New Delhi, Nov. 22 -- In 2020, I was part of a constitutional challenge to the government's plans to "redevelop" the Central Vista in New Delhi. One of the arguments that we made was that these plans had been formulated-and were now proposed to be implemented-without any public participation. Public participation was a fundamental constitutional value, not just in India, but across the world, where it was increasingly coming to be understood that the relationship between the people and their government was not simply limited to the periodic casting of the vote; rather, democratic accountability required the continuing participation of the people in decisions that impacted them. The redevelopment of the nation's primary democratic symbol-w...