Negotiating diversity

Abstract

The management of ethnic diversity and potential ethnic conflict through democratic institutions is necessarily dependent upon an appropriate institutional design. The study of the so-called ‘third wave of democratization’ has made it abundantly clear that the best of constitutional designs can and do go horribly awry. No constitutional design – least of all the ready-made, off-the-shelf, and one-size-fits-all type – can be perfect, or even adequately anticipate the needs of a polity as it evolves.1 Indeed, the recent trend of drawing upon the expertise of specialists in the tasks of constitution-making,2 premised on the assumption that the tasks of institutional engineering are formidable and require technical expertise and experience, may be contrasted with the alternate view that constitutions are a product of the evolution of political processes and, as such, reflect the social and political contract between the state and its citizens. Despite the wide range of world constitutions closely examined by those who drafted it, the Indian experience of constitution-making clearly belongs to the latter category, insofar as the spirit of the constitutional document reflects the social and political consensus forged, along with national identity, in the course of the movement for independence from colonial rule.