Madhav Khosla, associate professor of law at Columbia University, said on Saturday that citizenship is “ultimately about how we relate to each other” and it is not just about how we relate to the state.
Khosla was speaking as the chief guest at the 16th convocation of CEPT University in Ahmedabad in which 646 students were awarded degrees.
Khosla reminded the students that “whether we are interested in law or not, law is interested in us and there can be no escape from it,” and emphasized how the constitution is most important in setting changes in the modern world order. are ahead.
Speaking on the importance of being a citizen and how the Indian Constitution matters to our fundamental existence, Khosla pointed out that while most countries were not democracies in the mid-19th century, 100 years later, “there is none that really I believe that there is no country. There cannot be democracy.” Khosla also pointed out how democratic politics precedes democratic citizens.
“Interesting historical moment that marked that change.. the Indian Constitution is …. in fact a lot of citizenship is not just about how we relate to the state, but it’s really about how we relate to each other.” are concerned…citizenship is really really about building a relationship between you and me. It is not just about restructuring relations between states,” he said.
“Second, the project of politics is constantly being made and built. So when a lot of the world said to the founders of India that ‘Look, India cannot be a democracy, because it is poor. It is illiterate. There are all these different types of people in it. It has all the divisions,’ the Indian reply was that you can make democratic politics. You can create democratic citizens through democratic politics,” said Khosla, whose research often focuses on comparative constitutional
law, especially in South Asia and India.
Admitting that the concern of our times in a political context is not extremism but cynical, Khosla elaborated, “…really trying to remake the world… and I think, the scariest thing or the worst. The worrying thing, perhaps in our time, or at any time, is not extremism, but a certain kind of cynicism, … It is a fundamentally anti-constitutional idea, because to think constitutionally is to mean you the world. But unlike war it allows you to do it peacefully.
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