(wl-7181)-Emergent Plutonomy in India - Limits of Transformative Constitutionalism

How have liberal democracies enabled the exponential rise of the superrich and their subsequent control of politics? This question has generated a lot of debate in contemporary scholarship. Within the liberal framework, the rise of superrich and their political power has had severe implications for rights and equality. This article intends to contribute to the literature which studies the enabling/constraining role of constitutional foundings and texts in the realization/prevention of this political fact. It is structured around three interrelated objectives. Firstly, it spells out the problem of economic inequality and the rise of superrich in contemporary India — a phenomenon with serious ramifications on the realization of constitutional rights. Secondly, it surveys the inclusion of economic rights/justice/equality in national constitutions to evaluate their success or failure in preventing wealth inequality. And thirdly, it studies the Indian Constituent Assembly Debates to foreground the fears that interspersed the discussions on the question of economic inequality, and how there was an inadequate reflection of those fears in the final constitutional text. In doing so, this article argues that despite possessing the potential to found economic equality, the Indian Constitution has implicitly and explicitly allowed the exponential rise of superrich in India.