It wasn’t long until we witnesed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) playing out in the country. Isolating, denying the existence and creating an invisible wall of demarcation — the act plunged the people of its country into pain and protests. “The largest non-violent civic resistance that we have seen after independence was the protest against the CAA across the country,” shares writer Harsh Mander. His book Our Constitution, Our People emerged from lived experience of the nationwide protests against CAA.
“It is the collective imagination of the destination that the country pledges to reach,” reads the book, succinctly capturing what the Constitution represents beyond textbooks and courtrooms. As India recently celebrated its 77th Republic Day, at a moment when constitutional values are constantly invoked, debated, and contested, Harsh’s illustrated book gently nudges readers to return to its basic principles.
Intended for children and young adults, the book traces India’s journey from colonial subjugation to constitutional democracy. It unpacks ideas of freedom, justice, liberty, equality and fraternity in simple yet layered language.
Interacting with CE, Harsh recalls the beginning of the book, “What was remarkable about protest against CAA was that the icon of the protest was the Constitution.”
As he travelled from one corner of the country to another, addressing both massive rallies and intimate sit-ins, a pattern began to emerge. Sitting with women at the Shaheen Bagh protests, he realised that constitutional ideas were not confined to textbooks or courtrooms. “Each protest meeting would begin with a young man reading the preamble of the Constitution and the crowd repeating it. And it still gives me goosebumps to remember this,” he says. For him, this moment revealed something rare in global protest history. “There are very few protests that I can think of around the world where the Constitution becomes the defence of the Constitution, which is central to the protest.”
Contrary to assumptions, he found that many working-class women possessed an intuitive understanding of what the Constitution promised — that regardless of religion, caste, language or gender, every citizen was equal in dignity and rights. That realisation became the emotional and intellectual trigger for the book.
“I was very clear that I didn’t want to condescend to children or young people. Every idea that I wanted to communicate is there. The challenge to me was to present it in a language and in a manner that it would reach their minds and hearts,” he says. Though the ideas behind the book “marinated” in him for years, the writing itself came swiftly. “When I actually sat down and wrote, it took me hardly three or four days. It was somewhat inspired writing,” he says.
At the core of the book lies the idea of equality with dignity. “Every human being is equal in human dignity and human worth,” Harsh explains. “The Constitution is built on this idea of the equal worth of every human being.” From this flows what he describes as radical equality and radical love — values embodied, for him, by BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi.
Repertoire of repetition
The phrase “We, the people of India” is another anchor of the book. The author is careful to expand the meaning beyond history. “We the people of India are not just the 300 people who were in the Constituent Assembly; it is the generations that have come before and the generations that will follow. All of us together are ‘we, the people of this country’.”
Harsh also reflects on the often-overlooked contributors to India’s founding document. He underscores that “the Constitution was shaped not only by founding fathers but also by founding mothers”, such as Hansa Mehta and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. The former later played a significant role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a contribution that remains largely unknown to many Indians, the author notes.
Illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, the book brings these ideas alive through warm, detailed visuals populated by children, elders, families, and communities from across India. The illustrations reflect everyday diversity, allowing young readers to locate themselves within the Constitution’s story. Harsh describes the collaboration as seamless, with the visuals capturing emotions that make the book legible across generations. Harsh also hints at a possible second part to the book, one that would explore the promises the Constitution made and the tasks that remain unfinished.
‘Our Constituion Our People’ is published by HarperCollins Children’s Books and is priced at ₹299.