Does India Have a Colonial Consitituion Or is That a Mistaken View? | Karan Thapar 

One of the Greatest reporter karan thapar ji you are absolutely right in defending Indian constitution

Karan demolishes Sengupta. TOTALLY. BRAVO KARAN, HATS OFF TO YOU SIR.👊👊👊

Sengupta has written a book but he is not able to justify even the title in any way possible!!

Becoming bigger fan of Karan Thapar with every interview!

At times, Karan does come across as a journalist who is impatient, angry and in a hurry but the erudition, learning and articulation of this brilliant journalist is unmatched. Argya, it seems, severely underestimated Karan's articulation and reasoning. He came unprepared. Karan is among the very few journalists I'd pay to listen or read.

Karan Thapar is a blessing to the country. We are so proud of you. Don’t let anyone influence your thoughts on our constitution You are absolutely right in defending our constitution bcoz it’s the sincere work of our most intelligent most educated and most discussed document eventually accepted by the powers that be.

Sengupta wrote this book with an obvious agenda to get a few brownie points from the ruling party. But Mr Karan Thapar brilliantly negated every attempt made by him to belittle our great constitution by ridiculously labelling it as 'colonial'. Our Constitution is dynamic and has the ability to change itself for the good with time, and that is the most beautiful part of it ! Salute to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the members of drafting committee for thier painstaking efforts in giving us this great text. 🙏

The length, breadth & depth of Thapar's knowledge 🤯

What a brilliant discussion. This should go down as an ideal debate. Thank you, Mr. Thapar. Absolutely brilliant.

Single handedly saving Indian Journalism.

Kudos to karan for fighting every argument in accordance to Indian constitution ❤

Superb. Absolutely amazing. Hats off to Karan Thapar for making mincemeat out of the author and the entire oremise of his book. 🙌🏾👊🏽👏🏾

When he says "colonial" he just virtue signalling to RW mob. He could have simply said decentralisation is necessary. But no, let's call it "colonial". Karan did not give him any wiggle room, what a glorious takedown. Bravo !

Brilliant interview. Calls out all the BS in the best way possible.

Our constitution is amazing. It's just some problematic laws that need to be changed

Hats off to Karan Thapar, the author is agreeing with all that Karan says, tearing his books very basis to shred.

Watching this was like watching a defendant admitting the plaintiff's case during cross-examination. The interviewer exposed the superficial and hollow claims of the interviewee and the latter was essentially agreeing to all the points raised by the former.

Here Karan Thapar is on top of his game! A brilliant interview on how to decimate your interviewee with gentle politeness!!

Indian Constitution is based on human dignity and human freedom focussing on the human individual, not human community. I don't find any base to call it colonial.

Argya,Oh you poor baby! Karan, stop tearing him apart. The kid is supremely nervous and doesn't know what to say.

Mr. Thapar really owned this debate. Excellent, fact based rebuttals of the Author are illuminating, albeit it also helped that the Author was arguing an indefensible point.

These are arguments which Sangh want to float to move towards constitution overhaul. There nothing wrong in changing it but intentent is what should be looked at. This guy wrote article saying hindumahasabha wrote constitution where both Hindu and Muslims as equals. That’s a paradoxical statement knowing what Hindu mahasabha is.

Mr Thapar very convincingly blew away the defective hypothesis of Mr Sengupta.

Excellent interaction. Probably it has become a fashion to criticize our constitution and the great leaders who fought our freedom and gave us such a great document. The Constitution is a living document and has been subjected to changes from time to time. That's the value of our constitution. Let political leadership and decision makers apply themselves in a moralistic manner and bring out changes which are good for the nation and not for their own political existence.

Mr Arghya Sengupta, wrote a book with the title 'colonial', the fashionable word of the year, but agrees to all that Mr Thapar confronted him with. It seems that there is an underlying scheme ostensibly asking for a new constitution. There is no concrete argument from Mr Sengupta. Blaming the constitutional framers for all the wrong doings of the present day rulers, irrespective of the political parties, is unfortunate.

Its always pleasant listening to counter narratives, although they are dumb.. Thanks the wire. You guys are just precious offering for today's journalism landscape. ❤

What a fascinating discussion!! Hope Arnab Goswami and his ilk watch this and learn how to conduct debates!

This genius calls the constitution colonial because of inadequate decentralization, then goes on to argue that the Rajya Sabha shouldn't exist.

I'm sure he must have read the book again written by himself after going back home.

The current situation is the proof that constitution of India allowed dictatorship following the perfect democratic route. In any system centralization will result in dictatorship. This is what happening now in India.

Although the author have some important points regarding the consitution none of his arguments point to his conclusion of it being colonial. It looks like the book came from an idea but the idea did not have any substance to back it up but wrote the book anyway. Good discussion nonetheless.

The Government of India Act, 1935 was retained, with modifications, because of no other reason than administrative convenience. India had already been governed with that Act and changing the administration entirely would have created an unnecessary burden. So, instead of wasting time on re-imagining the administration, the focus was on contemplating a nation with liberty, equality, fraternity and justice as its ideals and objectives, and incorporating the ideas which evolved during the freedom struggle. For that around 60 constitutions of the world were studied and the best of the ideas were borrowed and adapted. On being accused of borrowing, Ambedkar had said in the Constituent Assembly, “Nobody holds any patent rights in the fundamental ideas of a constitution." You don't need to re-invent the wheel. Since the administrative provisions from the GOI Act, 1935 make up a majority part of the Constitution of India, it is criticized as being colonial. Though that only implies that the administration is colonial if at all. The rest of the ideas that were borrowed, Indianised and adopted from different constitutions give a truly international, democratic, liberal and humanistic attribute to the Constitution of India and also make it the lengthiest and most elaborate constitution in the world, which caters to the diversity of Indian society.

isn't that OBVIOUS from the fact that even BJP bringing bill to over-haul the IPC and CrPC could mostly - only RENAME and RE-GROUP different sections.. and very less on actual change...

Most remarkable aspect being how seriously Mr Karan Thapar takes himself. How well prepared he is always. He ought to work very hard to read , dissect , analyse intellectual he is going to interview. Many times he comes across as one with better reasoning & rationale than individuals he is interviewing. If Mr Karan had been a lawyer, he would have been a top notch lawyer & his counterparts & judges would have been scared to face him 😂 . He can destroy anyone on cross examination. Nation lost a great lawyer but more importantly gained a great journalist. He uses words , phrases, quotations as knives to slice his opponents. I would happily prescribe potent anxiolytics to his interviewees 😅

Excellent debate sir!! Very mindful ☺️

Very true that is why do many Constitutional Amendment happened

Yes our Constitution was written in immediate aftermath of the colonial period, so it absorbed many aspects of the polity of the time, such as GOI Act, 1935. But it has a framework which allows us to update our laws and introduce modern perspectives as the context demands. Some people, in their insecurity over colonialism, would rather have us go even further back into medievalism.

Masterclass in the art of the follow up questions. Great interview

Funny how the English Arghya is so fluently flaunting is also a colonial legacy!

Karan congrats for a very stimulating and brilliant discussion. Our learned friend jumped to quite a few conclusions to support his shallow premise

Karan sir, इतना मत धोया करो । Please don’t drill poor writers so badly that they think a thousand times before coming to your interviews 😅. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Cheers and thank you 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏👍

Sengupta should understand that it's always the people in power down to whom lies the responsibility of being morally upright in following conventions and "culture," and if they choose to somehow skirt around constitutional morality, it's not the constitution that's at fault, but them.

Fascinating discussion Karan. Points you raised are thought provoking .

Karan I like that you have deflated this sophist conclusively.

If you don't mind, may I point it out that the word 'constitution' is misspelt in the title as well as the thumbnail? Firstly, these things may affect algorithms. Secondly, it's just my habit to notice things like that and point at it.

Thapar just cooked him 😭

Crux: He agrees on everything.

Every rupee provided to Sengupta by University and by salary, must be recovered back.

Dr. Ambekar said that, freedom, equality, justice and fraternity, we didn't borrowed from french,but taken from Buddha's Dhamma.

He wasted lot of papers writing a book 😂

This was so delicious. Every time the author says “That’s right” a part of him dies inside

Thanks

Brilliant lesson on how to challenge a faulty conclusion. Well done, Karan Thapar.

Freedom movement was led by hindu and muslim uppercaste. It was Ambedkar who had given freedom to the people of India.

The constitution will only endure if it is regarded appropriately. How are the people of India supposed to be thinking properly according to our political leaders, if they are addressed as they are during political rallies and gatherings? Remember the interview Rahul Gandhi gave Arnab Goswami on Times Now, before the BJP came to power? If you speak to people in such a manner, do you really feel that the constitution of India matters at all to people? It seems all political leaders from Modi to Kharge address gatherings in a manner that could be avoided. The people of India seem to accept this as if it is normal.

Kudos to fearless & pro-people, responsible journalism of Haran Thapar. I've supported the Wire, taking its annual membership.

My reading is that Mr. Sengupta's answers are "simplistic"

For some part of the discussion, Thapar was not visible , but some other image , papers on his lap ? , was shown. Shoddy camera work or something wrong with my desktop screen ? Despite that , a great discussion 👍

Thanks Karan, well post-mortem

Karan got him ( definitely a closet sanghi ) at 10:54 . ( begins at 10:44 though ) A masterclass on how to conduct interviews . Confrontational but factual.

I'd bet Chaps like Arghya Sengupta have never deemed Constitution of India as "Ours".

Arghya Sengupta will regrett this interview with Karan. Karan is a mountain of knowledge and information, and prepares well for all his interviews, including the one with Modi. The interviewee has been found wanting, more often than not, wherever thare are controversial topics.

Everything is simplistic according to Mr Sengupta

I think the current move to change the constitution is actually moving more and more powers from the state and centralising it at the union level - including the structure of the tax system

Karan is brilliant.He induced greater ckarity

Poor knowledge of India diversity and wrote a book.. shameless

I agree with larger idea put forward by sengupta. I often wondered why we didn't get rid of all british era laws after independence. Why couldn't we write all laws from scratch. Most importantly, why is indian police still ruled by indian police act 1861 which was drafted to curtail freedom of citizens after 1857 revolt?

Nice discussion. Appreciate that the author is not dogmatic and stood upto the grilling from Karan fair n square.

Mr. Karan Thapar, thank you for your great questions to give us exact picture of Our Constitution. Our constitution is having the impact of our freedom movement. It is not colonial. Not satisfied the answer given by Mr. Sengupta

The author chose the title and then tried to justify it in the book. None of the arguments stood Karan's scrutiny. The author is just winging it and staying above Modi's baseline of running away from Karan's interview.

It has become fashionable in the present days to describe things colonial to attract attention and please the party in power.

Good on Karan! I believe the poor writer might have to put an amendment to his book😂😂

If only more debates were so erudite and civil.

Great conversation, enlightened us. Thanks

Karan You have executed a fine take down of the hollow critique the author offered. Bravo.

Very insightful discussion. ❤❤❤

Ask him why the deputy lok sabha speaker is vacant for nearly the whole 17th LS. There was a convention of appointing him "soon". When will "soon" arrive so that Birla should not feel lonely and not have to unwillingly go to the hot seat.

Hello karan sir your interview is always fantastics. Thank you.

Both are half right..argument can go both ways Constitution is colonial or anti colonial..!!

This has been the best debate/interview on this channel as far as I am concerned. Both the sides were equally commendable in their command over the language as well as knowledge of the topic.

Yes, our Constitution has been heavily borrowed, rather, a copy of the Government of India Act 1935. In fact, both India & Pakistan have borrowed from this Act, and because of this, there are many features common b/w them, in both countries, the Central Govt can pull down, elected state govt, in no other democratic country, it is possible!

Mr. Tapar with deep study and conviction. An aethist Savarkar ji is the model of Hindutuva. Is there Danger for Hinduism and all religions ? Are we going on a different and totally 😮 new secular way. 🙏🏽

Well done to Karan Thapar. I am left with the Q. Why ever did Mr Sengupta write this book?

The author appears totally confused. Either has not done his homework thoroughly or superficial scholarship. Quite disappointed with his views, opinions and arguments.

Mr. Karan Thappar please comment on the killing of a Muslim boy eating Prasad . Alas this is what Bharat has come to. It was better as India . Thanks to the PM

Karan, you did a fantastic job; you literally ripped him! The key idea of our constitution is about giving every citizen the human dignity and equality under law. And this very idea is not digestible to the groups like RSS and likes who wants to continue thousands years old practices that usurps the very rights that the constitution guarantees. So, now when BJP is in power, they are trying to bring back the same old rules by calling out everything that challenges their divisive and exploitative ideas as “colonial”. But they are mistaken, we Indians are not fools!

The author is well meaning but during most of the time of this conversation, he actually contradicted himself. I think after this conversation, he may want to change the name of his book. He almost agreed to Karan’s constant persuasion that the constitution is not colonial.

Bravo Karan!!!

Grt conversation

In spite of tilted scholarship and labelling loosely the constitution ‘colonial’ , our inability to see the failure of our character, is the extent to which I see now, how blind we all have become, including scholars and writers and many commoners, that we don’t see the colossal erosion of character and it’s horrendous nature straightaway and end trusting anybody to be our leaders.

It is important to engage the right in discussions and debates. Unfortunatey, the guy here, Arghya Sengupta, comes across as dim-witted and Thapar completely demolished all his arguements. It is difficult to imagine that he managed to publish a book. What we need in India today are articulate and intelligent people on the right who can argue and have a proper debate.

However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However, bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be good

You have corned Sengupta very well. Sengupta as per my view wants a constitution which can run on its own without the intervention of people responsible to implement

The term ‘constitution’ refers to the principles, rules and laws that establish and underpin a political system. The Constitution creates and defines the powers of different political institutions and determines how they should relate to each other. It sets out the limits of these powers and regulates the relationship between the state and its citizens. Constitutions place both limitations and obligations on governmental organisations in their relationship with the people and provide opportunities for the public to influence the political process. The important question is whether the present Indian constitution is properly implemented or not and why. Who is to be blamed for it?

Thankfully, India has a modern Constitution, not Manusmriti.

I watched Karan on black and white TV 😁

Amazing interview

This guy seems to be quite confused.

I'm not even sure what is this author about. He's been demolished in every way possible. He just doesn't have anywhere to hide.

Great debate. Both Karan and Mr. Sengupta are evenly matched although I am more sympathetic to Mr. Sengupta. We have a feudalistic democratic Constitution.