Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

9-10-2015

SSRN Discipline

Legal Scholarship Network; PRN Subject Matter eJournals; PSN Subject Matter eJournals; Philosophy Research Network; Legal Anthropology eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; AARN Subject Matter eJournals; Humanities Network; Political Science Network; Anthropology & Archaeology Research Network; Political Behavior eJournals; Political Economy - Development eJournals

Abstract

Must all states have fixed constitutional identities Does democracy necessarily entail citizensovereignty This paper uses ethnographic data from India to argue that the answer to both questions is "no" In the aftermath of a massive stampede in 2011 the Kerala High Court initiated an overhaul of the complex executive legislative and judicial network that governs the famous Hindu temple at Sabarimala The court's conflicting goals were to avoid further consolidating government authority over the temple and to further empower officials so that they could undertake needed reforms Ultimately the court did both "” and neither "” in an instance of judicial balancing that reflects the two visions of sovereignty in India On the one hand Indian constitutional law and judicial practice reflect a conventional vision of sovereignty in which sovereign authority is wholly vested in citizens and merely exercised on their behalf by the state On the other hand there exists a vision of "divided sovereignty" in which the state as the agent of reform has sovereign authority independent of citizens The productive tension between these two visions according to which sovereignty is both vested wholly in citizens and divided between citizens and state is the dynamic equilibrium at the heart of Indian democracy

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