Legalizing Sovereignty in South Asian Constitutionalism

Modern constitutionalism which seeks to limit governmental authority has historically been in conflict with the idea of illimitable sovereign power. Yet new sovereign imaginaries of theocratic and aggressive nationalism today stake a claim to the political sphere not by having constitutions suspended but by translating their ideologies into the language of constitutionalism itself. My research studies this global problematic in the South Asian context. It investigates how, despite being hostile to the founding principles of civic-nationalism and liberal-secularism, the ethno-nationalist and socio-religious movements of Hindutva and Islamism have successfully instrumentalized constitutionalism to become politically powerful in postcolonial India and Pakistan.