The Founding of India and Popular Sovereignty

At independence, the institutionalization of popular sovereignty for “We the people” of India had to be achieved for a poor and illiterate society, deeply divided by caste, language, and religion, and while more than 550 sovereign Princely States had yet to be integrated into India. This chapter explores how despite multiple competing sovereignties, and deep pluralities, a unified popular sovereignty consolidated at India’s founding between 1946 and 1950. It suggests that two complementary processes played a key role in fashioning an all-India popular sovereignty by the time India’s constitution came into force in January 1950. First, the making of a unified popular sovereignty in India was driven by efforts to work through the competing visions of popular sovereignty that were asserted at the time. Second, while multiple discussions about unified popular sovereignty were taking place, bureaucrats across the country embarked on the preparation of the first draft electoral roll on the basis of universal adult franchise. I argue that this resulted, in effect, in institutionalizing the edifice for implementing the “rule of the people” on an all-India level.