LASSnet Book Discussion | ‘The Indian Constitution: A Conversation with Power’ by Dr. Gautam Bhatia

The Law and Social Sciences Research Network (LASSnet) is pleased to invite the NLS Community to an online book discussion on Dr. Gautam Bhatia’s new book ‘The Indian Constitution: A Conversation with Power‘.

The discussion will feature Prof. (Dr.) Amit Prakash, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Dr. Malavika Prasad, Advocate, Bengaluru in conversation with the author.

Day & Date: Thursday, July 31, 2025
Time: 5:30 to 7:00 PM (IST)
Zoom link: https://soas-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/91833034645

About the Talk

Gautam Bhatia will discuss his new book, ‘The Indian Constitution: A Conversation with Power.’ In 2024, the Indian Constitution turned seventy-five years old. Ever-enduring, ever-evolving, it has been a terrain of tumultuous debate and dissent in the nation’s courtrooms, upon its streets, and in the halls of Parliament. Continuing in this tradition, ‘The Indian Constitution: A Conversation with Power’ brings a new lens to analyse the Constitution as a document that creates, shapes, channels, and constrains power. Examining the history of Constitution-making, the debates in the Constituent Assembly, the Indian Constitution’s design and structure, and the judicial decisions that have shaped it, this book argues that the Constitution has been a battleground upon which different visions of power have contested for supremacy. For the most part, this contest has been marked by a centralising drift that is, a drift towards a concentration of power within the union executive. Elements of this are embedded within the Constitution’s design, but the drift has also been accelerated, at crucial historical moments, by Supreme Court judgments.

However, as this book makes clear, the centralizing drift is and was not inevitable. There have been moments of dissent and departure, which have illumined alternative possibilities. It is for the citizens of India to decide, ultimately, what vision(s) of constitutional power they want to adopt through their Constitution.

About the Author

Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based advocate and an Adjunct Professor at the Jindal Global Law School. He is the author of The Transformative Constitution (2019) and Unsealed Covers (2023). He has been involved in several contemporary constitutional cases, such as the challenge to the abrogation of Article 370, the electoral bonds case, the right to privacy case, and others. His work has been cited by the Supreme Court of India, and by various High Courts. He has served as amicus curae on two occasions before the Supreme Court of Kenya. He is also the author of three science-fiction novels, The Wall (2020), The Horizon (2021), and The Sentence (2024). (Source: HarperCollins Publishers India)