Q.Read Somnath Lahiri's Constituent Assembly statement (quoted in chapter). Do you agree? Give instances for/against.

Answering this well means engaging with the underlying worry Somnath Lahiri was raising in the

Constituent Assembly -- that the "reasonable restrictions" clauses could let the state hollow out …

Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution are almost never granted without qualification -- most

are immediately followed by a list of grounds (public order, security of the state, morality,

decency, and so on) on which the state may impose "reasonable restrictions." Somnath Lahiri's concern

was that such broadly worded exception clauses could, in practice, be used by the state to restrict

rights far more than genuinely necessary, effectively narrowing what the Constitution appears to

grant.

There is real historical evidence for this concern -- preventive detention laws, sedition-type

provisions, and restrictions on speech and assembly have at various points been used more broadly

than a narrow reading of "reasonable" would suggest, disproportionately affecting political dissent,

protest movements, and marginalised groups.

At the same time, this risk is not entirely unchecked: courts have developed a body of case law

testing whether a restriction is genuinely proportionate and rationally connected to the stated …