Rule of Law in India: A Quest for Reason

A study of rule of law is not only a study of a country’s legal and political system, but also that of its society as a whole. Despite being used in the political and legal discourse regularly, there has been no effort to identify the meaning and contours of rule of law. The work is a study of how India is socially, politically, and legally organized in terms of its governing institutions, and the behaviour of its people in their social and political interactions with these institutions. The primary goal is to understand and explain the obvious dichotomy that exists in India’s rule of law. On the one hand, institutions and laws required for the proper functioning of the country in accordance with rule of law exist on paper, more or less, in accordance with the constitutional mandate. On the other hand, most of these governing institutions do not function properly and lack the processes, systems, values and people to function efficiently, and, more importantly, in accordance with law. The book also makes an attempt to identify the broad contours of an Indian theory of rule of law.