India, Oct. 4 -- The story of the making of India's Constitution, as usually told, begins in Delhi. As the clock struck 11 on December 9 1946, the story goes, the Constituent Assembly convened for the first time in Constitution Hall, New Delhi. The debates over the next three years among the 300 Assembly members and the constitutional text they produced have become the main source for understanding how India's Constitution came to be. This meant that the Constitution was seen as a result of elite decision-making, and that the constitutional details were beyond the imagination, interest and capacity of the Indian people. It has, thus, been seen as a pedagogical text for an ignorant and undemocratic public. Moreover, scholars have persisten...