Former CJI D Y Chandrachud & Shashi Tharoor discuss their books on the Indian Constitution at the 16th edition of Literature Live The Mumbai LitFest
By: Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud
Recounting how the book Why The Constitution Matters came about, Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, said, “When you write the judgement, it constrains the range of ideas you can cover. And I thought I should develop some ideas which were spoken about. I wanted to tell the people what the Constitution does for them in simple terms and debunk some myths.”
He further added, “Certain concepts in the Constitution have evolved with how India has evolved over the years. It is a living document, and not frozen at the date of its birth. There is so much of the Constitution that is work-in-progress with the citizens. Our Constitution speaks in different languages to different people and that’s the beauty of it.”
By: Shashi Tharoor
Speaking about Constitutional morality, Shashi Tharoor said, “Constitutional morality was introduced by Dr B R Ambedkar. It was he who said that it wasn’t enough to just have the Constitution but that to instill Constitutional morality in people. However, Constitutional morality is less likely to come out in our legislation because legislators tend to be too dependent on the dislikes and prejudices of their electorate as they will be facing them tomorrow. Ultimately, politicians are accountable to their electors but judges are not. I think Constitutional morality evolves from the spirit of the interpretations of judges.”
