Introduction:
We need to have some rules to govern a country or an institution.
Such rules are made after reaching a consensus.
The aggregate of such rules is called constitution.
A political party, club, RWA (Residents Welfare Association), cricket team, etc. generally has a constitution.
Similarly, every country has a constitution which gives guidelines on how to form and run a government and which kinds of rights are given to citizens.
It is not necessary that a country with a constitution is a democratic country.
But a democratic country always has a constitution.
In this lesson, you will learn about the making of the Constitution of India and about certain values described in the constitution.
This lesson begins with the history behind making of the Constitution of India.
After that, you will learn about the Constituent Assembly which was formed in order to make the constitution.
At the end of the lesson, you will learn about the meaning of keywords given in the Preamble of the Constitution.
Democratic constitution in South Africa:
Struggle against apartheid:
Apartheid was the name of a system of racial discrimination unique to South Africa.
The white Europeans imposed this system on South Africa.
The system of apartheid divided the people and labeled them on the basis of their skin colour.
The native people of South Africa are black in colour. They made up about three fourth of the population and were called ‘blacks’.
Besides these two groups, there were people of mixed races who were called ‘coloured’ and people who migrated from India. The white rulers treated all non-whites as inferiors.
The non-whites did not have voting rights.
Blacks were forbidden from living in white areas.
They could work in white areas only if they had a permit.
They could not even visit the churches where the whites worshipped.
Blacks could not form associations or protest against the terrible treatment.
Policy of apartheid opposed by people of South Africa:
They launched protest marches and strikes.
The African National Congress (ANC) was the umbrella organisation that led the struggle against the policies of segregation.
This included many workers’ unions and the Communist Party.
Many sensitive whites also joined the ANC to oppose apartheid and played a leading role in this struggle. Several countries denounced apartheid as unjust and racist.
But the white racist government continued to rule by detaining, torturing and killing thousands of black and coloured people.
Nelson Mandela and seven other leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 for daring to oppose the apartheid regime in his country. He spent the next 28 years in South Africa’s most dreaded prison, Robben Island.
Towards a new constitution:
End of Apartheid
As protests and struggles against apartheid had increased, the government realised that they could no longer keep the blacks under their rule through repression.
The white regime changed its policies.
Discriminatory laws were repealed.
Ban on political parties and restrictions on the media were lifted.
Finally, at the midnight of 26April 1994, the new national flag of the Republic of South Africa was unfurled marking the newly born democracy in the world.
The apartheid government came to an end, paving way for the formation of a multi racial government.
Features of the S. African Constitution
South African Constitution is based on equality of all races and men and women, on democratic values, social justice and human rights.
After the emergency of the new democratic South Africa, black leaders appealed to the fellow blacks to for given the whites for the cruilties they had committed while in power.
The party that ruled through oppression and brutal killing and the party that led the freedom struggle sat together to draw up a common constitution.
After two years of discussion and debate they came out with one of the finest constitutions the world has ever had.
This constitution gave to it citizens the most extensive rights available in any country.
Together they decided that in the search for a solution to the problems, nobody, should be excluded, no one should be treated as a demon.
They agreed that everybody should become part of the solution, whatever they might have done or represented in the past.
The South African constitution inspires democrats all over the world.
A state denounced by the entire world till recently as the most undemocratic one is now seen as a model of democracy.
Why do we need a constitution?
The only way to build and maintain trust in a country having wide diversities is to write down some rules that everyone would abide by.
These rules lay down how the rulers are to be chosen in future.
These rules also determine what the elected governments are empowered to do and what they cannot do.
Finally these rules decide the rights of the citizen.
These rules will work only if the winner cannot change them very easily.
This is what the South Africans did.
They agreed on some basic rules.
They also agreed that these rules will be supreme, that no government will be able to ignore these. This set of basic rules is called a constitution.
Every country has diverse groups of people.
Their relationship may not have been very bad.
But all over the world people have differences of opinion and interests.
Whether democratic or not, most countries in the world need to have these basic rules.
Constitution and its contents:
The constitution of a country is a set of written rules that are accepted by all people living together in a country.
Constitution is the supreme law that determines the relationship among people living in a territory (called citizens) and also the relationship between the people and government.
A constitution does many things –
First, it generates a degree of trust and coordination that is necessary for different kind of people to live together.
Second, it specifies how the government will be constituted, who will have power to take which decisions.
Third, it lays down limits on the powers of the government and tells us what the rights of the citizens are.
Fourth, it expresses the aspirations of the people about creating a good society.
All countries that have constitutions are not necessarily democratic.
But all countries that are democratic will have constitutions.
Making of the Indian constitution:
Making of the Indian constitution was a difficult task.
The making of the constitution for a huge and diverse country like India was not an easy affair.
At that time the people of India were emerging from the status of subjects to that of citizens.
The country was born through a partition on the basis of religious differences.
The British had left it to the rulers of the princely states to decide whether they wanted to merge with India or with Pakistan or remain independent.
The merger of these princely states was a difficult and uncertain task.
The makers of the constitution had anxieties about the present and the future of the country
The path to Constitution:
The making of the Indian Constitution was different from the making of the Constitution of S. Africa.
Unlike South Africa, they did not have to create a consensus about what a democratic India should look like.
Much of this consensus had evolved during the freedom struggle.
Our national movement was not merely a struggle against a foreign rule.
It was also a struggle to rejuvenate our country and to transform our society and politics.
There were sharp differences of opinion within the freedom struggle about the path India should take after Independence.
Yet some basic ideas had come to be accepted by almost everyone.
Factors contributing in the making of the Indian Constitution:
In 1928, Motilal Nehru and eight other Congress leaders drafted a constitution for India.
In 1931, the resolution at the Karachi session of the Indian National Congress dwelt on how independent India’s constitution should look like.
Both these documents were committed to the Inclusion of universal adult franchise, right to freedom and equality and to protecting the rights of minorities in the constitution of independent India.
The familiarity with political institutions of colonial rule also helped develop an agreement over the institutional design.
The experience gained by Indians in the working of the legislative institutions proved to be very useful for the country in setting up its own Institutions and working in them.
Indian constitution adopted many institutional details and procedures from colonial laws like the Government of India Act, 1935.
Years of thinking deliberations on the framework of the constitution had another benefit.
Many of our leaders were inspired by the ideals o French Revolution, the practice of parliamentary democracy in Britain and the Bill of Rights in the US.
The socialist revolution in Russia had inspirer many Indians to think of shaping a system based on social and economic equality.
All these factors contributed to the making of our Constitution.
The Constituent Assembly:
The drafting of the document called the constitution was done by an assembly of elected representatives called the Constituent Assembly.
Elections to the Constituent Assembly were held in July 1946.
Its first meeting was held in December 1946.
The Constituent Assembly that wrote the Indian constitution had 299 members.
The Assembly adopted the Constitution on 26 November 1949 but it came into effect on 26 January 1950.
To mark this day we celebrate January 26 as Republic Day every year.
Why should we accept the Constitution made by this Assembly more than fifty years ago?
The Constitution does not reflect the views of its members alone.
It expresses a broad consensus of its time.
Over the last half a century, several groups have questioned some provisions of the Constitution.
But no large social group or political party has ever questioned the legitimacy of the Constitution itself.
Another reason for accepting the Constitution is that the Constituent Assembly represented the people of India, and ensured a fair geographical share of members from all the regions of the country.
The Assembly was dominated by the Indian National Congress, the party that led India’s freedom struggle.
But the Congress itself included a variety of political groups and opinions.
The Assembly had many members who did not agree with the Congress.
In social terms too, the Assembly represented members from different language groups, castes, classes, religions and occupations.
Finally, the manner in which the Constituent Assembly worked gives sanctity to the Constitution.
The Constituent Assembly worked in a systematic, open and consensual manner.
Working of the Constituent Assembly:
First some basic principles were decided and agreed upon.
Then a Drafting Committee chaired by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar prepared a draft constitution for discussion.
Several rounds of thorough discussion took place on the Draft Constitution, clause by clause.
More than two thousand amendments were considered.
The members deliberated for 114 days spread over three years.
Every document presented and every word spoken in the Constituent Assembly has been recorded and preserved. These are called ‘Constituent Assembly Debates’.
When printed, these debates were 12 bulky volumes.
The Drafting Committee had handwritten and calligraphed the constitution – both in English and in Hindi. There was no typing or print involved.
Guiding values of the Indian Constitution:
The Dream and the Promise:
Mahatma Gandhi, years ago, writing in his magazine Young India in 1931. Had spelt out what he wanted the constitution to do.
I shall strive for a constitution which will release India from all thralldom and patronage …
I shall work for an India in which the poorest shall feel that it is their country in whose making they have an effective voice;
An India in which there shall be no high class and low class of people; an India in which all communities shall live in perfect harmony.
There can be no room in such an India for the curse of untouchability or the curse of the intoxicating drinks and drugs.
Women will enjoy the same rights as men … I shall be satisfied with nothing else.
This dream of an India that has eliminated inequality was shared by Dr. Ambedkar, who played a key role in the making of the Constitution but he had a different understanding of how inequalities could be removed. He often bitterly criticised Mahatma Gandhi and his vision. In his concluding speech to the Constituent Assembly he stated his anxiety very clearly.
On the 26th of January 1950 we are going to enter a life of contradictions.
In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality.
In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value.
In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value.
How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?
How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life?
If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril.
Finally let us turn to Jawaharlal Nehru giving his famous speech to the ALL Constituent Assembly at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947.
Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny tryst with destiny tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.
A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.
It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity …
Freedom and power bring responsibility.
The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India.
Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow.
Some of those pains continue even now.
Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today.
The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer.
It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.
The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye.
That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
Philosophy of the Constitution:
Preamble of the Indian Constitution
Taking inspiration from the America model most countries of the modern world have chosen to begin the Constitutions with a preamble.
India has also done so.
The preamble to the Indian Constitution incorporates all the guiding values inspired and nurtured by the Freedom Struggle.
Preamble – Soul of the Indian Constitution:
Values that inspired and guided the freedom struggle and were in turn nurtured by it, formed the foundation for India’s democracy.
These values are embedded in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.
They guide all the articles of the Indian Constitution.
The Constitution begins with a short statement of its basic values.
This is called the Preamble to the constitution.
The Preamble contains the philosophy on which the entire Constitution has been built.
It provides a standard to examine and evaluate any law and action of government, to find out whether it is good or bad.
It is the soul of the Indian Constitution.
Constitutional Amendment:
Constitution of India is a very long and detailed document.
Therefore it needs to be amended quite regularly to keep it updated.
Those who crafted the Indian Constitution felt that it has to be in accordance with people’s aspirations and changes in society.
They did not see it as a sacred, static and unalterable law So, they made provisions to incorporate changes from time to time.
These changes are called constitutional amendments.
Institutional design:
The Indian Constitution lays down a procedure for choosing persons to govern the country.
It defines who will have how much power to take which decisions.
And it puts limits to what the government can do by providing some rights to the citizens that cannot be violated.
India has the longest constitution in the world. It has 448 articles, 12 schedules and 100 amendments.
