they can be informed about is what has already happened, not what is yet to come.17 Tom Ginsburg in his work on constitutional antecedents in East Asia, similarly argues, To what degree can traditional Asian political and legal institutions be seen as embodying constitutionalist values? This question has risen to the fore in recent decades as part of a new attention to constitutionalism around the world, as well as the decline in orientalist perceptions of Asia as a region of oppressive legal traditions.1 As constitutionalism has spread beyond its alleged homeland in the West, it behooves us to ask about the relationship between the particular ideas that emerged in enlightenment Europe and North America with the previous political-cultural understandings of non-European societies. This inquiry has implications for thinking about legal transplants, and for our understanding of how constitutions work in the contemporary world. Ultimately, it calls into question the Western narrative of exceptionalism, in which constitutionalism and the rule of law are seen as distinctive Western contributions.18 Niraja Jayal in her work on citizenship also relies on historical antecedents, specifically in looking at socio-economic rights. Referring to proto-constitutional documents, Jayal includes in this category, ‘proto-constitutional documents sponsored by the Indian National Congress, others conducted under the auspices of all-parties or nonparty conferences and committees; and finally, alternative and competing political imaginings explicitly offered as draft constitutions for a possible future.’19 Specifically, she refers to the Nehru Report 1928, the Karachi Resolution 1931, Manabendra Nath Roy’s Constitution of India: A Draft 1944, the Socialist Party’s Draft Constitution of Indian Republic 1948, and Shriman Narayan Agarwal’s Gandhian Constitution for Free India 1946.20 Jayal, does not, however, make references to the work of Scheppele or Ginsburg. While Rohit De refers to Scheppele’s work on aversive constitutionalism, De’s constitutional antecedents refer to a much larger set of documents, including British Charters, colonial era legislation and legislative reforms, the Government of India Act of 1919 and 1935, and the cultural and political reception of these documents. De states that, Kim Lane Scheppele, ‘A Constitution between Past and Future’ (2008) 49 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1377, 1379. 18 Tom Ginsburg, Comparative Constitutional Design (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Tom Ginsburg, ‘Constitutionalism: East Asian Antecedents’ Chi.-Kent L. Rev., 88. 19 Niraja Gopal Jayal, Citizenship and its Discontents (Harvard University Press, 2013) 137. 20 Ibid at 143. 17 Journal of the National Human Rights Commission, Vol. 22, 2023 25