Alabama Law Scholarly Commons Articles Faculty Scholarship 2016 Temples, Courts, and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Indian Constitution Deepa Das Acevedo University of Alabama - School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_articles Recommended Citation Deepa Das Acevedo, Temples, Courts, and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Indian Constitution, 64 Am. J. Comp. L. 555 (2016). Available at: https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_articles/80 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Alabama Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of Alabama Law Scholarly Commons. DEEPA DAS ACEVEDO* Temples, Courts, and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Indian Constitutiont Must all states have fixed constitutional identities? Does democ- racy necessarily entail citizen-sovereignty? This Article uses ethno- graphic data from India to argue that the answer to both questions is "no." In the aftermath of a massive stampede in 2011, the Kerala High Court initiated an overhaul of the complex executive, legislative, and judicial network that governs the famous Hindu temple at Sabari- mala. The court's conflicting goals were to avoid further consolidating government authority over the temple and to further empower officials so that they could undertake needed reforms. Ultimately the court did both-and neither-in an instance of judicial balancing that reflects the two visions of sovereignty in India. On the one hand, Indian consti- tutional law and judicialpractice reflect a conventional vision of sov- ereignty, in which sovereign authority is wholly vested in citizens and merely exercised on their behalf by the state.