To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Any religious place of worship and its holy book are revered as sacred by their followers. In much the same way, a state and its governing document 'Constitution' holds a sacrosanct place in the hearts of their citizens and constitutionalists. Just as any adulterated alteration of holy scriptures incites the fury of the faithful; likewise, any malicious amendment to the sacred document of the 'Constitution' provokes outrage in a society that firmly believes in upholding democratic principles.

The journey of constitutional process in Pakistan has been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride. From the prolonged delay in framing and adopting the first Constitution to the recurring adventurism of experimenting with the adoption of a Presidential or a Parliamentary form of government, and from the question over a Federal versus a unitary system, to the abrupt military takeovers and undemocratic overreach of power by elected civilian representatives, Pakistan's constitutional trajectory has been fraught with ambivalence.

Growing up in a household where political conversations were the main course of every table-talk, I was unknowingly familiarised with unsettling phrases like 'abrogation', 'suspension', 'reframing', and the most loathed of all, the Eighth........

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