India, Oct. 5 -- 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 persistently debated whether the Constitution marked a break or a continuity from the colonial past. Our new book, Assembling India's Constitution, offers an alternative story, showing that the Indian Constitution was not solely an elite exercise. We discovered that Indians from across the subcontinent were deeply engaged with Constitution-making and debated it. Contrary to the common wisdom, many Indians knew what they were getting. Based on their expectations of a transformative order, they organised into action to make constitutional demands, translated the Constitution into their own languages, challenged the Constituent Assembly, and offered new ideas. In this process they made efforts to educate the members of the Assembly. And most importantly, they assumed ownership of the Constitution and made it their own. The Indian public understood that the Constitution was going to change their lives. It animated their concerns. For Indians of all faiths, caste was perhaps the most important determinant of social and economic status. It is, therefore, not surprising that the most intense public struggles were over the Constitution's potential to radically change the social order based on caste. The Indian public accordingly made constitutional claims that invoked old and new collective identities. Dominant upper castes who had enjoyed centuries of hegemony, now presented themselves as a minority in need of protection. Scheduled caste groups demanded guarantees for full rights and special additional protections for their enforcement, believing that the Constitution wouldn't be enough. The vast majority of the population, who identified themselves as "backward castes", questioned the existing colonial classifications of caste and religion altogether and asserted their right to define themselves. Strikingly, all castes, groups and communities used constitutional language to advance their claims. Indians understood that electoral democracy and democratic majority would be insufficient to protect their rights. Even the largest demographic group in India - the millions of people who belonged to what was described as the backward classes - was claiming minority status. The secretary of the Backward Classes League reminded the Constituent Assembly that the population of the backward classes, which included among other professions fishermen, barbers, milkmen, and washermen, was 170 million - or more than half of India's population at the time. They complained that there were no representatives of the backward castes among the ministers or in the Constituent Assembly, though by numbers they should have had at least 170 seats. They began to struggle for their rights from outside the Assembly. Numerous letters from different backward caste organisations - among them, the Kashyap Rajput Mahasabha in the North, the Vannikula Kshatrias from Madras, and the Baisya Kapali Jubak Samiti from Bengal - arrived, demanding representation and guarantees. By insisting that the Constitution recognise "economic and social backwardness" by caste, these representatives of the backward castes challenged both the ideal of an individual liberal subject and the notion that backward castes exist only within the Hindu religion. Indeed, claims for addressing backwardness were not limited to Hindus. For instance, the Punjab Provincial Saini Sabha, which claimed to represent at least 10 million Sainis (primarily an agricultural caste in North India), demanded guaranteed representation to all Sainis, be they Hindu, Sikh, or Muslim. The president of this organisation pointed out that it would be impossible for any member of a backward caste community to get a party ticket or be elected in Punjab, an area dominated by Jat Sikhs. Similarly, the Central Jewish Board argued that the Bene-Israeli Jews, a group within the larger Jewish community and numbering around 25,000 at the time, should continue to be considered an intermediate and minority community. Indeed, the Jewish identity of Bene Israelis was often questioned by other Indian Jewish communities, and they faced discrimination because of the darker colour of their skin. Similarly, the All India Momin Conference, which represented Muslim weaving castes, not only challenged the authority of the Muslim League to speak for them, but also sought special representation and safeguards given their economic and educational status. Finally, backward caste groups presented a powerful critique against upper-caste dominance, articulating demands for economic, political and educational constitutional guarantees to transform it. Thus, the backward Nayi Brahmin community, a caste of barbers, argued that the entirety of the colonial State, from "the ordinary tehsil officer to a judge of the Privy Council", was composed of a "microscopic minority" of the upper castes. They, therefore, demanded that every citizen be given "land free of cost for construction of house and cultivation". They also asked for a regular uniform for all students, and that backward-caste students be given uniforms free of cost. In the spirit of socialism, they demanded roti-kapda-makaan but differentiated themselves from the Left parties, which they criticised for not being led by members of labouring castes. They doubted the future of a country that aspires to be a democracy "where 3 crores (30 million) of people (upper caste Hindus) with power and competence consider 340 million backward caste, untouchables (Achut), Muslim, Christian and adibasis as impure". An independent democratic government, in their view, could "exist only when every citizen thinks himself to be a part of government and thinks its legislation as his own". Focusing solely on the Constituent Assembly and its debates not only erases the intense engagements of Indians with the making of the Constitution but also obscures the critical role of the public in turning the Constitution into a living document and an open site of struggle....