Speaker: Prof. Madhavan K. Palat, historian of modern Russian and European History and formerly Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Visiting Professor in Imperial Russian History, University of Chicago in 2006; National Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla 2010-2011; and Editor of the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru published by Oxford University Press; 

Chair: Shri Ravi Bhoothalingam

Nehru regarded democracy in India as the product of both the mass nationalism of the 20th century and of the ancient traditions of panchayats; it flourished by contesting the despotism of colonialism and its caricature of British constitutionalism. He was committed to both parliamentary sovereignty and constitutional sanctity; and while he did not define a “basic structure” he had an implied one in mind