---
type: syllabus
topic: constitutionalism
topic_title: India's Constitution
topic_url: 'https://liberty-lighthouse.vercel.app/topics/constitutionalism/'
canonical_url: 'https://liberty-lighthouse.vercel.app/topics/constitutionalism/syllabus/'
markdown_url: 'https://liberty-lighthouse.vercel.app/topics/constitutionalism/syllabus.md'
---
# India's Constitution — Syllabus

## Primary Source Database

1. [Constitution of India](https://www.constitutionofindia.net/) — Centre for Law and Policy Research. Searchable database of historical constitutions, Constituent Assembly Drafting Committee debates and reports, and the text of the Constitution of India, 1950.

## Books

**Indian constitutional history**

1. Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (1966)
2. Madhav Khosla, India's Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy (2020)
3. Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi, ch. 6 "Ideas of India" (2007)
4. Gautam Bhatia, The Indian Constitution: Conversations with Power (2025)
5. Rajiv Dhavan, The Constitution of India: Miracle, Surrender and Hope (2017)
6. The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution (eds. Sujit Choudhry, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Madhav Khosla, 2016)
7. Tripurdaman Singh, Sixteen Stormy Days: The Story of the First Amendment of the Constitution of India (2020)

**Political and legal philosophy**

8. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1689)
9. A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885)
10. Max Weber, Economy and Society, ch. 7 "Sociology of Law" (1922)
11. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
12. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971)
13. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (1977)
14. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974)
15. Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law
16. Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944)
17. Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
18. [Murray Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty](https://pdf.stafforini.com/rothbard-1998-ethics-liberty.pdf) (1998)
19. Frédéric Bastiat, The Law
20. Michael Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? (2009)
21. Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (2009)
22. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993)
23. Leon Louw, What Is Rule of Law (2007)

**Emergency and political history**

24. Kuldeep Nayar, The Judgement: Inside Story of the Emergency in India (1977)
25. Coomi Kapoor, Emergency: A Personal History (2015)
26. Chintan Chandrachud, The Cases that India Forgot (2021)
27. Prashant Bhushan, The Case that Shook India (2018)

## Academic Papers

1. [Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical](https://johnjthrasher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Rawls_1985_Justice_as_fairness_political_not_metaphysical.pdf) (1985) 14(3) Philosophy and Public Affairs 223 — John Rawls
2. Liberalism, in Public and Private Morality (ed. Stuart Hampshire, 1978) — Ronald Dworkin
3. [Two Concepts of Liberty](https://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/published_works/tcl/tcl-e.pdf) (1958) — Isaiah Berlin
4. [How Liberal Is India — Is the Indian Constitution Liberal?](https://www.sudhirkrishnaswamy.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Is-the-Indian-Constitution-Liberal.pdf), in The Quest for Freedom in the Biggest Democracy on Earth (ed. Ronald Meinardus, 2019) — Sudhir Krishnaswamy

## Legal Cases

1. Kesavananda Bharati v The State of Kerala, 1973 4 SCC 225 — established the Basic Structure Doctrine
2. Minerva Mills v Union of India (1980) — Fundamental Rights against Directive Principles of State Policy
3. K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1 — Justice D.Y. Chandrachud drew on Berlin, Hayek, Sen, Nussbaum, and Shue to discuss positive and negative liberty

## Reports & Trackers

1. [Internet Freedom Foundation](https://internetfreedom.in/) — resource on online speech and privacy, including its [Internet Shutdowns tracker](https://internetfreedom.in/tag/internet-shutdowns/)
2. [Free Speech Collective](https://freespeechcollective.in/free-speech-tracker/) — tracker on state persecution cases over free speech
3. [Electoral Bonds Tracker](https://www.reporters-collective.in/electoral-bonds-tracker) — The Reporters' Collective
4. [How Reporting Six Years Ago Exposed a Political Fundraising Scandal That Rocked India's Elections](https://adrindia.org/content/how-reporting-six-years-ago-exposed-political-fundraising-scandal-rocked-india%E2%80%99s-elections) — Association for Democratic Reforms

## Articles & Blog Posts

1. [Parliament vs Judiciary: Tale of Two Bills Nullifying Judgments](https://www.livelaw.in/columns/parliament-vs-judiciary-tale-of-two-bills-nullifying-judgments-constitution-127th-amendment-bill-tribunals-reforms-bill-179603) — Manu Sebastian, Live Law, 2021
2. [How a Modi-Era Ecosystem of Official & Unofficial Censorship Is Transforming India's Film Industries](https://article-14.com/post/how-a-modi-era-ecosystem-of-official-unofficial-censorship-is-transforming-india-s-film-industries-679fdbcd6f914) — Anna M.M. Vetticad, Article 14, 2025
3. [SC's Kashmir Communication Shutdown Judgement Is Just the Beginning of a Long Uphill Campaign](https://internetfreedom.in/scs-judgement-on-kashmir-communication-is-just-the-beginning/) — Devdutta Mukhopadhaya, Internet Freedom Foundation, 2020
4. [Reporting Electoral Bonds Exposed Political Fundraising](https://gijn.org/stories/reporting-electoral-bonds-exposed-political-fundraising/) — Poonam Agarwal, Global Investigative Journalism Network, 2024

## Podcasts & Videos

1. [Episode 442: A Masterclass on Regulation (and Deregulation)](https://youtu.be/aXMiBOnFHsk?si=MV5rXAFoIATwxe1P) — The Seen and the Unseen