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The Bombay Civil Liberties Union: Nehru’s Forgotten Experiment in Rights Advocacy

October 16, 2025

On a January morning in 1949, as the Constituent Assembly debated India’s future Constitution, a modest typewritten letter travelled from Bombay to New Delhi. Addressed to the Assembly’s Secretary, it carried the voice of a now-forgotten organisation—the Bombay Civil Liberties Union (BCLU). Enclosed was a resolution proposing nine fundamental rights.