B. SUDERSHAN REDDY, J.

( 1 ) SEVERAL of the most devisive moral conflicts that have beset us Indians in the period since the dawn of independence have been transmuted into constitutional conflicts conflicts what the Constitution of India forbids and resolved as such. The most prominent instances include the conflicts over Federalism, Secularism, sex-based discrimination and affirmative action. The conflicts over affirmative action programme occupy a large space.

( 2 ) THE great bulk of constitutional litigation concerns State enactments and nearly all of that litigation purports to be based on a single sentence of Article 14 and, indeed, on one or the other of two pairs of words, "equality before the law" and "equal protection of the laws". If the Constitution is the embodiment of our aspirations, it must have become so very largely because of those two pairs of words. Each is a protection with centuries of history behind it, often dearly bought with the blood and lives of people determined to prevent oppression by their rulers.

( 3 ) WHEN the Supreme Court revisited the question of whether and under what circumstances the State may engage in affirmative action in Indra Sawhney and

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