Liberty After Freedom-Rohan J. Alva

Book: Liberty After Freedom
Author: Rohan J. Alva
Publisher: HarperCollins India

Liberty After Freedom explores the origins of what is today considered the most important fundamental right in the Indian Constitution - the right to life and personal liberty guaranteed by Article 21. This is the article which in recent years made the right to privacy as well as the decriminalization of homosexuality possible. Without a doubt, Article 21 has had the most outsized influence on the progressive development of rights in India. But the story of how this important right was birthed is deeply controversial and its passage in the Constituent Assembly divided opinion like no other feature of the Constitution. Liberty After Freedom explores the intellectual beginnings of this paramount fundamental right in an attempt to decode and unravel the controversies which raged at the time the Constitution was being crafted.

As India was journeying into a new era after the colonial rule, the leaders of the day were tasked with an important task-the task to draft a constitution of the country which would act as a foundation of the times to come. In this book, Rohan explores the history and the development of one of the most crucial rights accorded to us by the Constitution of India-The right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21. The author goes on to explore the events that took place in the years the constitution was adopted, and goes into the nitty gritty of the idea of Due Process that was initially envisaged to be a part of this right. I liked how Rohan uses the debates of the Constituent Assembly and the Drafting Committee so as to make the reader understand why and how things took place. He compares and contrasts the guiding documents that the framers of the constitution referred and how it affected their understanding of the concepts and why they framed the document the way they eventually did.

The book is replete with examples from the debates, direct quotes and references. As expected, this is excellently researched and provides a unique insight into the workings of the Constituent Assembly. Rohan starts from the baby steps of the constitution in 1946 and comes right till the present to show how the concepts have evolved. The book might seem to be a heavy read for people who are not very much into the concept of polity, but for anyone who is interested in reading about the history of how our rights came into being, this would be a wonderful journey.

Definitely recommended for anyone looking to explore and know about the history of Article 21 and the Indian Polity. The book scores a 4.63/5 for me.

I was provided a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

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