Around 45 students from the law department of North Eastern Hill University participated in our workshop on “Exploring Cow Slaughter Debates in Indian Constitutional History” on 7th November 2017.
Vineeth Krishna introduced the students to the constitutional history materials of India: Constituent Assembly Debates and Historical Constitutions and how they are essential to analyse contemporary legal, political and social issues. He noted that in order to critically engage with Constitution one must explore India’s constitution making process.
Kruthika R specified the problems of access and engagement with Constituent Assembly Debates and other history materials and how CLPR’s website CADIndia overcomes these issues and proves as a valuable research and educational tool.
The students solved the worksheet on “Exploring Cow Slaughter Debates in Indian Constitutional History”. The diverse questions allowed the students to engage with CADIndia website and explore various nuanced search methodologies.
The students located the dates on which the issue of cow slaughter was debated, discussed the biographical details of the Constituent Assembly Members who were involved in it and placed key arguments made on the issue.
The students examined the arguments made in the Constituent Assembly and assessed them on merits by making a reference to the contemporary dialogue on it.
At the end of the workshop the students were made aware of the constitutional origins of cow slaughter provision and they came to realise the contemporary relevance of it. They realised the importance of engaging Indian Constitutional history materials to analyse dialogue on contemporary social, political and legal issues.