Nariman in book: It will not be easy to draft Constitution today

It won't be easy to draft a new Constitution for India today, one of India's most respected jurists, Fali Nariman, writes in his new book You Must Know Your Constitution. "In Constitution-making, there are hidden forces that must not be ignored, viz., the spirit of persuasion, of accommodation, and of tolerance.

- Sunetra Choudhury

In India as in the rest of the world-all three are at a very low ebb today."

Nariman's comments come at a time when some right wing intellectuals have raised questions about the current Constitution, and asked whether its basic structure can be changed. "The life of a written Constitution-like the life of the law is not logic (or draftsmanship), but experience. Seventy-odd years of experience on this subcontinent has shown that it is easier to frame a Constitution than to work it... We will never be able to piece together a new Constitution in the present day and age simply because innovative ideas however brilliant and howsoever encouragingly expressed in consultation papers and reports of commissions, can never give us an ideal Constitution," he writes.