmental power in modern constitutional democracies is traced to a p... more The legitimate source of governmental power in modern constitutional democracies is traced to a people. Drawing on this tradition of founding political power, the Indian Constitution is a radical attempt to secure the consent of the Indian people to transform its colonized and traditional society. However, in what manner would the institutional imagination and practices of the Indian Constitution give concrete shape to a people in whose name this agenda for transformation would be carried out? In a Constitution committed to the protection of individual freedom one would assume that a commitment to equal freedom of all citizens would anchor its constitutional aspirations. By extension this would also mean that no one social group would be permitted to embody the people as a whole. However, by examining the organization and practice of religious freedom in the Indian Constitution this paper will argue that there is a parochial vision of the people ensconced in India’s liberal Constitution that is disposed to conceiving the people by entrenching parochial identities like Hindus and Muslims. This problem of the institutional entrenching of identities is elaborated through the adjudication of the dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid dispute at Ayodhya. However, even while describing the entrenching of these parochial identities, the paper attempts to argue that this parochial imagination runs contrary to social intuitions on the nature of identity and identification in Indian society.
Jus Politicum, 2017
The Indian Constitution was designed as a document that would facilitate fundamental social refor... more The Indian Constitution was designed as a document that would facilitate fundamental social reform. However, what was the character of the people in whose name this dramatic transition would be legitimately carried out? This paper argues that the task of imagining a people was fashioned primarily in colonial conditions as a project of education and carried into the contemporary constitution without significant change. However, the call to become a people founds constitutional institutions but sits uneasily with Indian social intuitions which task that this paper takes it upon itself to elaborate.
Modern constitutional power is organised to secure ever expanding state control over vast swathes... more Modern constitutional power is organised to secure ever expanding state control over vast swathes of social and cultural life. Though religion is classically thought to be domain that is to be left independent of state power it is in fact deeply structured by contemporary government. Against this background this paper examines the manner in which the Indian constitutional state exercises its power over religion and religious practices to argue that the epistemic forms in which control is exercised over Indian religious practices operate to misunderstand, distort and flatten out local conceptions of religion, spirituality and ethical striving. This in turn is presented as a challenge to secure the allegiance and consent of the Indian people to the ever-widening reach of state power in contemporary India
Cambridge University Press, 2023
This book speaks to debates on law, constitutionalism, and the contested terrain of political ide... more This book speaks to debates on law, constitutionalism, and the contested terrain of political identity in modern India. Set against the overwhelmingly liberal design of the Indian Constitution, the book demonstrates a tendency in the Constitution and its practice to identify the Indian people in parochial and communal terms. This tendency is identified as India's Communal Constitution and its imprint on contemporary constitutional practice is illustrated by drawing on the constitutional practice as it addresses religious freedom, personal law, minority rights and the identification of caste groups. Thus, casting the Constitution and its practice as a field of contest, the aspiration to define the Indian people as a community of individual citizens is brought face to face with its antagonists. The most significant of these antagonists is the tendency to cast the Indian people as a collection of communities which this book examines and details as India's Communal Constitution.