Sameer Gudhate Presents the Book Review of Our Living Constitution by Shashi Tharoor

The funny thing about constitutions is that most of us don’t think about them until something shakes us. A protest on the street. A headline that burns our eyes. A conversation that leaves us unsettled long after the tea has gone cold. For me, it happened on a quiet Sunday morning, sunlight spilling across my table, newspapers spread out like a battlefield of opinions—and suddenly, I felt the weight of a question I had never asked myself seriously: Do I truly understand the Constitution that governs every breath I take as an Indian citizen?

And just like that, Shashi Tharoor’s Our Living Constitution found me.

Tharoor needs no introduction, of course. A parliamentarian, a historian of emotion and elegance, a writer who has the rare ability to make even legislative discussions feel like poetry on a political tightrope. He walks into this book with his signature flourish—graceful sentences dressed like sherwanis, sophisticated but surprisingly accessible—and sets out to offer something bold: a love letter, a warning, and a mirror to India’s constitutional soul.

At its simplest, Our Living Constitution is an introduction to how our democratic heartbeat was written. But beneath that simplicity lie stakes that feel as urgent as monsoon clouds before the first crack of thunder. The book traces the birth of the Constitution at a time when everything was breaking—Partition tearing the land, poverty clawing at dignity, leaders operating with more hope than certainty. It reminds us that this document was not stitched together leisurely in an air-conditioned conference room, but hammered, argued, sculpted through nearly three years of sleepless anxiety and visionary courage.

Tharoor brings alive Ambedkar’s tireless precision, Nehru’s dreamlike idealism, Patel’s spine of steel—three men who stood like architects holding a nation still trembling after a violent incision. Listening to their vision through Tharoor feels like listening to old vinyl—warm, crackling, deeply human. He writes of the Preamble not as text, but as a heartbeat; of Fundamental Rights as the backbone of dignity; of federalism as a delicate dance between unity and individuality.

And then, with equal passion, he invites us into the tension between what was built and what is being bent today. Without turning the book into a courtroom drama, he raises questions about dissent, free speech, federalism, and majoritarian impulses that test the seams of our democracy. Reading those chapters felt like someone dimmed the café lights and leaned forward to whisper, “Are we paying attention?”

His prose carries rhythm—sometimes lyrical, sometimes sharp. There were moments I paused just to breathe, because the writing felt like standing in front of an immense painting. But there were also moments when I found myself wishing for more precision, especially when legal details blur into sweeping political assertions. For a book that promises clarity, a few simplifications feel like rough stitching on an otherwise finely woven cloth. Judicial nuances, landmark case interpretations, and contradictory perspectives deserved a more balanced, less emotional framing.

But perhaps that is also the nature of a “living” document—it is messy, evolving, imperfect, fiercely debated. And maybe that is Tharoor’s point. A Constitution is not something framed in Parliament walls like a museum relic. It breathes through us. It ages through our choices. It weakens when we fall silent.

The moment that lingered for me was Tharoor’s reminder that the Constitution survived not because of paper and ink, but because ordinary people refused to bow. Students who marched. Journalists who wrote at personal risk. Judges who stood taller than threats. Citizens who believed that democracy is not a gift—it is labour.

Reading this book felt like watching a time-lapse of India, from cracked soil to neon skylines, from trembling hope to roaring crowds. It made me grateful. It made me restless. It made me fiercely protective of something I had taken for granted.

Our Living Constitution is not perfect; it is passionate. It is not academically exhaustive; it is emotionally persuasive. If you prefer neutral legal analysis, this might feel too coloured. But if you believe books should ignite, unsettle, and awaken—this will find you.

And it should. Because today, more than ever, we must ask not What does the Constitution owe us? but What do we owe our Constitution?

Maybe that is the real takeaway:

A democracy survives only when its people stay awake.

Pick this book up. Argue with it. Annotate it. Disagree with parts. Fall in love with others. But whatever you do—don’t read it passively. Because India will be what we make of it, and history will remember whether we chose to whisper or speak.

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