Bringing the constitution alive for young minds

All About Book Publishing (AABP), Sutapa Basu shares the inspiration, challenges, and aspirations behind this unique work.

Sutapa Basu is a best-selling, award-winning author as well as an educationist, poet, storyteller, and a translator. Her historical novel, The Curse of Nader Shah won the Best Fiction Award by AutHer Awards, 2019 instituted by JK Paper and The Times of India. She is the 2016 First Prize winner of The Times of India’s Write India Campaign for Amish Tripathi. Sutapa speaks on her own podcast called The Sutapa Basu Show and manages Sutapa’s Studio that trains school faculty and creative writing aspirants. She also runs a live chat show Bistro Buzz Conversations with Sutapa Basu that hosts unique people from across spheres and the world.

Recently, the India International Centre witnessed the launch of a unique and significant publication — The Constitution of India, An Illustrated Children’s Book,authored by Sutapa Basu. Published by Wonder House Books, an imprint of Prakash Books, this fully illustrated library and coffee-table reference book aims to bring the essence of the Indian Constitution closer to young readers. Here, Sutapa shares more about this unique book. Excerpts.

AABP: What inspired you to write The Constitution of India, An Illustrated Children’s Book? Why did you feel it was important to introduce the Constitution to children in this format?

Sutapa: Ever since I taught about the constitution to kids in school, I remember observing their utter boredom regarding its importance.

For them, the Constitution was irrelevant. And that troubled me deeply. If generations who were going to be future decision makers of our nation felt the foundation of our country was irrelevant, then our national future was certainly heading for a disastrous tragedy.

I felt it was imperative and urgent to change that belief and to show young readers that the constitution is not some book lost in the dusty past. It was relevant and applicable to every part of their everyday lives.

It was quite a challenge but I decided to try my hand at writing a version of the constitutional themes only for children and my publisher, Wonder House Books, encouraged me by expressing the premise was worth an attempt. That is the genesis of The Constitution of India, An Illustrated Children’s Book.

My objective was not just simplifying the Constitution but to make readers think and analyze its complexities.Constitutional concepts are complicated…even for adults to understand but if they are connected to familiar events happening today in the lives of young people, they could become comprehensible by context.

Also, I felt a visual representation of these concepts would further help young readers enhance their understanding of them. For example, I have used the analogy of road safety rules to constitutional laws keeping a nation safe.

AABP: The Constitution is often seen as dense and complex. What was your biggest challenge in simplifying it for young readers?

Sutapa: I faced several challenges. Foremost, I had to decide which parts of this nearly 500-page published version I should focus on. And I began by explaining the relationship of a constitution to a country’s existence.

The next challenge was the tough research process. Every word I wrote had to be validated and I was careful to only tap government sources. Books written by established historians and law experts were my references. Online government sites for specific details while I sourced generic facts from Encyclopedia Britannica. A long bibliography in the book attests to these references. Even so, exact dates of events, correct names of people, accurate quotes, even statements had to be composed carefully. Research was a painstaking task.

I was constantly conscious that simplification of language, definitions and term can compromise accuracy and along with the editorial team of Wonder House Books, I thoroughly vetted every sentence so that no ambiguity remained.

Contextual relationships for the concepts was also not easy. To explain a complex idea like secularism, I took the help of history explaining though many religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism have been born in India, the nation does not a have an official state religion. Religious harmony has been in India from ancient days. India has had a tradition of accepting, encouraging and respecting all religions. However, the constitution of India has gone beyond just acceptance by giving equal respect to the religions and beliefs of all the citizens of the country. The Constitution makes religious practice a personal choice and nobody can interfere with this right.

AABP: How did you decide on the age group (10–15 years) as your primary audience?

Sutapa: I believed that the age of the target reader should be from 10 years and then move beyond. The school curriculum introduces the constitution at grade 5 and starts detailing it in the next grades when they are about 13-14 years old. My objective was to make the readers familiar with the Constitution’s salient features before they study it in detail.

My book would serve as a reference for better elucidation because it would then prevent students from learning terms and definitions by rote. Besides, this book would help them understand how the Constitution applies to our country and government functions leading to an analysis of the values and principles enshrined in it. I wanted them to reflect on their plausibility and critically examine how the concepts are applied to their daily lives and in the world around them.

AABP: Share your experience with illustrators Shalini Soni Mazumdar and Shubham Lakhera?

Sutapa: The Constitution of India, An Illustrated Children’s Book format needed a close co-ordination between content, illustration and design. It is extremely challenging to illustrate factual concepts and I am deeply grateful to the artists, Shalini Soni Mazumdar, Shubham Lakhera as well as the designers Manpreet Aden, Tausif Khan for the effort, thought and creativity that makes this book so appealing, attractive and yet sensible.

The entire group and I worked on every page. We based our design principle on the idea that the illustrations, images, graphics on every page must speak out the content on the page. I must also credit Payal Jaipuria, Executive Publisher of Wonder House Books for this unique principle. So every illustration, photo, cartoon, flow chart, process diagram complements the narrative on the page. Not only do they demand notice but they are instructional. Some wonderful examples are the illustrations about socialism andthe election process.

AABP: What initial response have you received from educators/children so far?

Sutapa: I have been going to cities and speaking about the books to educators, parents and of course, young readers. In one word, the response has been‘overwhelming excitement’.

For young readers, understanding the Constitution has been a journey of wonder and investigation. For parents, the book is a must-have in their homes. Interestingly, many of them confided that they would themselves, explore the concepts before handing the book to their kids. They said that till now nobody had ever explained the Constitution to them so simply, visually and contextually.

Educators from school principals to teachers to librarians have lined up to have several copies in their schools. Many teachers wanted to use it to teach about the Constitution in their classroom.

Bookstore owners declared not only stocks selling out but wanted me to sign personal copies for them and their children.I have been delighted with my book receiving such warmth and interest because constitutional literacy is the need of the hour.

AABP: Do you see translations as the next step in broadening its reach?

Sutapa: As Shashi Tharoor, MP suggested while launching my book, The Constitution of India, An Illustrated Children’s Book needs to be translated in regional languages. There have already been several feelers about translations from regional publishers to Wonder House Books.

Translations would widen its reach as vernacular children’s reference across the nation. Besides, it would be very beneficial if a cost-effective version could be prescribed for the country’s huge network of government educational institutes.

AABP: What message would you like to give to parents, educators, and policymakers about making constitutional awareness part of childhood learning?

Sutapa: Constitutional literacy is very important for all ages but when it is imparted to children, it becomes an integral feature of building their character. They are at an impressionable stage and actionable ideas of rights, principles and duties get woven into their personalities.

Let’s take the premise of interlinked citizen rights and duties. In a world focused on materialism and often unearned entitlement, people constantly demand rights yet ignore their responsibilities towards simple civic duties. I have shown through various examples in the book how you can expect to have a right only when you complete the duty for it. Like Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘The very performance of a duty secures us our right.

The Constitution of India is one of the few constitutions of the world that declares our children to be a ‘national asset’. However, to be an asset, young citizens must realise that to simply desire to live in a world where justice, liberty and equality prevails is not enough.

Who will build that world?

Nobody else but the children of today.

How? By performing their duties. They must be made conscious that nobody is going to hand that world to them on a platter. They have to grow it.

Despite the Constitution giving so many rights to children, the ones privileged to enjoy those rights must reflect on whether every child in India is actually getting those same rights. Are all children getting enough food to eat or good health care or a school education?

If not, then it is up to our young citizens to ensure they do and it can be easily done by simple actions. No citizen, which includes every Indian child, should feel that our children are too young to contribute to making an India that is an equal, just, free nation.Let’s national consciousness begin in the childhood for that is what true citizenship is about.

AABP: What next are you working on?

Sutapa: I am working on several nonfiction and fictional projects based on history, adventure and literature for kids. I prefer writing in different genres because every genre has certain parameters for plot, character and even, language. To adhere to them, I need to innovate, think and recreate my writing. I believe that enhances my creative spark and refines my craftsmanship as a writer.