The number of special economic zones around the globe has exploded, particularly in the Global South. As "islands of modernity", they promise jobs, economic growth, and even a revolution of governance structures. Maxim Bönnemann embeds the triumph of the special economic zone within a particular discourse in development economics and uses the example of India to demonstrate the central role of the law. While India's special economic zones were initially tainted with a vague promise of development, their rapid spread quickly led to serious distributive and institutional conflicts, in which different visions of development collided. These conflicts, the author argues, have been both fuelled and defused by the ambivalence of postcolonial constitutionalism in India. For constitutionalism in India not only bears the long shadow of colonialism, but also the prospect of a profound democratic and social transformation.