Ornit Shani

(1/6) “If you mark the places where there are constitution-making processes, you won’t see Delhi, because it will be overshadowed by all the other dots across the map.” Rohit De and Ornit Shani spent years building the case that India’s Constitution was not handed down from a room in the capital. It was argued into existence by ordinary people in villages, panchayats, courts, and legislatures across the subcontinent. Assembling India’s Constitution recovers those voices, among them three women legislators from Bengal who insisted that the inviolability of a woman’s body was not a private shame but a national one. Rohit De and Ornit Shani in conversation with Nandini Nair, Associate Director at the New India Foundation. Assembling India’s Constitution: A New Democratic History by Rohit De and Ornit Shani (Penguin Allen Lane). Shortlisted for the 2026 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize. #kcbp2026 #newindiafoundation #bookprize #bookrecs #indianconstitution #democracy #indianindependence #indianhistory @itihaasnaama @OrnitShani @NandiniNai @PenguinBooks @PenguinIndia

(1/7) Hansa Mehta took her ideas on women's rights to a UN conference and they were adopted into the report word for word. Back home she was in the Constituent Assembly, holding informal meetings with the other women members to work out how to push representation through. In the official record of how India's Constitution was made, she is barely visible. Rohit De and Ornit Shani went looking for people like her, and found a great many. Assembling India's Constitution is longlisted for the NIF Book Prize 2026. #KCBP2026 #Newindiafoundation #bookrecs #bookprize #indianhistory @PenguinIndia @OrnitShani @itihaasnaama @NandiniNai