@article{2023:de:the_possib,
title = {The Possibilities of Anti-Colonial Constitutionalism – Commentary on State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar and others AIR 1952 SC 75},
year = {2023},
note = {The case of Anwar Ali Sarkar has been a founding precedent for
equality jurisprudence in India and elsewhere. The case is most cited
for the two-step reasonable classification test. Yet over the years,
it has become increasingly clear that there are limitations to the
test as a doctrinal framework to adjudicate equality. This article is
a comment on Tarunabh Khaitan’s accompanying rewritten judgment on
Anwar Ali Sarkar, which seeks to offer a more robust doctrine of
equality grounded in the anti-colonial character of the Indian
Constitution. In this piece, I locate the original judgment in its
historical and socio-political context to understand the
possibilities of building an anti-colonial jurisprudence of equality
for and of the Indian Constitution, and to evaluate the differences
between the original and rewritten judgments. I argue that the
rewritten judgment offers a more robust defence of equality, in line
with strands of anti-colonial ideas that shaped the framing of the
Indian Constitution, as well as offering a restrained method for
judicial interpretation that acknowledges historical context while
centering the interpretation of law and rules.},
journal = {VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee},
pages = {33--47},
author = {De, Rohit},
volume = {56},
number = {1}
}