75 Years of the Republic of India

As India celebrates its 75th Republic Day on Friday, January 26, 2024, Dr Ananth S takes a look at the role played by the Constituent Assembly while drafting the Constitution.

Hyderabad:India’s Constitution will celebrate its 75 years of its existence this year. Our Constitution is the product of the huge sacrifices by millions of people in different forms against foreign rule over 100 years before 1947.

The most organised resistance that shook the foundations of the British Empire started with the Gandhian phase of the National Movement. Today and in retrospect, it is easy to criticise (Mahatma) Gandhiji; but, his biggest contribution was that he made the Indian National Congress a truly mass movement which was in stark contrast to most of the period from 1885 to 1919.

Even to this day, no movement have surpassed the participation of Indians as a percentage of its population as it did during the Quit India Movement. As it became clear that our independence was on the Horizon, our national leaders got together to undertake the difficult task of drafting the Constitution that would balance aspirations, fulfill the promises of the national movement to liberate Indians from exploitation and domination while at the same time include within its scope the upliftment of large sections of the excluded sections.

In short it was attempting the never before attempted task of a complete economic and social transformation – something that had never been tried before for a large country of India's size and diversity and with large sections of the people who had little or no education and who most of the time did not even have three square meals a day.

The task of drawing up the Constitution was the responsibility of the Constituent Assembly (CA) which drafted a Constitution from December 1946 to December 1949 and India formally became a Republic on 26 January 1950. Though it often not appreciated, the single biggest contribution of the Republic is that it has largely succeed in bringing about a unification of the country as a nation despite partition, riots, economic distress, low levels of education, three wars and more importantly bringing together a diverse set of social groups – something that never existed before 1947.

This can be seen by the fact that there were 565 princely states which comprised of about 40 per cent of the area of India and about 23 per cent of the population of the newly independent country apart from the fact that there were territories that were under the control of Portugal and France and all of which were slowly merged into the new nation.

In recent years, there is a worrying tendency which often resembles a fashion to criticise the Constitution as being too old and not sufficient to meet the requirements of the country. Shockingly, some have even claimed that it needs to be rewritten because it has been there for "too long". This claim of Constitution being around for too long is ridiculous since countries like USA have their Constitution for more than 200 years while Japan and other European Countries have a Constitution equivalent or older than India.

Importantly, such people forget among the countries that became independent from Colonial rule in the 1940s to the 1970s, India was the only country that remained largely democratic (expect for a short period of the Emergency). All the other countries lapsed into long periods of dictatorshiops. In fact our neighbours are good examples of societies that lapsed into long periods of dictatorship. Indians need to be proud of the this fact and it may be said that this was largely due to our National Movement against the British and the post independence accommodation provided in the Constitution.

Difficult task and Salient Features

The task to draft the Constitution was to put it mildly – Herculean. The original Constituent Assembly consisted of a total of 389 members out of which 292 were from British India, 93 from princely states and four from the provinces of Delhi, Ajmer-Merware, Coorg and British Baluchistan. The number later reduced to 299 in the aftermath of partition. The task of drafting a Constitution took two years, 11 months and 18 days across 11 sessions over a 165 day period. The Drafting Committee under the leadership of Dr. B R Ambedkar should largely get the credit for their stellar role that was extraordinarily difficult. There were 22 sub-committees of which eight were the important aspects like Fundamental Rights, provinces, finance, rules, etc. Their views were then fine tuned by the Drafting Committee and present to the Assembly which then discussed and where necessary voted and adopted the provisions.

A cursory reading of the Constituent Assembly debates indicate the difficult task and the hard effort that they put. They were so careful that they even debated the implications and impact on the future generations for each sentence and grammar that they used while drafting. The most important contribution was that of accommodation, so that different concepts, because the founding members knew that they had to create a framework that would harmonise different concepts with often contradicting aims, promises and aspirations of a diverse people, so that it could withstand contradictory push and pull factors.

It is for this reasons that the focus was on federalism, unwavering focus on rule of law, separation of powers, personal freedoms by way of fundamental rights balanced with reasonable restrictions, sharing the economic fruits with the provinces, equitable development and empowerment of excluded section while at the same time making relatively easy to amend various provisions, albeit keeping in view the interests of the provinces (now called as states).

An important aspect that needs to be kept in mind is that the draft version varies from the final version and there were 2,475 amendments to the original draft. A large number of changes that were proposed and accepted were only because of the changed internal scenario due to communal riots in the aftermath of partition which killed thousand and displaced millions.

The most important aspects which the Constitution’s focus on was the unwavering commitment to social transformation and deepening democracy by its focus on equality, rule of law, separation of power, fundamental rights, criminal procedure that will restrain the coercive impulse of institutions of the executive/state and other socially transformative measures including reservations.

A salient feature of the Constitution is that despite repeated calls from some members for a more centalised system, the CA voted for a more powers to the provinces (states) so that decentralisation with financial powers would keep in check fissiparous tendencies especially due to the different structures viz., British India and princely states.

The other important aspect is that India's federal structure made sure that there were a clear division of powers between the Union and the states along with distribution of revenues since it was clearly understood that states would know best about their interests and that balanced economic growth would be possible only if they were given sources of revenue independent of the Union.

Knowing fully well the nature of Indian society and its heirrachial nature, the Constitution took special care to see to it that Hindi was not forced onto those who did not speak it despite major efforts. This should be seen as one of the most important and sensitive manner in which those who tried to impose Hindi. In 1948, nearly 29 amendments were submitted by fanatics who wanted to impose Hindi at the cost of regional languages. However, the majority clearly ensured that linguistic minorities were protected against imposition of Hindi. Hence, those who are keen on reviving the debate need to be cautious that better sense prevailed to accommodate various diverse linguistic groups, who abound in India in the larger national interest.

One of the greatest legacies of the Constitution, which hopefully will overcome the pressures being faced today is the special interest and care that was taken to see to it that the Judiciary will be an important balancing power.

This special care was taken by stalwarts likeDr BR Ambedkar because they knew very well that lurking beneath the surface of India's highly stratified and hierarchical society was a tendency towards domination by the few who would try to undermine the attempt to build a lasting egalitarian and democratic society.

In fact, Dr BR Ambedkar called Article 32 of the Constitution as the "heart and soul". In fact, Part III of the Constitution (Article 12 to 35, Fundamental Rights) along with Article 226 have, at least till now, stood between the rise of a dictatorship and India though there are increased attacks on these fundamental rights by the executive in the past few years. Their importance lies in the fact that anyone whose fundamental rights have been may directly approach either the Hon'ble High Courts or the Hon'ble Supreme Courts and the courts are by law bound to hear the person. In fact, these provisions have served and continue to serve as a bulwark by the Hon’ble High Courts to save individual from administrative excesses.

Dark Clouds

While there is little doubt that the Constitution has largely stood us in good stead, the next few years will be crucial. Indians need to be shocked out of their stupor by the manner in which Parliament is functioning. There was a fond hope in the Constituent Assembly that Rajya Sabha would become a true house of elders and would rise above party and parochial interests. Instead, it has now become a place where Opposition and other Constitutional institutions are attacked by people who should have been more responsible when criticising other coordinate Constitutional bodies.

The most worrisome trends include the frequent attempt to restrict the space for fundamental rights, the attempt to pass laws that will reduce the powers of the Constitutional courts, the increased establishment of tribunals which often become places for retired, favourite members of the political class to be rewarded and the growing tendency towards centralisation.

The most worrisome aspect is the attempt by the Union of India to steadily erode the powers of the states, which is worrying in a democratic set up. Unfortunately, the states have either not done their due diligence or they have simply accepted the diktats of their national leadership and they have given up the constitutional powers given to them. GST is one such example. The other worrying aspect is that while the states often complain about attempt by the Union to centralise power, the states themselves through a combination of legislative measures and executive measure eroding the letter and spirit of Constitutional amendments giving more powers to local bodies.

Need of the Hour

The urgent need of the hour is for various well meaning groups, political parties and individuals to understand that political, economic and social change is largely cyclical in nature. Hence, accommodation should be the way ahead. The recent attempt to corner, grab, monopolise or take over important resources or transfer public resources to private resources at the command of a few is worrying and it shows us clearly the mistake of removing the fundamental right to property through the 44th Amendment.

This is because unlike some other countries like China or Russia the property of the well-to-do sections is not the target. Instead, in India it is the lower and middle income segments who have suffered the most due to arbitrary executive actions that led to loss of property.

Similarly, with the rise of new technologies, there is an increased tendency by executive wing to erode important rights enshrined in the name of 'public interest'. This is worrying because, increasingly digital and new technologies have been the platform for people to express themselves and hence any erosion of their rights in that area will automatically mean reduced right to various freedoms as enshrined under Articles 19 and 21.

(The views expressed in this article are author's personal)