Abul Kalam Azad and the Right to an Islamic Justification of the Indian Constitution

Abstract

While the examination of the ‘background conditions’ to ideas that emerged in the Constituent Assembly has become a necessary paradigm for studies on Indian constitutionalism, little attention has been paid to religious justification as an important background condition to the formation of constitutional essentials in India. This chapter questions this secular bias in scholarship on Indian constitutionalism and argues that religious justifications played an important role in shaping the plural political conception contained in the Indian constitution. In particular, it studies the construction and endorsement of constitutional principles by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. It argues that Azad developed a framework laying out the form and concepts of a justificatory discourse that adherents of Islam could endorse and employ in shaping a political conception for the future Constitution of India. By exploring his formulation of concepts of tawhīd, jihād and democratic equality, this paper elaborates the discursive strategies that Azad used to align political pluralism with Islamic ideals as they historically developed in South Asia. The paper concludes with a short reflection on why Azad’s justification of constitutionalism in India has not retained its discursive power over time.