The Constitution of India: A Contextual Analysis (2017) PDF

THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA This book provides an overview of the content and functioning of the Indian Constitution, with an emphasis on the broader socio-political context. It focuses on the overarching principles and the main institu- tions of constitutional governance that the world’s longest written con- stitution inaugurated in 1950. The nine chapters of the book deal with specific aspects of the Indian constitutional tradition as it has evolved across seven decades of India’s existence as an independent nation. Beginning with the pre-history of the Constitution and its making, the book moves onto an examination of the structural features and actual operation of the Constitution’s principal governance institutions. These include the executive and the parliament, the institutions of federal- ism and local government, and the judiciary. An unusual feature of Indian constitutionalism that is highlighted here is the role played by technocratic institutions such as the Election Commission, the Comp- troller and Auditor General, and a set of new regulatory institutions, most of which were created during the 1990s. A considerable portion of the book evaluates issues relating to constitutional rights, directive principles and the constitutional regulation of multiple forms of iden- tity in India. The important issue of constitutional change in India is approached from an atypical perspective. The book employs a narrative form to describe the twists, turns and challenges confronted across nearly seven decades of the working of the constitutional order. It departs from conventional Indian constitu- tional scholarship in placing less emphasis on constitutional doctrine (as evolved in judicial decisions delivered by the High Courts and the Supreme Court). Instead, the book turns the spotlight on the political bargains and extra-legal developments that have influenced constitu- tional evolution. Written in accessible prose that avoids undue legal jargon, the book aims at a general audience that is interested in understanding the com- plex yet fascinating challenges posed by constitutionalism in India. Its unconventional approach to some classic issues will stimulate the more seasoned student of constitutional law and politics. Constitutional Systems of the World General Editors: Benjamin L Berger, Rosalind Dixon, Andrew Harding, Peter Leyland and Heinz Klug In the era of globalisation, issues of constitutional law and good gover- nance are being seen increasingly as vital issues in all types of society. Since the end of the Cold War, there have been dramatic developments in demo- cratic and legal reform, and post-conflict societies are also in the throes of reconstructing their governance systems. Even societies already firmly based on constitutional governance and the rule of law have undergone constitutional change and experimentation with new forms of governance; and their constitutional systems are increasingly subjected to comparative analysis and transplantation. Constitutional texts for practically every coun- try in the world are now easily available on the internet. However, texts which enable one to understand the true context, purposes, interpretation and incidents of a constitutional system are much harder to locate, and are often extremely detailed and descriptive. This series seeks to provide schol- ars and students with accessible introductions to the constitutional systems of the world, supplying both a road map for the novice and, at the same time, a deeper understanding of the key historical, political and legal events which have shaped the constitutional landscape of each country. Each book in this series deals with a single country, or a group of countries with a common constitutional history, and each author is an expert in their field. Published volumes The Constitution of the United Kingdom; The Constitution of the United States; The Constitution of Vietnam; The Constitution of South Africa; The Constitution of Japan; The Constitution of Germany; The Constitution of Finland; The Constitution of Australia; The Constitution of the Republic of Austria; The Constitution of the Russian Federation; The Constitutional System of Thailand; The Constitution of Malaysia; The Constitution of China; The Constitution of Indonesia; The Constitution of France; The Constitution of Spain; The Constitution of Mexico; The Constitution of Israel; The Constitutional Systems of the Commonwealth Caribbean; The Constitution of Canada; The Constitution of Singapore; The Constitution of Belgium; The Constitution of Taiwan; The Constitution of Romania; The Constitutional Systems of the Independent Central Asian States; The Constitution of Pakistan Link to series website www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/series/ constitutional-systems-of-the-world The Constitution of India A Contextual Analysis Arun K Thiruvengadam OXFORD AND PORTLAND, OREGON 2017 Hart Publishing An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Hart Publishing Ltd Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Kemp House 50 Bedford Square Chawley Park London Cumnor Hill WC1B 3DP Oxford OX2 9PH UK UK www.hartpub.co.uk www.bloomsbury.com Published in North America (US and Canada) by Hart Publishing c/o International Specialized Book Services 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, OR 97213-3786 USA www.isbs.com HART PUBLISHING, the Hart/Stag logo, BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Arun K Thiruvengadam 2017 Arun K Thiruvengadam has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. While every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of this work, no responsibility for loss or damage occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of any statement in it can be accepted by the authors, editors or publishers. All UK Government legislation and other public sector information used in the work is Crown Copyright ©. All House of Lords and House of Commons information used in the work is Parliamentary Copyright ©. This information is reused under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3) except where otherwise stated. All Eur-lex material used in the work is © European Union, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/, 1998–2017. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: PB: 978-1-84113-736-0 ePDF: 978-1-84946-870-1 ePub: 978-1-84946-869-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Thiruvengadam, Arun K., author. Title: The constitution of India : a contextual analysis / Arun K Thiruvengadam. Description: Portland, Oregon : Hart Publishing, 2017. | Series: Constitutional systems of the world | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017042042 (print) | LCCN 2017042423 (ebook) | ISBN 9781849468695 (Epub) | ISBN 9781841137360 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: India. Constitution. | Constitutional law—India. Classification: LCC KNS1744.5195 (ebook) | LCC KNS1744.5195 T49 2018 (print) | DDC 342.5402—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042042 Typeset by Compuscript Ltd, Shannon To find out more about our authors and books visit www.hartpublishing.co.uk. Here you will find extracts, author information, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. For Sanjana and Ghazal: cherished lodestars vi Acknowledgements This book has been seven years in the making, and owes its origin, con- tent and final form to a variety of encounters, both professional and personal. My biggest debt is to Andrew Harding, who persuaded me to take on this assignment, was its driving force (especially in periods when I myself did not believe I was the person to complete it), and used an intriguing array of manoeuvres to ensure that it was completed, even if well beyond the original timeline. For his patience, unwavering support and belief I shall remain grateful to Andrew. This book project was conceived while I was based at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and was supported by a research grant from the Singapore Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund (MOE AcRF #R-241-000-104-112). Colleagues at NUS who provided support in multiple ways include Ho Hock Lai, Kevin Tan, Arif Jamal, Umakanth Varottil, Victor Ramraj, Gary Bell, Tracey Evans Chan, Michael Hor, Terry Kaan, Alex Loke, Michael Ewing- Chow, Michael Dowdle, Jaclyn Neo, Swati Jhaveri, Tony Anghie, and M Sornarajah. I completed much of the writing of this project at the School of Policy and Governance (SPG), Azim Premji University (APU), Bangalore. I presented drafts of two chapters of this book at the weekly Faculty SPG seminar and received excellent feedback from the following colleagues: Sitharamam Kakarala, A Narayana, Srikrishna Ayyangar, Mathew Idiculla, Vishnupad, Malini Bhattacharjee, Nigam Nuggehalli and Sudhir Krishnaswamy. Communities of scholars are vital to sustain both the spirit and material output of research and writing. I am fortunate to have found such support beyond the institutional and university settings mentioned earlier. I thank Vikram Raghavan, V Venkatesan, Nick Robinson, Madhav Khosla, Douglas McDonald-Norman, Arvind Narrain, Tarunabh Khaitan, Clark Lombardi, Sitharamam Kakarala, Mathew John, Victor Ramraj, Sunil Khilnani, Jothie Rajah, Philipp Dann, Siddharth Narrain, Mayur Suresh, Asanga Welikala, Harshan Kumarasingham, Lawrence Liang and Rohit De, who have been fellow travellers on a range of academic and intellectual projects, including those that fed this specific assignment. viii Acknowledgements This book project has benefited from the synergies between teach- ing, research and writing. It was the joy of exchanging ideas and debat- ing with students while teaching as a graduate student that convinced me to become an academic. The book’s content was formatively influ- enced by the course on the ‘Contemporary Indian Legal System’ that I taught at NUS between 2007 and 2015. I remain grateful to the many students who took this course across several years, and particularly to N Sandeepan, Nancy Lalruatkimi and Devashish Dhar, who served as my earliest research assistants. The book has similarly benefited from courses on the Indian Constitution that I taught at the Central European University, the University of Toronto and the University of Trento. At APU, students in two batches of the MPG course on ‘Con- stitutional Foundations of the State in India’ helped me in ways that they may never fully know. Students in the inaugural batch of the LLM in Law and Development helped me polish some of my overall themes by their active participation. A motivating hope for this book, given the dearth of such works, is that it will aid other students in grappling with the complexities of Indian constitutionalism. My work as a teacher makes me acutely aware of the formative roles performed by teachers in my own intellectual development. The influence of my first constitutional law teachers—Professors T Devidas, VS Mallar and V Vijayakumar—at the National Law School, Bangalore bears mentioning because they instilled in me a lifelong fascination for the subject. Other teachers who provided stimulation and models to emulate in teaching, writing and living include: Profes- sors Babu Mathew, A Jayagovind, G Ajjappa, Sitharamam Kakarala, Frank Upham, Holly Maguigan, Diana Hortsch, Derrick Bell Jr, Mattias Kumm, Pasquale Pasquino, Burt Neuborne, Joseph Weiler and Thomas M Franck. We often gain teachers in persons who never taught us formally. Foremost among these is Professor MP Singh, whom I was fortunate to meet at a pivotal time and has been a constant source of encouragement and support across a dozen years. Professor Singh was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the book project and egged me on to complete when my spirits were flagging. I have been similarly fortunate in my associations with Michael Hor, Victor Ramraj and Roberto Toniatti. Ashna Ashesh, Anshuman Singh, Douglas McDonald-Norman and Prarthana Krishnamurthy read several draft chapters and offered constructive criticism, and morale-boosting praise. Benjamin Berger’s Acknowledgements ix editorial comments were similarly extremely valuable. The opportunity of working with Putachad Leyland on the cover was a major incen- tive to complete the writing. Her novel and unique interpretations of Indian culture, art and constitutional experience bring a freshness to these themes which are as vibrant as the colours she weaves into her paintings. I am deeply grateful to the librarians at the CJ Koh Law Library at NUS (and to Carolyn Wee in particular) and the APU library (and to Suresh B Balatugi, Sachin Tirlapur and Praveena CS in particular). Carolyn Fox improved the text considerably during the copy-editing process and deserves special mention. Anne Flegel managed the publi- cation process adroitly, and I thank her and the entire Hart Publishing team for their help in facilitating the final form of the book. Prarthana Krishnamurthy provided crucial inputs at the copy-editing and proof- reading stages. A number of friends contributed through their support and cama- raderie to the completion of the book project. They include NK Dilip and Arpita Sen; RV Anuradha and Piyush Joshi; Swapna Umakanth and V Umakanth; Shona Malvi and Senthil Ramamoorthy; Jayna Kothari and Sudhir Krishnaswamy; Esha Shah and Sitharamam Kakarala; Sanjay Awasthi and Prarthana Krishnamurthy; Sridhar Arunachalam; and Karthik Chandresekaran. Members of my immediate family deserve special mention for their fortitude and for assisting the project in myriad ways. My mother, Chandraleka Thiruvengadam, fostered my love of reading and will, I hope, be happy to see this in its final form. My brother, Ajay Thiruvengadam, had to bear burdens that should have been mine and I am grateful to him. My parents-in-law, Sudha Baweja and Brij Mohan Baweja, pitched in on multiple occasions and through various ways, as did Shebani and Mohit Baweja. This book is dedicated to Sanjana and Ghazal who, through their presence and love, provided the motivation for persevering with it. They have come to view the project as an inanimate competitor for the time that they have a legitimate claim upon. I fervently hope they will see this book differently when they are old enough to engage with its content. At that time, I hope it will enable them to appreciate some aspects of the exasperating but ceaselessly fascinating nation that they are bound to by the bonds of descent. x Contents Acknowledgements vii Table of Cases xv Table of Legislation xvii INTRODUCTION 1 I. The Constitution of India and Its Special Significance 1 II. Approach and Orientation of the Book 5 III. Brief Outline of Chapters 8 1. ORIGINS AND CRAFTING OF THE CONSTITUTION 11 I. Introduction 11 II. The Mughals and the East India Company (1550–1857) 13 III. The British Raj and Colonial Forms of Constitutional Government (1858–1947)—A Bird’s Eye View 16 IV. The Nationalist Movement and the Build-up of Attempts at Constitution Making (1895–1947)— A Worm’s Eye View 22 V. Crafting a Constitution for Independent India: The Work of the Constituent Assembly 26 VI. Conclusion 36 Further Reading 37 2. THE EXECUTIVE AND PARLIAMENT 39 I. Introduction 39 II. Brief Overview of Relevant Constitutional Provisions 41 III. Pre-history, Colonial Experiences and Debates within the Constituent Assembly 44 IV. Brief Overview of Evolution of the Indian Political Landscape through the Prism of Electoral Results and Party Politics 51 V. The Changing Role of Parliament in Indian Constitutional Democracy 62 xii Contents VI. Significant Judicial Pronouncements on Constitutional Provisions Relating to the Executive and Parliament 66 VII. Conclusion 68 Further Reading 68 3. FEDERALISM AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT 71 I. Introduction 71 II. The Colonial Period and Its Influence on Later Constitutional Developments Relating to Federalism and Local Government 73 III. Understanding the Centralising Bias within the Constituent Assembly 77 IV. The Structure and Content of Provisions in the Indian Constitution on Federalism and their Evolution Over Time 79 V. The Structure and Content of Provisions in the Indian Constitution on Local Government and their Evolution Over Time 93 VI. Conclusion 98 Further Reading 100 4. FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS, DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE JUDICIARY 101 I. Introduction 101 II. Relevant Constitutional Provisions: Textual Categorisation and Analysis 103 III. The Constitutional History of Provisions Relating to Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and the Judiciary 113 IV. The Supreme Court and Its Role as Guardian of the Rights Provisions (1950–2016) 118 V. The Crisis of Backlog and Delay in the Indian Judiciary 135 VI. Conclusion 137 Further Reading 137 5. TECHNOCRATIC CONSTITUTIONAL INSTITUTIONS 139 I. Introduction 139 II. Reflecting on the Motivations of the Framers for Entrenching Technocratic Constitutional Institutions 140 III. The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General 141 Contents xiii IV. The Election Commission of India 148 V. The Introduction of New Regulatory Institutions in the Aftermath of the Constitutional Moment of 1991 157 VI. Conclusion 161 Further Reading 162 6. CONSTITUTIONAL REGULATION OF INDIA’S MULTIPLE IDENTITIES 163 I. Introduction 163 II. Relevant Constitutional Provisions 168 III. Relevant Constitution-making History 174 IV. Post-independence Evolution of the Law on the Markers of Indian Identity 184 V. Conclusion 205 Further Reading 206 7. CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE 207 I. Introduction 207 II. Relevant Constitutional Provisions and Constitutional History 208 III. Constitutional Practice in Relation to the Amending Power in India: An Overview and Analysis of Trends (1950–2016) 215 IV. Constitutional Interpretation as a Source of Constitutional Change 220 V. Constitutional Change through Constitutional Moments 229 VI. Conclusion 230 Further Reading 230 CONCLUSION 233 I. Introduction 233 II. A Brief Overview of Prime Minister Modi’s Tenure (2014–17) through a Constitutional Lens 234 III. Assessing India’s Constitutional Trajectory Across Seven Decades (1947–2017) 240 IV. Concluding Reflections 251 Further Reading 253 Index 255 xiv Table of Cases ADM Jabalpur v Shivkant Shukla, AIR 1976 SC 1207 126–27 Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation v Nawab Khan (1997) 11 SCC 123 129 AK Gopalan v State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 27 120 Ammini EJ v Union of India, AIR 1995 Ker 252 198 Arvind Gupta v Union of India (2013) SCC 293 148 Ashoka Kumar Thakur v Union of India (2008) 6 SCC 1 194, 203 Balaji v State of Mysore, AIR 1963 SC 649 192 Bharti Press, In re, AIR 1951 Pat 21 221 Brij Bhushan v State of Delhi, AIR 1950 SC 129 121 Champakam Dorairajan v State of Madras, AIR 1951 SC 226 121–22, 190–91 Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v Sri Lakshmindra TS of Sri Shirur Mutt, AIR 1954 SC 282 200 Consumer Education and Research Centre v Union of India, AIR 1995 SC 922 129 Daniel Latifi v Union of India (2001) 7 SCC 740 197 Delhi Transport Department, Suo Moto proceedings in re (1998) 9 SCC 250 130–31 Dr Ashok v Union of India (1997) 5 SCC 10 131 Fazlul Quader Chowdhry v Mohd. Abdul Haque, 1963 PLD 486 223 Frank Anthony Public School Employees Association v Union of India (1986) 4 SCC 707 203 Githa Hariharan v Reserve Bank of India (1999) 2 SCC 228 198 Golakh Nath v State of Punjab (1970) 1 SCC 248 123, 125, 224–26 Gujarat University v Sri Krishna (1963) Supp 1 SCR 112 202 Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain, AIR 1975 SC 2299 228 Indra Sawhney v Union of India (1992) Supp (3) SCC 217 193 Kameshwar Singh v The State of Bihar, AIR 1951 Patna 91 121, 221 Kerala Education Bill, In re (1959) SCR 995 202 Kesavananda Bharathi v State of Kerala (1973) 4 SCC 225 125, 223, 225–28 Madhavrao Scindia v Union of India, AIR 1971 SC 530 124 Maneka Gandhi v Union of India, AIR 1978 SC 597 127 MC Mehta v Union of India (1998) 9 SCC 711 131 Minerva Mills v Union of India, AIR 1978 SC 1789 129, 228 Mohd. Ahmed Khan v Shah Bano Begum, AIR 1985 SC 945 197, 201 Mohd. Hanif Qureshi & Others v the State of Bihar (1959) SCR 629 201 Mohini Jain v State of Karnataka, AIR 1992 SC 1858 129 Olga Tellis v Bombay Municipal Corporation, AIR 1985 SC 180 129 PA Inamdar v State of Maharashtra (2005) 6 SCC 537 193 xvi Table of Cases Paschim Banga Khet Samity v State of West Bengal, AIR 1996 SC 2426 129 Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust v Union of India (2014) 8 SCC 1 204 Rajbala v State of Haryana (2016) 1 SCC 463 152 Ram Jawaya Kapur v State of Punjab AIR 1955 SC 549 66 Ramesh Y Prabhoo v P. K. Kunte (1996), AIR 1958 SC 1918 202 Rameshwar Prasad v Union of India, AIR 2006 SC 980 86 RC Cooper v Union of India (1971) 1 SCC 85 124 Research Foundation for Science and Technology v Union of India (1997) 5 SCALE 495 131 Romesh Thapar v State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 124 121 St Xavier’s College v State of Gujarat (1975) 1 SCR 173 203 Sajjan Singh v State of Rajasthan, AIR 1965 SC 845 223–25 Samsher Singh v State of Punjab AIR 1974 SC 2192 66 Shankari Prasad Singh v Union of India 1952 (3) SCR 165 222–25 Shibu Soren v Dayanand Sahay, AIR 2001 SC 2583 67 Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v Union of India (2012) 6 SCC 1 203 SP Gupta v Union of India (1981) Supp SCC 67 132–33 Special Reference No 1 of 1998 (1998) 7 SCC 739 133 SR Bommai v Union of India, AIR 1994 SC 1918 86, 205 State of Bihar v Shailabala Devi, AIR 1952 SC 329 121 State of Bombay v Bombay Educational Society (1955) 1 SCR 568 202 State of Bombay v Narasu Appa Mali, AIR 1952 Bom 84 198 State of Madras v Champakam Dorairajan, AIR 1951 SC 226 121 State of Madras v VG Row, AIR 1952 196 121 State of Uttar Pradesh v Raj Narain, judgment and order dated 12 June 1975 of the Allahabad High Court in Election Petition No 5/1971 126 Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v Union of India, 2015 SCC Online SC 964 135, 236 Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record v Union of India (1993) 4 SCC 441 133 Union of India v Sankalchand Seth (1977) 4 SCC 193 132 Union of India v Sushil Kumar Modi (1997) 4 SCC 770 130 Unni Krishnan v State of Bihar (1993) 1 SCC 645 129 Vineet Narain v Union of India (1998) 1 SCC 226 130 Vishaka v Union of India (1997) 6 SCC 241 131 Waman Rao v Union of India (1981) 2 SCC 363 228 Table of Legislation Comptroller and Auditor-General (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act 1971 144 s 15 148 Constitution Preamble 168, 170, 204, 216 Art 1 227 Art 2 209 Arts 2–4 80–82 Art 3 80, 209 Art 4 209 Arts 5–11 109 Art 12 104 Arts 12–35 104 Art 13 104, 198 Art 13(1) 110 Art 13(2) 222, 224 Art 14 104, 126, 169, 228 Arts 14–18 104, 169 Art 15 104, 169–70, 190–91 Art 15(1) 169, 192 Art 15(2) 169 Art 15(3) 169 Art 15(4) 169, 192 Art 15(5) 194, 204 Art 16 104, 169–70, 192 Art 16(1) 169 Art 16(2) 169 Art 16(4) 169, 191–92 Art 17 104, 169 Art 18 105 Art 19 105, 121, 228 Art 19(1) 105 Art 19(1)(c) 121 Art 19(1)(f) 105, 217 Art 19(1)(g) 194 Art 19(2) 105 Art 19(3) 105 Art 19(4) 105 xviii Table of Legislation Arts 19–23 104–5 Art 20 106, 227 Arts 20–22 105 Art 21 105, 121, 126, 129, 228 Art 21A 105, 108 Art 22 126 Art 22(2) 106 Art 22(4–7) 106 Art 22(5) 121 Arts 23–24 104 Art 24 106 Art 25 171 Art 25(1) 170, 182 Art 25(2) 170, 182, 199–200 Arts 25–28 104, 106, 170–71, 179, 199 Art 26 170–71, 200 Art 27 171 Art 28 171 Art 28(3) 171 Art 29 171, 191 Art 29(2) 171, 191–92 Arts 29–30 104, 106, 171, 179, 202 Art 30 171, 188, 194 Art 31 217 Art 31A 122 Art 31B 122, 217–18, 222 Art 32 104, 106, 110 Art 36 107 Arts 36–51 106 Art 37 107–8, 128 Art 38 107 Art 38(2) 107 Art 39 107, 172 Art 39(b) and (c) 172 Art 40 78, 94, 108 Art 41 107 Art 42 107, 172 Art 43 107, 172 Art 43A 107 Art 43B 108 Art 44 171, 182 Art 45 108 Art 46 107, 172, 191 Art 47 107 Table of Legislation xix Art 48 108, 172 Art 48A 108 Art 49 108 Art 50 108 Art 51 108 Arts 51–74 153 Art 52 41 Arts 52–237 41 Arts 52–78 41 Art 53 41 Arts 54–62 42 Arts 63–71 42 Art 72 42, 67 Art 73 42, 210 Art 74 42 Art 74(1) 42 Art 75 42 Art 75(1) 42 Art 75(3) 42 Arts 79–104 153 Arts 79–122 43 Art 80 43 Art 81 43 Art 84 43 Art 102 43 Art 105 44 Art 105(2) 44 Art 105(3) 44 Art 120 173 Art 123 42 Art 124 110, 113, 132 Arts 124–147 110, 210 Art 124A 134 Art 125 110, 112, 209 Arts 126–128 110 Art 129 110 Art 130 110 Art 131 110 Arts 131–144 110 Art 132 110 Arts 132–135 110 Art 136 110–11, 137 Art 137 110 Art 142 110 xx Table of Legislation Arts 145–146 110 Art 148 143 Art 148(2) 143 Art 148(3) 143 Art 148(5) 143 Arts 148–151 143 Art 149 144 Art 151 144 Art 162 210 Arts 168–193 153 Art 169(3) 209 Art 210 173 Art 214 111–12 Arts 214–231 210 Arts 214–232 110 Art 217 132 Art 218 113 Art 221 112, 209 Art 226 112 Art 227 112 Art 231 112 Art 233 112 Arts 233–237 110 Art 235 112 Arts 243–243O 96 Arts 243P–243ZG 96 Art 245 82, 84, 110 Arts 245–255 210 Arts 245–300A 82 Art 246 82, 84, 110 Art 256 85 Arts 256–261 85 Arts 264–300A 88 Arts 268–281 88 Art 275 88 Art 280 88 Art 324 151 Arts 324–329 151 Art 325 43, 152 Art 326 43, 109, 152 Art 327 152 Art 328 152 Art 329 152 Arts 330–342 173, 179 Table of Legislation xxi Art 331 43 Art 334 218 Art 335 173 Art 340 191–92 Art 343 173 Art 343(3) 173 Art 345 173 Art 348 173 Art 356 85–86 Art 368 208–10, 213, 222–23, 226 Art 368(2) 113, 210 Art 370 90 Arts 371–371J 91 Part II 109 Part III 25, 104–5, 109, 112, 117, 123, 125, 168, 172, 217 Part IV 25, 106, 171 Part V 41, 43, 110, 143 Part VI 41, 110, 112 Part IX 96–97 Part IXA 96–97 Part XI 82, 85 Part XII 88 Part XV 151 Part XVI 173 Part XVII 172–73 Part XX 208 First Schedule 209 Second Schedule 209 Fifth Schedule 90 Sixth Schedule 90 Seventh Schedule 82, 88, 210 List I 82 List II 83, 84 List III 83 Eighth Schedule 173 Ninth Schedule 122, 191, 217–18, 222–23, 225, 228 Tenth Schedule 43, 67 Twelfth Schedule 97 1st amendment 122–23, 169, 191, 216–17, 221–22 4th amendment 123 7th amendment 216 17th amendment 123, 223 23rd amendment 218 xxii Table of Legislation 25th amendment 226 26th amendment 226 29th amendment 228 42nd amendment 42, 55, 57, 127, 216, 228 44th amendment 57, 127, 216, 218 45th amendment 218 62nd amendment 218 73rd amendment 58, 79, 84, 96–98, 180, 220 74th amendment 58, 80, 84, 96–98, 180, 220 79th amendment 218 93rd amendment 194 95th amendment 218 99th amendment 236 100th amendment 219 101st amendment 89, 219 East India Company Act 1784 15 Election Commissioners (Conditions of Service) Act 1991 153 Government of India Act 1858 16, 18 Government of India Act 1909 18, 176 Government of India Act 1919 19, 21, 45, 73–75, 176 Government of India Act 1935 20–21, 45, 73, 75–76, 78, 85, 87, 116, 141–42, 176, 211 s 93 76, 85 s 275 114 s 298(1) 114 Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956 196 Hindu Marriage Act 1955 196 Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956 196, 198 Hindu Succession Act 1956 196 Indian Councils Act 1861 17 Indian Councils Act 1892 17 Indian Councils Act 1909 17, 45 Indian Divorce Act 1869 197–98 Indian Independence Act 1947 12, 20, 22, 29, 51 Kerala Land Reforms Act 1969 225 Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Act 1951 200 Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 197 National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act 2014 134, 236 National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 131 Official Languages Act 1963 186–87 Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1936 197 Regulating Act 1773 15 Representation of the People Acts 1950 and 1951 153 Right to Education Act 2009 203–4 Table of Legislation xxiii Right to Food Security Act 2013 131 Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 131 Right to Information Act 2005 131 Other Jurisdictions Constitution of Nepal 2015 247 Constitution of Pakistan 1962 224 Germany, Basic Law 1949 227 xxiv Introduction  Scope and principal themes of the book – Its approach and orientation I. THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA AND ITS SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE T HIS BOOK, IN keeping with the mandate of the series to which it belongs, seeks to provide a contextual account of the Constitution of India, the foundational document of the world’s largest democracy. The Constitution of India has been the framing device for many crucial debates that have been central to India’s evolving culture of constitutionalism and governance, even as it has endured and established its legitimacy over the last seven decades. It is, in form, the longest written Constitution in the world. More signifi- cantly though, it is the substantive governing document of the world’s most populous democracy, whose diversity and other complexities result in extraordinary challenges for governance and regulation. The Indian Constitution was exceptional in relation to previous attempts at Constitution making because it sought to attain several goals simultaneously. At the first level, the Constitution of India sought to deliver political freedom after two centuries of colonial rule—when many basic civil and political rights and freedoms had been unavail- able to ordinary people—while simultaneously ensuring national unity and security. At the second level, the Indian Constitution sought to lay the blueprint for economic development of the vast subcontinen- tal nation, which was an imperative for a populace that was largely illiterate, poor and disproportionately situated in rural societies that had limited access to many essential social goods and infrastructural facilities. At the third level, it sought to tackle deeply entrenched social practices that had existed in pre-colonial India for centuries. The more 2 Introduction ervasive problems—such as discrimination on the basis of caste, p religion and gender—preceded colonialism but their prevalence was exacerbated by colonial practices. Tackling this third set of issues was also an imperative if the constitutional goal of creating an overarching sense of national unity and identity was to be achieved. In seeking to address these varied objectives simultaneously, within the constraints of a system of governance founded upon a written Constitution that was itself based on principles of liberal constitutionalism (though the nature of that liberalism has, as we shall see, many unique and distinc- tive elements), the Constitution of India was indisputably an ambitious project. What is disputed, nearly seven decades after its adoption, is how successful it has been in achieving all or any of these goals. The text and the jurisprudence that has evolved around the Constitu- tion of India bear significance for those interested in comparative con- stitutional law as well as for those who study practices of governance and constitutionalism within India. The Indian Constitution was per- ceived by many in the post-colonial world to be a revolutionary docu- ment. In the era of decolonisation that followed the aftermath of the Second World War, India was one of the earliest of the colonies to gain independence. Moreover, it was rare among the many post-colonial states of Asia and Africa in being able to decide its own constitutional fate. As analysed at length in Chapter 1, Indians designed their own Constitution over a period extending across nearly three years. Scholars have noted that as the process of decolonisation wound along, this became rarer still. In Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, for instance, the Constitutions currently in force were crafted with little or no involve- ment of locals. The ‘Lancaster House’ Constitutions that were drafted for many African nations were, as the name suggests, conceived in London and had little legitimacy and credibility in the newly inaugu- rated constitutional orders of these nations. Apart from having had considerable influence on the drafting of several other post-colonial Constitutions across Asia and Africa, the Constitution of India continues to be studied by more contempo- rary Constitution makers as is clear from more recent experiences in South Africa and Nepal. This is in part because the Indian Constitu- tion is unusual in the post-colonial world for having endured across nearly seven decades, and for having engendered a robust consti- tutional culture. Constitutional democracy was formally suspended only once—from 1975 to 1977—in what is referred to by Indians as The Constitution of India and Its Special Significance 3 ‘the Emergency’. Though there have been other problems in its opera- tion, the Constitution of India has taken hold in the political and legal culture of the country. Many of the core problems that the framers of the Indian Constitu- tion grappled with, and which continue to be pressing issues in con- temporary India, are also the concern of constitutionalists elsewhere. A focus on the way Indian constitutionalism has sought to address these issues should be of interest to anyone convinced of the value of comparative insight. Given that the Indian Constitution was framed by explicit reference to comparative experience, and sought to gain insights into how other countries had grappled with comparable con- stitutional problems, its body and text offer lessons on how to adapt and integrate ideas of constitutional design from elsewhere to attend to very particular issues within a specific context. In August 2017 India completed seven decades of existence as a free and independent nation state. Its Constitution, which was adopted some time after independence, on 26 January 1950, will reach that milestone in 2020. Within India, the meaning, impact and legacy of the Constitution are sites of severe contestation. Supporters of the Constitution—and the tradition of constitutional democracy it has sought to engender—note the huge challenges involved in conceiving and implementing a foundational vision for a subcontinental nation that had never been a single political entity prior to colonialism. To its supporters, the fact that the Constitution has managed to keep the Indian nation together for nearly 70 years as a single national entity is an achievement in itself. That apart, they note the constitutional order’s relative success in bringing about economic development, which is causing poverty rates to decline consistently, amidst the challenge of a constantly growing population. Supporters also point to the social reform programmes that have been initiated to tackle entrenched problems of discrimination based on caste, class and gender, the suc- cessful establishment of political institutions and a move away from the feudalistic, hierarchical and oppressive patterns of individual and gov- ernmental conduct that were pervasive at the time of independence. Critics of the contemporary legal and constitutional order question whether it has been able to make significant progress on any of the three founding objectives outlined earlier. They note that large sections of India’s territory, estimated at about one-fifth of India’s total land mass, are under the control of insurgent groups, raising doubts about 4 Introduction the nation’s territorial integrity. On the issue of economic development, such critics draw attention to high levels of absolute poverty in con- temporary India. Based on reports of official government sources and of global bodies such as the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank, the number of people living below the poverty line ranges between 250 million and 320 million (exceeding the popu- lation of India at the time of independence and constituting a high proportion of its current population, which stands at about 1.2 billion). Finally, the critics point to regular outbursts of communal violence and continuing discrimination on the basis of caste and gender to raise doubts about constitutionally sanctioned efforts to tackle these issues. The critics also blame the constitutional order for many other ills that afflict the Indian nation: fundamental problems of governance stemming from the absence of basic forms of infrastructure (roads, sanitation, public health facilities); rampant and widespread corruption; high rates of violence against women, religious and ethnic minorities; and inadequate systems of accountability across legal and governance systems among others. Other persisting problems—such as the unre- solved constitutional status and frequent bouts of violence in the State of Jammu and Kashmir—give pause to anyone who considers the condition of the Indian constitutional system to be stable. Some other critics believe that alternative models of constitutionalism may be more appropriate for India. In developing the narrative for this volume, my attempt will be to present the Indian Constitution as a site for continuing contestations of the sort described above. There is a tendency (evident particularly in early scholarship, but one that continues in some contemporary strains) in Indian constitutional scholarship to write about the Constitution in celebratory terms, to present it as a complete product in itself, awaiting only implementation. This trend may have been caused by the percep- tion among a group of constitutional scholars that such a portrayal was necessary to secure the Constitution’s legitimacy. However, such attempts have had the unintended effect of portraying the Constitution as being a far more definitive and decisive document—and system— than is the case in reality. By presenting the Constitution as a ‘living’ text, I will attempt to emphasise the many ambiguities and gaps that it contains—sometimes by deliberate design, at other times by unin- tended omissions—and its innate flexibility, which is not surprising given how different in form it is from pre-existing Constitutions. Approach and Orientation of the Book 5 In recounting the story of Indian constitutionalism, this book seeks to account for the role that the Constitution of India played in two important moments in modern India’s history. These are, respectively, 1947 and 1991. The first marks the year of political independence. The second marks the date when, in the view of a number of scholars and citizens, India became ‘economically free’ and initiated policies that have led to a transformation of the nature of the Indian state and pol- ity, leading to its much-vaunted economic might. The second period is also significant because it witnessed a range of social and political events that brought about monumental changes in the way social rela- tions and politics are conducted in India. Much conventional constitu- tional scholarship in India has focused on the role that the Constitution played in 1947 and the crucial four decades that followed. The formal Constitution has played a less prominent but nevertheless critical role in shaping events that have occurred since 1991. The change in the nature and shape of the regulatory state in India since 1991—a transforma- tion that has been brought about while ostensibly staying within the terms of the existing constitutional order—is a significant focus of the book. While issues of development have always been a central part of constitutional debates in India, they have taken on a different dimen- sion in the era of globalisation and neoliberalism that characterises post-1991 India. II. APPROACH AND ORIENTATION OF THE BOOK Taking its cue from the series of which this book is a part, one objec- tive of the book project is to provide an account of Indian constitu- tionalism that is both sensitive to, and oriented towards, comparative analysis. This goal is pursued not so much by drawing explicit compari- sons with other constitutional systems (which are covered in relevant places where the framers referred to comparative experience), but by seeking to describe developments in India in terms that go beyond the doctrinal focus that domestic lawyers would employ to address them. Instead, the book seeks to locate the events being described and ana- lysed within their broader political and socio-economic context. This, it is hoped, will make the book accessible to audiences within India beyond the legal community, such as students from the social sciences and the humanities, and the curious but uninformed ordinary citizen 6 Introduction who seeks a succinct base of knowledge about the evolution of India’s constitutional culture and traditions. I have made some specific choices which shape the way the book addresses the vast range of issues it could potentially cover. The first of these is that the book steers clear of a tendency in Indian legal and constitutional scholarship to focus almost exclusively on the Indian judiciary—and more specifically, on the case law of its Supreme Court—when addressing constitutional issues. This is true of the celebrated commentaries on the Constitution of India from soon after its adoption right through to the present day. These works, while often of great technical ability, and demonstrative of fascinat- ing insights and industry, are almost wholly focused on the judgments and orders of the Supreme Court of India. This apex court-centric nature of Indian legal scholarship has been noted by both foreign scholars and non-legal scholars, who often find the mass of cases and conflicting decisions bewildering and are puzzled by the almost complete lack of reference to the wider socio-economic context that informs these cases. Indeed, very little attention is paid in the main- stream works of constitutional scholarship to the actual conditions of the citizens who bring the cases to the Court and to the impact of the decisions on the lives of citizens in their wake. This is not a malady that is peculiar to India: many other jurisdictions have had to confront such criticism of doctrinal, court-centric scholarship. I should clarify that this book does not entirely avoid doctrinal developments, which are extremely important to understand how constitutional text has evolved and been interpreted across time. Nevertheless, this book has far less doctrine than might be expected in a book on the constitu- tional law of India. My choice is dictated by two considerations. The first is that there is, by now, a considerable body of scholarship which provides rea- sonably good resources to obtain an understanding of the doctrinal output of the judiciary on important constitutional questions. In the main this consists of several practitioner-oriented commentaries that are frequently revised to take account of the constant updating of the judiciary’s case law. In addition, the recently published Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution is an excellent resource which meticulously and comprehensively covers the most significant doctrinal developments in Indian constitutional law up to 2015 across its 56 chapters. This book relies heavily on several of these chapters where necessary. Approach and Orientation of the Book 7 The second reason for preferring a wider view of constitutional issues in India is the insight offered by a respected scholar of compara- tive constitutional law on this issue. In a short but compelling essay written in the early part of this century, Kim Lane Scheppele urged scholars to reach beyond ‘constitutional case law and the operation of a high court’ to obtain a more profound understanding of constitutional- ism. This is because, Scheppele emphasises, ‘the fundamental features of a constitutional order are the results of political bargains that go beyond the interpretive capacities of courts’.1 I should clarify that I am not a political scientist by training and do not adopt an exclusive focus on ‘political bargains’ on every constitutional issue that is the focus of the book. I take the ‘contextual’ part of the title of the series to mean a nod to the wider socio-economic and political context of the nation under focus. Each chapter of the book does focus on the motivations and concerns of the framers of the Constitution, which go beyond the strictly legal reasons offered by them. But they also go beyond to look at the way the political system in India has evolved over time and how the policies of the particular government in power at the Centre influ- ence the legal and constitutional stances adopted by it. A second general point about the methodological orientation of the book needs to be emphasised here. The book is about the Constitution of India, which is the longest Constitution in the world. It therefore contains an enormous amount of text. However, as is commonly known and is once again not unique to the Indian context, much of what becomes constitutionally salient is derived from a very small proportion of the actual text of the Constitution. Consequently, even seasoned lawyers and legal academics are quite unaware of large por- tions of the text of the Constitution. I seek to address this lacuna by drawing attention specifically to the textual provisions relating to the thematic subject of each chapter. I also focus much more attention than is usually accorded to the constitutional history of the provisions, relying upon the development of ideas and concepts across the colonial period and through the various stages of the Constituent Assembly. This is to emphasise the vast range of materials that are available on the making of the Indian Constitution, which are much neglected and have not yet been sufficiently mined and studied. The material 1 Kim Lane Scheppele, ‘The Agendas of Comparative Constitutionalism’ (2003) Spring Law and Courts 5, 15. 8 Introduction available to the student of the Indian Constitution in understanding why it contains what it does and the reasons for such choices may well be unprecedented in the annals of the history of Constitution making. It is therefore a pity that this has not been adequately focused upon. My hope is that by drawing upon these materials in a systematic way, a signal can also be sent out on further research that needs to be con- ducted on the Indian constitutional tradition. I should add the caveat that my methodological choices should not be read as signalling my interpretive preference for text or for privileging the original intent/ vision of the framers. Nevertheless, both text and original intent gain enormous importance in Indian constitutional interpretation because of the length and relatively recent origin of that document. III. BRIEF OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS The book consists of nine chapters. This brief Introduction is fol- lowed by Chapter 1, which sets out the historical context necessary for appreciating the drafting of the Constitution of India, paying particular attention to the processes adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India for drafting the text of the Constitution across the nearly three- year period from November 1946 to 1949. While this broad history is reasonably well known to scholars of the Indian constitutional tradi- tion, an aspect that I seek to emphasise here is the repeated efforts by Indian nationalists at Constitution making that occurred during the period between 1895 and 1946. The remaining chapters adopt a predominantly institutional approach to issues of constitutional law and politics, focusing on the major constitutionally created institutions and structures to channel and control the exercise of political author- ity. Chapters 2–5 cover the major institutions of Indian constitutional governance—the Executive and Parliament; federalism and local gov- ernment; the Judiciary (with its guardianship role of the fundamental rights and directive principles); and technocratic institutions (covering the Election Commission, the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and new regulatory institutions). Chapter 6, the longest in the book, focuses on India’s unique challenges in regulating its multiple diversities and identities. Chapter 7 addresses the issue of constitutional change and amendment. This is followed by the concluding chapter, which focuses on the contemporary period in Indian constitutionalism Brief Outline of Chapters 9 before attempting an overall assessment of the Indian constitutional experience in dialogue with selected scholarly accounts. A number of topics that could be covered in a discussion of constitutionalism in India have been excluded for the sake of thematic and analytic coher- ence and due to constraints of space. The references for further read- ing aim to guide the interested reader to other resources, including for allied topics that could not be covered here. This book covers legal and political developments until May 2017. 10 1 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution  Pre-colonial forms of governance – Constitutional forms of government under the East India Company and The British Raj – Nationalist efforts at Constitution making – Crafting a Constitution for the new republic I. INTRODUCTION I NDIA HAS A long civilisational history dating back to ancient times. Historians have noted how the many kingdoms and dynas- ties that ruled over parts of the Indian subcontinent from 500 BC onwards experimented with and implemented many innovative features of law and governance.1 As we will see later in this book, some aspects of the older traditions of the law survive in the contemporary legal system, especially in the realm of religious laws, and have influenced the nature of multiculturalism in Indian constitutionalism in significant ways. These ancient traditions of law and governance are often invoked in contemporary political and constitutional discourse, sometimes by judges and Cabinet Ministers, and accounting for them is important to understand contemporary constitutional discourse. However, all these measures were engineered while staying broadly within the structural framework of monarchical and dynastic systems, which, despite their many variations, did not impose constitutional limits upon the authority of the ultimate power holder. Nevertheless, some scholars have sought 1 See generally, PV Kane, History of Dharmasastra: Ancient and Medieval Religious and Civil Law, 2nd edn, (Pune, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1968–1975); John Keay, India: A History (New York, Gloria Press, 2000). 12 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution to argue that ideas similar to modern notions of constitutionalism existed in India from very early times.2 This chapter adopts the stance that while law and governance in India have a long pedigree, and one can find instances of many inno- vative forms of legal thinking in ancient and medieval India until the Mughal period, constitutionalism in India, as in other parts of Asia and Africa, is a modern project, whose origins can be traced to much more recent times. The chapter thus focuses on the colonial period, particularly since 1857, when, in the aftermath of an event that the British colonial regime referred to as the Mutiny and the nationalist movement would term the First War of Independence, the British government formally took over charge from the East India Company. Soon thereafter, the demand for forms of constitutional government was increasingly articulated by leaders of the nascent Indian national- ist movement starting from the late nineteenth century. In response to such demands, the colonial authorities ceded constitutional powers to the representatives of the people of the Indian subcontinent gradu- ally over a period of half a century, culminating in the independence of the new nations of South Asia through the Indian Independence Act 1947. There is a rich body of work that documents this complex narrative.3 My goal is to sketch the broad contours of that narrative, with a focus on specific parts that are relevant for the purposes of this book project. Specifically, the chapter seeks to track two parallel lines of devel- opment—the gradual ceding of constitutional powers by the colonial government from 1861 onwards, and the increasingly sophisticated constitutional demands raised by the nationalist movement (repre- sented principally by the Indian National Congress, which was formed in 1885). A focus on both tracks is essential for understanding the 2 See, eg, M Rama Jois, Legal and Constitutional History of India (Gurgaon, Universal Law Publishing, 2012, first edition 1984). For a contrary view, see Arun K Thiruvengadam, ‘Excavating Constitutional Antecedents in Asia: An Essay on the Potential and Perils’ (2013) 88(1) Chicago-Kent Law Review 45–61. 3 See generally, WAJ Archibald, Outlines of Indian Constitutional History (London, Curzon Press, 1926), AB Keith, A Constitutional History of India 1600–1935 (Delhi, Pacific Publication, 1937, reprinted 2010) and MP Singh, Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History, 8th edn (New Delhi, Universal Law Publishing, 2006). The Mughals and the East India Company 13 complex ways in which the crafting of the Constitution of India of 1950 sought, simultaneously, to achieve two seemingly contradictory objectives: the adaptation of colonial structures of governance that were premised on efficiency in achieving imperial, exploitative goals, with the insertion of new instruments and institutions to usher in an egalitarian and democratic spirit within the new constitutional order. While seeking to provide a chronological account that spans three-and-a-half centuries, my goal will be to focus on key moments that help set out the overall narrative in order not to overwhelm the reader with historical detail. Descriptively, the chapter begins with a short section on the entry of the East India Company into India towards the end of the Mughal Empire, and the legal rules and systems it established to initially supple- ment and eventually supplant the system that existed in India during the Mughal era. This is followed by an overview of the reforms brought about in the post-1857 era when the British government formally took over charge of the Indian colony. Section III analyses the significant period of about 90 years during which many constitutional ideas and reforms were discussed and introduced, focusing on the perspective of the colonial authorities. Thereafter, Section IV details the early attempts at Constitution making by the Indian nationalists. Section V describes the making of the Constitution of India in the Constituent Assembly during its nearly three-year tenure between 1946 and 1949. II. THE MUGHALS AND THE EAST INDIA COMPANY (1550–1857) The Mughals were the last of the great empires to control large por- tions of the territory of modern-day India before the advent of colo- nial rule. The Mughal Empire was at its zenith from the middle of the sixteenth century until the early part of the eighteenth century, shortly before the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707. Although it covered a vast territory across present-day India, the Mughal Empire was primar- ily concerned with issues of commerce, trade and taxation. Ideas of constitutional governance, as understood in the contemporary modern sense, were not well developed in any of the pre-colonial regimes in India. As in many other parts of Asia and Africa, such ideas were often 14 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution developed by leaders of anti-colonial movements whose introduc- tion to ideas of nationalism, liberalism and constitutional democracy emerged through their exposure—either through education or through texts—to discourses in the metropolitan centres of colonial rule. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in India in 1503, followed successively by the French, the Dutch and the English. By the early part of the seventeenth century, several European trading posts had been established in India. By the time the Mughal Empire went into active decline around the middle of the eighteenth century, the struggle for control over trade between the European powers was largely between the British and French as other European powers had been marginalised. Eventually, the British became the dominant European power in the Indian subcontinent. The British presence in India was established through the East India Company, which had been created through a Royal Charter issued by Queen Elizabeth in 1600 as a mercantile body that was to possess a trading monopoly in the East. Soon after its creation, the East India Company was able to obtain a toe-hold in India during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir and initially focused on expanding its commercial and mercantile activities in India. The East India Company was initially granted certain limited powers of a legislative character, including the power to impose penalties, to enable it to perform its commercial functions.4 As the Company’s operations expanded, it demanded and obtained greater legislative, executive and ultimately, judicial powers. The initial laws issued by the Company sought to estab- lish courts and other institutions of English/continental law in several of the territories under their control. This led later to the codification of criminal, civil and ‘personal’ laws of various Indian religious com- munities. Over time, the Company officials obtained powers similar to legislators for India, but continued to deny the responsibilities that came with exercising effective State authority in India.5 4 Keith (n 3) 5–6. 5 See generally, Ramkrishna Mukherji, The Rise and Fall of the East India Company: A Sociological Appraisal (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1974); Cyril Henry Philips, The East India Company, 1784–1834 (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1961); Tirthankar Roy, The East India Company: The World’s Most Powerful Corporation (New Delhi, Penguin Books, 2012). The Mughals and the East India Company 15 For nearly a century before its formal control over India ended, from about the middle of the eighteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century, the Company conducted itself as a proxy for the British government. The foundation of the colonial legal order was established in India during this period. The Company followed a practice of governing the Indian colony through a Governor-General and his Legislative Council at the Central level, and through a Governor and his Legislative Council at the level of the provinces. Appointments to these offices were based on nominations, which in turn depended on the judgement of the Company and its supervising governmental authorities. By the late eighteenth century, the East India Company adopted the coercive, administrative and financial processes typical of contem- poraneous empires, and gradually took on more of the functions of sovereignty, such as collecting revenues, making treaties or fighting wars with regional potentates and exercising juridical authority.6 This was accompanied by high levels of corruption, acts of despotism, and a growing perception that the officials of the Company were exploitative and immoral in their extractive zeal. This led to demands, primarily from within Britain, that the British Parliament intervene to remedy the situation, which in turn led to legislative acts to regulate the functioning of the East India Company. In response, the British Parliament enacted the Regulating Act 1773 to overhaul the management and operations of the East India Company. A decade later, to rebut the perception that the Regulating Act was not effective in its mission, the East India Company Act 1784 sought to further these reforms by establishing a Board of Control and by strengthening the British government’s regulatory powers over the Company. The clamour against company misrule also resulted in the impeachment of the former Governor- General, Warren Hastings, which, while ultimately unsuccessful, ignited a heated domestic debate championed by figures such as Edmund Burke on empire, liberalism and its consequences for ideas of British governance and democracy. 6 Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2010) 170–78, 240–45. 16 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution III. THE BRITISH RAJ AND COLONIAL FORMS OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT (1858–1947)—A BIRD’S EYE VIEW It was the aim of the greatest among the early British administrators in India to train the peoples of India to govern and protect themselves … rather than to establish the rule of a British bureaucracy. Arthur Berridale Keith7 This statement captures, in overarching terms, the view of a section of the British colonial administrators about the overall objective of colo- nial government in India during the period of direct British rule. This ‘pedagogical’ self-perception of the colonial role was severely contested by the growing nationalist movement and, in the next section, we will see how it led the nationalists to develop constitutional documents that set out a competing vision for constitutionalism in India. At the same time, each constitutional development initiated by the colonial authori- ties across this period was at least in part a response to the nationalist movement’s criticism of the previous initiative. In what follows, due to constraints of space, I focus on significant legislative instruments enacted by the British Parliament during this period, rather than other events that were also salient. This survey of laws enables one to appre- ciate how the colonial forms of constitutional government evolved over this nine-decade period. The Great Indian Mutiny of 1857, or the First War of Independence as it came to be called by the nationalists, spelt the death-knell of the rule of the East India Company, which had faced criticism domesti- cally within Britain for over a century. Through the enactment of the Government of India Act 1858 by the British Parliament, the task of governing India was formally transferred to the British Crown, acting through the Secretary of State. The colony of India was formally ruled by the British government for 90 years (from 1858 to 1947), a period which is also referred to as the ‘British Raj’. One major change made to the structure of the Governor-General’s Legislative Council from the time of the rule of the Company was that under the new regime, an Executive Council was also set up to aid the newly created office of the Viceroy, which replaced the office of the Governor-General of India. 7 Keith (n 3) 1. The British Raj and Colonial Government 17 A. Early Constitutional Developments in the Indian Councils Acts Despite the formal change, little of substance changed on the ground in colonial India, at least initially. The Indian Councils Act 1861 made a few technical changes to the governmental superstructure that had been used by the East India Company to govern India, without addressing the increasing demand for representation in the Councils by Indians. The demand for real change became more pressing after the forma- tion of the Indian National Congress in 1885. This event represented the growing clout of the emerging Indian middle class, which was still small in numerical terms but whose growth was a consequence of the introduction of schools, the press and associational forms facilitated by the policies of the East India Company. Initially, the Congress was dominated by a moderate wing, led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who chose the path of negotiating with the colonial authorities through the route of petitions to seek incremental reforms, while engaging in social service alongside. The Indian Councils Act 1892 sought to respond to the demand of the nationalists seeking greater representation for Indians in the Leg- islative Councils by making some more minor administrative changes. However, the worsening economic and political situation, caused by famine, the spread of bubonic plague and the growing popularity of the leader of the extremist wing of the Congress, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, led to the perception that these were feeble attempts to assuage a rising tidal wave of demands for reform. These rising demands were not satisfied by the next legislative measure, the Indian Councils Act 1909, which increased the representative capacity of the Legislative Councils, extended their powers and also recommended that Indians be appointed within the Governor-General’s Council. However, like its predecessor enactments, it effectively left control in the hands of the executive, with little restraint on its powers. It therefore lacked cred- ibility as a serious initiative towards constitutional reform, if measured by the introduction of effective checks and balances on the power of the imperial authorities. Keith approvingly notes that the authors of this particular reform ‘absolutely disclaimed the idea of introducing responsible government or parliamentary institutions within India’.8 8 ibid 258. 18 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution They did, however, seek to ‘consult’ Indians in matters affecting their interests. The overall approach of British administrators (and scholars such as Keith who recorded their efforts) was to oppose the introduc- tion of representative politics of the British type in India, convinced as they were, along with leading British liberals like JS Mill, that Indians were not ready, because of the stage of their civilisation, for full liberal democratic politics. To understand why there was a mismatch between the approaches of the colonial administrators and the growing nationalist movement, it is important to recall that the Indian nationalists were closely fol- lowing developments across the globe, and especially in other British colonies. The granting of Dominion status, with concomitant conces- sions to autonomy and self-rule, to Canada in 1867, to Australia in 1901 and to South Africa in 1910 emboldened the nationalists to seek similar concessions from the British for Indians as had been made for white settler populations in these colonies. However, the British were not willing to concede such a status to Indians for a much longer time to come. Among the first to understand this was Mohandas Gandhi, who had struggled unsuccessfully in South Africa through much of the 1890s and the 1900s to seek parity with the white settler population for his fellow Indians in South Africa. Upon his return to India in 1915, Gandhi began a process of self-discovery and re-examination of his beliefs in relation to his approach towards British colonial authorities. He ultimately concluded by 1919 that the British would never treat Indians on a par with the white settler colonies and that a different approach would be required. B. The Government of India Acts of 1909 and 1919 To return to the chronology of colonial concessions to constitutional governance for Indians, Keith notes that the reforms of 1909–12 were ‘clearly unlikely’ to satisfy the demands of the extremist wing of the Congress party led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and ‘in fact went but a small way to conciliate the moderates’9 led by Gopal Krishna Gandhi, who had become a mentor to Mohandas Gandhi. The First World War and the stellar role played by Indian soldiers in the important theatres 9 ibid 264. The British Raj and Colonial Government 19 of the war, made it imperative that the colonial government be seen to be responsive to the growing demand of Indians for representative government. It was against this context that the Government of India Act 1919 was enacted in December 1919, which promised some significant changes ‘with a view of the progressive realization of responsible gov- ernment in India’.10 In its details, the Act sought to fulfil its promises by emphasising greater autonomy to the provinces, and by making changes to the powers of the Secretary of State and his Council, and those of the Central and provincial governments. The Act introduced a system of ‘dyarchy’ in the provinces, whereby for some subjects in a ‘transferred list’ authority to legislate would be subject to scrutiny and accountability by the Provincial Council. These reforms were truly significant in that they held the prospect of enabling Indians to exercise real legislative power, especially at the provincial level. However, the Act offset the impact of these changes by providing a very restricted franchise, by making very small budgets available to provincial legislatures, and by including rural and special-interest seats that were perceived as amenable to control by the colonial authorities. The reforms sought to be ushered in by the Act of 1919 were diluted by the near simultaneous enactment of the draconian Rowlatt Act 1919 and the brutal massacre ordered by General Dwyer at the Jallianwala Bagh, which turned public opinion against the colonial authorities in a definitive manner. Although the Government of India Act 1919 did not have a great impact in practice, its innovations were later discussed for inclusion in the text of the Constitution of independent India, and for this reason it remains a significant constitutional landmark, apart from being an improvement on its predecessor enactments. By 1920 Mohandas Gandhi had emerged as the undisputed leader of the Congress. Although he started as a protégé of Gokhale, his experi- ence of following ‘moderate’ politics in South Africa appears to have convinced him of the limitations of such an approach. After his return to India in 1915, Gandhi began to initiate campaigns that had seeds 10 This quotation is taken from the statement of the newly appointed Secretary of State, Edwin Montague, who took office in June 1917. Montague, together with Lord Chelmsford, the erstwhile Viceroy of India, authored the Montague- Chelmsford report, which formed the basis of the Government of India Act of 1919. 20 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution in the experiments that he had begun while in South Africa. These campaigns, built on the strategies of satyagraha (‘striving for truth’) and ahimsa (‘non-violence’), in turn converted the Indian National Congress from an elite group of middle class intellectuals to a mass movement with deep roots across the Indian subcontinent. In the aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Gandhi started a Non-Cooperation movement which found support across the whole of British India and signalled to the colonial authorities that a new kind of anti-colonial movement had emerged. C. The Government of India Act 1935 and the Indian Independence Act 1947 The next significant law to be passed by the British Parliament to regulate constitutional development in India was the Government of India Act 1935. This law made some pivotal changes and introduced many elements, especially in relation to its federal provisions, that were ultimately retained by the Constitution of India. The Act of 1935 introduced direct elections and expanded the franchise, enabling several million Indians to exercise voting rights. It also established the Federal Court in India, which became an important judicial institution, and was both the predecessor and a role model of sorts for the Supreme Court that was instituted by the eventual Constitution of India. Indeed, one respected scholar has asserted that as much as ‘seventy-five percent’ of the Government of India Act 1935 was to find place in the new Con- stitution of independent India.11 However, this should not lead to the impression that the Act of 1935 was a document that actively sought to secure ‘responsible government’ for Indians. While it had several notable features, the Act of 1935 was apace with other colonial consti- tutional documents in empowering the colonial executive with supreme powers, including the power to take back any of those conferred upon 11 Subhash C Kashyap, Our Constitution: An Introduction to India’s Constitution and Constitutional Law (New Delhi, National Book Trust, 2004) 4–5. See also Arvind Elangovan, ‘Provincial Autonomy, Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, and an Improbable Imagination of Constitutionalism in India, 1935–38’ (2016) May, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 66–82 (noting that the continuity can also be explained by the fact that Sir BN Rau was an important contributory draftsperson of both constitutional documents). The British Raj and Colonial Government 21 bodies where Indians were allowed to exercise legislative and executive power. The Act of 1935 abolished the system of dyarchy introduced by the Act of 1919, which had proven to be both unpopular and impracti- cal. It went further than any other colonial statute in empowering pro- vincial governments but, as mentioned earlier, also enabled the colonial executive to step in and retrieve powers should it perceive any threat. This was viewed as paternalistic and an incurable flaw by the nationalist movement. As we will see in the next section, by this time the national- ist movement had experimented with several constitutional documents and had presented them to the colonial authorities. What is striking about the Act of 1935 is how completely it ignored the demands of the nationalist movement on many fronts, including their demand for a Bill of Rights, and how it represented a step back even from the Act of 1919. It is important to recall that the Act of 1935 was the result of a compromise between those who sought to advance responsible gov- ernment in India and those who were completely opposed to it. Since the law was enacted by a Conservative government, it was perhaps to be expected that those opposed to granting any meaningful conces- sions to the Indian nationalist movement won out. As it happened, the federal provisions of the Act of 1935 never came into effect. The Act of 1935 came into force in relation to the provinces only in 1937. In elections held in 1937, Congress govern- ments were elected in eight out of 11 provinces. For two years until 1939, when the Indian National Congress decided that its governments in the provinces would resign en masse in protest against the British government’s unilateral decision that British India was to join the Allied cause in the Second World War, the Congress had, for the first time, direct experience of governance. This was to prove crucial for many reasons and also explained why, despite their awareness of the flaws of the Act of 1935, the Congress was willing to retain elements of the scheme of the Act of 1935 in the Constitution of independent India. As noted above, the start of the Second World War in 1939 affected the implementation of the Act of 1935. As in the case of the First War, Indian soldiers were used extensively in the major theatres of the war, and India’s involvement in the war once again led to demands for the grant of independence in exchange for loyalty to the Allied cause.12 12 See generally, Srinath Raghavan, India’s War: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1939–45 (New Delhi, Allen Lane, 2016). 22 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution These efforts did not yield much result due to opposition from Conservative politicians in England. Once the Second War ended in 1945, a Labour government under Clement Atlee was elected. Atlee’s government brought about radical reforms within the UK and presided over the start of the decolonisa- tion of the British Empire in South Asia. Prime Minister Atlee’s gov- ernment took a realistic view of the following factors in reaching its decision to exit from the colonies: the state of the UK’s poor finances in the post-War era; the international pressure that the UK was facing for the hypocrisy between its rhetoric against the Axis powers and its own oppressive conduct in its colonies; and the lack of confidence expressed by imperial generals about the ability of the Indian army to remain impervious to the call of nationalism. The Indian Independence Act 1947 was the principal legal instru- ment by which the new nations of Pakistan and India came into being in August 1947. Its effect was to formally bring to an end 182 years of British rule in India, confer the status of dominions upon the new nations of Pakistan and India from 15 August 1947, and provide for legal and administrative continuity until the new constitutional orders in both nations emerged. In India the process of creating a new Constitution had begun formally on 9 December 1946, when the Con- stituent Assembly held its first sitting. Section V of this chapter will delve into the details about the body and its processes. However, since this factor is underemphasised in the current literature, it is important to acknowledge that the intellectual groundwork for the process of crafting a new Constitution for independent India was a process that began at least half a century before the first sitting of the newly con- stituted Constituent Assembly. It is to this important historical aspect that we turn in the next section. IV. THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT AND THE BUILD-UP OF ATTEMPTS AT CONSTITUTION MAKING (1895–1947)—A WORM’S EYE VIEW As noted in the previous section, the Indian National Congress had been through a process of change and evolution since its founding in 1885. At first, it was a small organisation formed of middle and upper class Indians and was derisively referred to as a ‘debating club’. By 1920, under Gandhi’s charismatic leadership, it had transformed The Nationalist Movement and Constitution Making 23 into a mass movement that grew in numbers and popularity almost continuously until India gained independence in 1947. In the previ- ous section it was noted how the Congress resisted and opposed the incremental and often painfully slow concessions made by the British colonial regime towards providing autonomy and self-governance to Indians. However, the Congress was not just an oppositional force; it was equally a constructive force, and was simultaneously involved in creating a new vision for the independent country that India would eventually become. This nation- and Constitution-building aspect of the Congress’s workings has been relatively neglected in contrast to the large body of work that has studied its resistance to colonial consti- tutional statutes by demanding greater autonomy as a means towards Swaraj or self-rule. This section seeks to focus on the constitutional documents that were drafted by the Congress from fairly early on in its history. The focus will be on the evolution of this constitutional vision as the Congress’s own sense of what the independent Indian nation would represent and symbolise changed over time. A. The Earliest Attempts at Constitution Making (1885–95) An early example of the first phase of the Congress is to be found in two resolutions passed by the 1889 session of the Indian National Congress that was held in Bombay. These resolutions, passed within five years of its inception, saw the Congress seeking more represen- tation for Indians in the Legislative Councils, which were important legislative institutions created under the Indian Councils Act to govern India.13 However, soon thereafter, in 1895, came the Constitution of India Bill. While its author remains unverified, the document states that it had been prepared after a study of the Constitutions of the US and Brazil, and contained provisions relating to the government of India which were housed in separate chapters detailing provisions relating to the legislature, executive and judiciary.14 The Bill also contained a set of rights provisions which primarily sought guarantees of civil and 13 The full text of the two resolutions is reproduced in B. Shiva Rao (ed), The Framing of India’s Constitution: Select Documents, vols I–V (New Delhi, Universal Law Publishing, 1967, Reprint 2010) vol I, 3–4. 14 The full text of the Constitution of India Bill is set out in ibid 5–14. 24 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution political rights. This was, from the point of view of the tradition of British constitutionalism, a radical demand since British constitutional culture, even today, is very sceptical about constitutionalised Bills of Rights. The Bill further sought to catalogue the issues that could potentially form the subject of legislation (an early form of the List system that would be used in the final Constitution to classify subject matter competence between the Central and State legislatures) and also made a bold attempt to catalogue the departments within the executive (equivalent to Ministers in our time). Consisting of 111 provisions, this Bill represented an early yet sophisticated attempt at drafting a Con- stitution for independent India. What is striking is that this document, conceived more than a half century before the eventual Constitution for independent India was drafted and adopted, anticipates many of the institutional issues that would come to dominate the imagination of the framers of the eventual Constitution. B. Evolution of Constitution-making Efforts: The Commonwealth of India Bill 1925 and the Motilal Nehru Report 1928 As the Congress continued to grow and debates within it became more sophisticated, more resolutions, declarations and models continued to emerge. In 1918, at another annual session held in Bombay, the Congress issued a Declaration of Rights that sought a statute from the British Parliament recognising a series of rights for Indians on a par with British citizens. In the early 1920s, under the leadership of Annie Besant and the respected lawyer, Tej Bahadur Sapru, the Com- monwealth of India Bill was drafted by a convention consisting of 255 persons endorsed by the Congress, and introduced into the British House of Commons in 1925 (where, once the first elected Labour government which took office in 1923 fell after the elections in 1924, its fate was sealed). Nevertheless, the contents of the Bill are notewor- thy also because they influenced models of Constitutions that emerged in its wake. The Commonwealth of India Bill conceived of the right to local self-government and envisaged five levels of government across the village, taluk, district, province and Central level.15 It guaranteed a set of rights which went beyond the classic civil and political rights 15 For the full text of the Bill, see ibid 43–50. The Nationalist Movement and Constitution Making 25 (including the right to liberty, property, freedom of conscience and free expression) to social rights (specifically the right to free elementary education). Shortly afterwards, at the Madras session of the Congress in 1927, it was resolved that a Swaraj Constitution would be drafted for India. This eventually led to the creation of a committee led by the senior Congress leader, Motilal Nehru, and consisting of others such as Tej Bahadur Sapru. The Nehru Report, as it came to be known, set out the text of a Constitution that was based on the principle of Dominion status for India (seeking parity with the colonies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Irish Free State) and devised a responsible government on the parliamentary model. As Niraja Jayal has argued, the Constitution set out in the Nehru Report was ‘a rather exceptional document’ as it envisioned many novel aspects.16 It contained extensive provisions on rights, which directly inspired many provisions in the Fundamental Liberties chapter (Part III) of the even- tual Constitution, while some others inspired provisions in the chapter on Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV). The Nehru Report had more elaborate provisions on the structure and form of the three wings of government than any previous Constitution-making effort and also sought to tackle the thorny issue of communal representation explicitly. C. Alternative Conceptions of the Constitution and the Sapru Committee Report (1945) In the period after the Nehru Report was published in 1928, the Congress continued to demand greater autonomy from the colonial regime while also investing in developing its own constructive vision of what a Constitution for independent India should consist of. Once the Second World War began, followed by the ‘Quit India’ movement launched by the Congress in 1942, attempts at Constitution making in order to influence the new Constitution became even more urgent. Before turning to the Congress’s attempts, it is worth taking note of three attempts by non-Congress individuals and groups which sought to provide alternative conceptions of the new Constitution. 16Niraja Gopal Jayal, Citizenship and its Discontents: An Indian History (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2013) 138–39. 26 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution These include: MN Roy’s Constitution of India: A Draft (1946), SN Agarwal’s Gandhian Constitution for Free India (1946) and the Socialist Party’s Draft Constitution of Indian Republic (1948).17 Roy, a former Com- munist, authored a radical and populist Constitution which contained many guarantees of social rights. Agarwal’s Constitution drew from Gandhian ideas of village-based decentralised governance. The Social- ist Party’s Constitution conspicuously left out the right to property. These alternative conceptions are worth emphasising to draw attention to the fact that while the Indian National Congress enjoyed great popu- lar support, it had to contend with many other streams of opinion and thought, which often clashed with its own ideas and were difficult to build consensus upon given the wide range of interests and ideologies represented within the Congress itself. Recalling these facts is necessary to appreciate the importance of the inclusive style of decision making followed in the Constituent Assembly. In December 1945 a committee under the leadership of Tej Bahadur Sapru and consisting of members including N Gopalaswami Ayyangar (who would play a pivotal role within the Constituent Assembly) was constituted to deal with the growing problem of communalism and the significant issue of minority rights. The Sapru Committee Report placed considerable emphasis on minority protection and the rights of minorities and became an influential model for these provisions in the eventual Constitution of India.18 V. CRAFTING A CONSTITUTION FOR INDEPENDENT INDIA: THE WORK OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY A. Background and Origin of the Constituent Assembly The work of the Constituent Assembly of India has been described in laudatory, even heroic, terms.19 It has also been the subject of strong 17 ibid 143. 18 This voluminous report also saw several notes of dissent drafted by some of the committee members. The full text of the report, being too large to be included in its entirety in the B Shiva Rao papers, is available online at. 19 The most prominent of these adulatory accounts is still Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, Crafting a Constitution for Independent India 27 criticism, both contemporaneous and recent.20 Regardless of whether one thinks of it as broadly positive or not, the result of the efforts of the framers of the Indian Constitution has been markedly influential across the post-colonial world, and its provisions came to be emulated in many other Constitutions. This section focuses on the origins of the Constituent Assembly, its processes and the main themes that it dealt with. In each subsequent chapter of the book the substantive work of the Constituent Assembly will be examined closely within the rubric of specific constitutional issues. Here, the purpose is to provide a broad, descriptive overview of some foundational matters. As noted in the previous section, many Indians—and not just the leaders of the nationalist movement—had focused on the nature and type of Constitution that independent India should be governed by for a considerable period of time before independence was actually achieved. The Indian National Congress’s previous efforts at Constitu- tion making were marked by robust debate among several contending positions and had reached an advanced stage of deliberation whereby consensus was reached on some broad issues such as the need for a strong Bill of Rights, agreement that a parliamentary system would work best for India’s many needs, and the need for a federal system which would guard against fissiparous tendencies while allowing India’s diversity to flourish. It is important to consider the backdrop against which the Constitu- ent Assembly was established in December 1946. After the Second War and the election of Prime Minister Atlee’s Labour government, Great Britain was finally willing to grant independence to India, albeit on its own terms. By the mid-1940s, the differences between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League had become unbridge- able, in part because Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, who had been a prominent and important member of the 1966). Austin’s account of the making of the Indian Constitution is regarded as authoritative, five decades on, but is written in stirring, adulatory tones which, even as it seeks to critique several aspects of the working of the framers, has a consis- tently positive appraisal of the process and the results reached. 20 See generally, Shibanikinker Chaube, Constituent Assembly of India: Springboard of Revolution, 2nd edn (New Delhi, Manohar Publishers, 2000). A recent work which is scathing in its criticism of the overall ‘imperial’ approach of the Constituent Assembly is Mithi Mukherjee, India in the Shadows of Empire (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2010). 28 Origins and Crafting of the Constitution Congress during its crucial foundational period, was deeply sceptical that the Congress would successfully represent India’s diversity beyond its own constituency, the dominant sections of the Hindu population. In 1945 Jinnah had expressed scepticism about the idea of a single Constituent Assembly, demanding two separate Assemblies for the new nations of India and Pakistan. For its part, the Congress, which had the backing of many Muslims, regarded Jinnah as unfairly attacking its secular character and exploiting long, simmering, communal ten- sions to build his ‘two-nation’ theory. The primary reason for Partition was undoubtedly the fact that these two significant political groupings could not come to an agreement on the future of colonial India. Their differences notwithstanding, there were several rounds of negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League to begin the process of Constitution making even as such tensions persisted. In May 1946 the Cabinet Mission, which had been established by the Atlee government to effect the transfer of power from the British to the Indians, delivered its report. Although both the Congress and the Muslim League had reservations, both formally accepted the plan, following which elections for the Constituent Assembly of India were held in July 1946. The Congress had long demanded a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage. However, it gave in to the Cabinet Mission plan’s proposal that the Constituent Assembly be indirectly elected, through the existing provincial legisla- tures, because it recognised that holding general elections on the basis of universal franchise would delay the important task of convening the Constituent Assembly. In addition, the Constituent Assembly also had representation from 600-odd Princely States. Of the 389 seats in the Constituent Assembly, 93 were accorded to the representatives of the Princely States, while the Congress (208) and the Muslim League (73) emerged as the dominant political parties.21 The first session of the Constituent Assembly was held on 9 December 1946 but given the tense atmosphere, not much business was transacted. On 13 December 1946 Nehru moved the ‘Objectives Resolution’, which set out the broad objectives and contours of the Constitution-making process. The Constituent Assembly also started 21 Barbara N Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004) 8. Crafting a Constitution for Independent India 29 identifying the various working committees that would do the major work of drafting portions of the eventual Constitution but discussions did not begin in earnest until after independence. The Muslim League participated only half-heartedly in the Assembly’s initial sessions; even this stopped after Jinnah instructed its members to boycott the Assem- bly in July 1947. The second and third sessions of the Constituent Assembly were held in January and April 1947 but the prospect of Par- tition ensured that substantive deliberations on important issues were minimal. Once the Indian Independence Act 1947 came into force on 15 August 1947, the Constituent Assembly was formally granted legal recognition, enabling it to move much faster towards its goal. B. The Ambient Atmosphere of Constitution Making The immediate effect of the Indian Independence Act 1947 was to make the Constituent Assembly also the Dominion Parliament. Members of the Assembly were simultaneously converted into parlia- mentarians and they spent half of their time dealing with day-to-day matters of government. Being seized of immediate problems inevita- bly affected their long-term constitutional vision, especially on crucial issues such as the powers that the executive and Parliament should have to restrict the rights of citizens. Awareness of the broader context at the time will help us situate their decisions better. The Indian subcontinent in the period 1946–50 was, to put it mildly, in a state of turmoil. Although the Atlee government was praised for its decision to free India and its other South Asian colon

The Constitution of India: A Contextual Analysis (2017) PDF

Document Details

Tags

Related

Summary

Full Transcript

Upgrade to continue