A republic of individuals

Individual, not community, rights are the basis of the Constitution

Republic Day, the anniversary of the adoption of India’s Constitution, is a fit moment to remember the values and importance of that document. When India became a constitutional republic in 1950, its founding generation took a great risk. They were convinced that a largely poor, and in many places socially backward, population would embrace the rights and duties laid out in what was for then – and for now – a remarkably progressive document. India has largely remained true to democratic values since. This is a great achievement. But it is true, too, that aspects of the order imagined in