As India completes 60 years of its Republic, the diamond jubilee of its Constitution, those words, that had been spoken by Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India in 1927, still resound in our ears.
He said sarcastically in the House of Commons while challenging Indians: Let them produce a Constitution which carries behind it a fair measure of general agreement among the great people of India.
19 years later, exactly at 11 in the morning on December 9, 1946, when L B Kripalani proposed the name of Sachchidananda Sinha for the temporary chairmanship of the Constituent Assembly, the making of that Constitution got off to an exciting finish.
The moment had typified a clean break from the imperialistic ideas that never predicted Constitutional government for Indian settings.
According to the British rulers, what they termed oriental despotism, benign dictatorship, was the best form of government for the country.
On January 25, 1910, using the defence of Indian traditions, Lord Minto, the Viceroy put it thus: We have distinctly maintained that representative government, in its western sense, is totally inapplicable to the Indian empire.
Writing in his book on the Indian Constitution, however, Granville
Austin, an American Constitutional expert dubbed the making of Indian Constitution as the greatest political venture since 1787 in Philadelphia, where the American Constitutional Convention had taken place.
But Indian leaders, most of them who had visited England, did not agree to their masters analysis of the Indian circumstances, and religiously pressed for legal reforms and Constitutional form of government that is representative in nature.
The clearest expression for Constitution, the National Demand,
ricocheted for the first time on February 8, 1924, when Motilal Nehru introduced a resolution in the Central Legislative Assembly, asking the British government to announce a scheme of a Constitution for India.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India even
believed that the Parliamentary democracy was in keeping with our own old traditions.
The Constituent Assembly that acted as the Parliament in the morning, would meet in the afternoon to draft the Constitution in the Central Hall of the Parliament, which has one of the most magnificent domes, 29.9 meters in diameter and 36 meters in height, in the world.
The Constitution, that emerged from this hall on November 26, 1949, was the longest in the world, and had 395 articles in its corpus.
The document provided and guaranteed, such as Parliamentary democracy, republicanism, sovereignty, adult franchise, LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, right to life, EQUALITY of status and of opportunity and social, economic, political justice and unity and integrity of the Nation.
It gave everything at least on paper to its citizens what it takes to be in the league of the most advanced nations of the world.
And where the Western world had to go through a bloody experience, such as French Revolution, conflicts between state and church and American civil War to reach this stage to name a few, India got it in less than three years without that kind of blood baths and resistance.
When the Constitution came into force on January 26, 1950, turning India into a republic state, Many knowledgeable Western friends once again predicted it will not work in a country that is so diverse, poorer and illiterate.
According to them, India would collapse like a pack of cards under the weight of its own Constitution. Even the date was set for its disintegration as a democratic state.
Selig S Harrison, who was an American journalist, predicted in 1960: The odds are almost wholly against the survival of freedom and ...the issue is, in fact, whether any Indian state can survive at all.
In 1967, another American journalist Neville Maxwell, in a series of articles, Indias Disintegrating Democracy declared, The great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework has failed. According to him the fourth general elections were bound to be the last one.
Noticeably barring a little blip from 1975 to 1977, when Indira
Gandhi, the Prime Minister, had imposed the national Emergency, the Constitution has successfully completed its 60 years in service.
Gandhi brought about the 42nd Amendment in 1976, Which empowered the Parliament to affect any kind of modification in the Constitution, disallowing judicial review of those changes.
At one point of time, in one of the landmark judgements, Golak Nath case, The supreme Court had even held that the fundamental rights engrafted in the Constitution are transcendental and immutable, although this decision was overruled in Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala in 1973.
In this case, the court, acknowledging the power of the Parliament of amending the Constitution, coined a new concept of basic structure, and ruled the Parliament can not strip the Constitution of its basic structure.
The same decision was reaffirmed after the 42nd Amendment in Minerva Mills v Union of India saying that the judicial review is the part of the basic structure and can not be amended, so the latest position is still the same that the Parliament can amend the Constitution but can not destroy its basic structure.
While speaking about the life of a Constitution, John Marshall, an
American Chief Justice, once said, A Constitution is framed for ages to come, but its course cannot always be tranquil.
In 2000 the BJP-led NDA government set up a Constitution Review Commission, headed by P A Sangma, the former Lok Sabha Speaker, to study whether the Constitution required any change after being in service for 50 years.
However, K R Narainan, The President of India, asked people to ponder while addressing the Parliament in a chicken and egg quandary style whether Constitution had failed to live up to their expectations, or they had failed to live up to the provisions of the Constitution.
In the report, which the commission submitted, did not recommend any change except in the provisions that define Centre-states relations.
B R Ambedkar, who headed the Drafting Committee, said about
Constitutions ability to work: It is workable, it is flexible and it
is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution.
What we will have to say is that man is vile.
In 1999, while presenting the report card on its performance, Austin wrote: Looking back over fifty years, I am struck by the extent to which the framers were successful in articulating the nations goals and in designing the necessary governing structures. The Constitution has served the nation remarkably well.
Indian Constitution: Sixty years of our faith
He said sarcastically in the House of Commons while challenging Indians: Let them produce a Constitution which carries behind it a fair measure of general agreement among the great people of India.
19 years later, exactly at 11 in the morning on December 9, 1946, when L B Kripalani proposed the name of Sachchidananda Sinha for the temporary chairmanship of the Constituent Assembly, the making of that Constitution got off to an exciting finish.
The moment had typified a clean break from the imperialistic ideas that never predicted Constitutional government for Indian settings.
According to the British rulers, what they termed oriental despotism, benign dictatorship, was the best form of government for the country.
On January 25, 1910, using the defence of Indian traditions, Lord Minto, the Viceroy put it thus: We have distinctly maintained that representative government, in its western sense, is totally inapplicable to the Indian empire.
Writing in his book on the Indian Constitution, however, Granville
Austin, an American Constitutional expert dubbed the making of Indian Constitution as the greatest political venture since 1787 in Philadelphia, where the American Constitutional Convention had taken place.
But Indian leaders, most of them who had visited England, did not agree to their masters analysis of the Indian circumstances, and religiously pressed for legal reforms and Constitutional form of government that is representative in nature.
The clearest expression for Constitution, the National Demand,
ricocheted for the first time on February 8, 1924, when Motilal Nehru introduced a resolution in the Central Legislative Assembly, asking the British government to announce a scheme of a Constitution for India.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India even
believed that the Parliamentary democracy was in keeping with our own old traditions.
The Constituent Assembly that acted as the Parliament in the morning, would meet in the afternoon to draft the Constitution in the Central Hall of the Parliament, which has one of the most magnificent domes, 29.9 meters in diameter and 36 meters in height, in the world.
The Constitution, that emerged from this hall on November 26, 1949, was the longest in the world, and had 395 articles in its corpus.
The document provided and guaranteed, such as Parliamentary democracy, republicanism, sovereignty, adult franchise, LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, right to life, EQUALITY of status and of opportunity and social, economic, political justice and unity and integrity of the Nation.
It gave everything at least on paper to its citizens what it takes to be in the league of the most advanced nations of the world.
And where the Western world had to go through a bloody experience, such as French Revolution, conflicts between state and church and American civil War to reach this stage to name a few, India got it in less than three years without that kind of blood baths and resistance.
When the Constitution came into force on January 26, 1950, turning India into a republic state, Many knowledgeable Western friends once again predicted it will not work in a country that is so diverse, poorer and illiterate.
According to them, India would collapse like a pack of cards under the weight of its own Constitution. Even the date was set for its disintegration as a democratic state.
Selig S Harrison, who was an American journalist, predicted in 1960: The odds are almost wholly against the survival of freedom and ...the issue is, in fact, whether any Indian state can survive at all.
In 1967, another American journalist Neville Maxwell, in a series of articles, Indias Disintegrating Democracy declared, The great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework has failed. According to him the fourth general elections were bound to be the last one.
Noticeably barring a little blip from 1975 to 1977, when Indira
Gandhi, the Prime Minister, had imposed the national Emergency, the Constitution has successfully completed its 60 years in service.
Gandhi brought about the 42nd Amendment in 1976, Which empowered the Parliament to affect any kind of modification in the Constitution, disallowing judicial review of those changes.
At one point of time, in one of the landmark judgements, Golak Nath case, The supreme Court had even held that the fundamental rights engrafted in the Constitution are transcendental and immutable, although this decision was overruled in Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala in 1973.
In this case, the court, acknowledging the power of the Parliament of amending the Constitution, coined a new concept of basic structure, and ruled the Parliament can not strip the Constitution of its basic structure.
The same decision was reaffirmed after the 42nd Amendment in Minerva Mills v Union of India saying that the judicial review is the part of the basic structure and can not be amended, so the latest position is still the same that the Parliament can amend the Constitution but can not destroy its basic structure.
While speaking about the life of a Constitution, John Marshall, an
American Chief Justice, once said, A Constitution is framed for ages to come, but its course cannot always be tranquil.
In 2000 the BJP-led NDA government set up a Constitution Review Commission, headed by P A Sangma, the former Lok Sabha Speaker, to study whether the Constitution required any change after being in service for 50 years.
However, K R Narainan, The President of India, asked people to ponder while addressing the Parliament in a chicken and egg quandary style whether Constitution had failed to live up to their expectations, or they had failed to live up to the provisions of the Constitution.
In the report, which the commission submitted, did not recommend any change except in the provisions that define Centre-states relations.
B R Ambedkar, who headed the Drafting Committee, said about
Constitutions ability to work: It is workable, it is flexible and it
is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution.
What we will have to say is that man is vile.
In 1999, while presenting the report card on its performance, Austin wrote: Looking back over fifty years, I am struck by the extent to which the framers were successful in articulating the nations goals and in designing the necessary governing structures. The Constitution has served the nation remarkably well.
Indian Constitution: Sixty years of our faith
