The question that we must ask is- Could the modern state be anything else but all-encompassing in nature? The answer to this and other similar questions lies in the experiences of the American Independence movement as compared to various independence movements in the global South. In the global South, independence struggles, especially in India, have come to acquire central importance as a matter of choice. Such movements across the global South have not only faced an external enemy in the form of colonial power but at the same time, they have also fought internal enemies, of much bigger proportions, in the form of extreme poverty, socio-economic inequality, hierarchies of caste, race, gender and much more. A state that actively takes up the task of eradicating internal inequalities has been of primary consideration for the constitution framers. In achieving this, the constitution has also been the tool with which we the people have fought these internal enemies.
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