A Text without Author

Constitutions are rarely about change; they are codes that legitimise the new dispensation that arises out of historical conflicts and struggles. They provide a quasi-permanent shape to the new regime. In this sense, constitutions are already in existence even before they come to be formally written. The Indian Constitution too can be looked at in a similar light if it is 'disclosed' from the authorised location that brought it into existence, i e, the constituent assembly. This paper looks at the constituent assembly as an 'event' in the hope of understanding how different currents and polyphonic voices came together in the forming of the conjuncture within which the assembly took shape - as demanded by the imperatives of a common territory, tradition and history.