With the Constitution of India coming into force on the 26th day of January 75 years ago, our country became an independent sovereign republic. For all of us, it is a red- letter day to celebrate. But at the same time, it is also a day to look back on the history of the grand document: how it was actually drafted, what social and political forces impacted the process, how it has survived so far through more than 125 amendments (including a big bunch of major amendments passed in 1976) and also through administrative interference in the working of the Constitution, which dealt mortal blows to many of its basic ideals and features.
A Pleasant Surprise: Ambedkar at the head of Drafting Committee
The story of the Constitution of India is largely a story of Babasaheb Ambedkar -- so decisive was his role in preparing the momentous document we the people of India gave ourselves on 25 November 1949. And the story begins with the utterly unexpected entry of the harshest critic of the Congress into the Congress bastion of Constituent Assembly (CA) and then the Drafting Committee (DC) followed by his appointment to the most crucial post of the chairman of the DC.
All this was made possible by two individuals. The first was Jogendranath Mandal, a progressive Namasudra lawyer and MLC from Barisal district (now in Bangladesh) associated with both Ambedkar’s Scheduled Caste Federation (SCF) and the Muslim league. SCF did not have the required number of members in Bombay or any other provincial Legislative Assemblies to send him to the CA. Mandal invited Ambedkar to contest the CA election from the Jessore-Khulna constituency in eastern Bengal. With the support of Congress MLC Gyananath Bishwas, he mobilized the required number of MLCs, mostly from Namasudra and Adivasi backgrounds, to get Ambedkar elected from Bengal.
The second was the Congress patriarch M K Gandhi. He prevailed upon die-hard opponents of Ambedkar such as Sardar Patel that in the new post-independence situation, old feuds should be left behind and Ambedkar’s outstanding flair should be used to give the constitution a brilliance that the world will appreciate. This was indeed a strategic masterstroke: by accommodating Ambedkar, the party in power could kill at least two birds with one stone. It would get a major facelift by demonstrating that it was broadminded enough to promote a known adversary to the top post in an assembly charged with the responsibility of charting the future course of the nation. Second, Ambedkar’s credentials as a staunch fighter for the poor’s cause would easily earn the trust of the lower strata in the emerging state of India.
Ambedkar was smart enough to understand that in discharging the great responsibility, his hands will not be free. Yet he gladly accepted the offer because this was the last and only practicable option for him to try and influence the political course of India. The struggle for laying the foundation of a thoroughly democratic, broadly egalitarian and as-far-as-possible humanitarian state began in an arena closely guarded by his political opponents.
"I came into the Constituent Assembly with no greater aspiration than to safeguard the interests of the Scheduled Castes. I had not the remotest idea that I would be called upon to undertake more responsible functions. I was therefore greatly surprised when the Assembly elected me to the Drafting Committee. I was more than surprised when the Drafting Committee elected me to be its Chairman. ... I am grateful to the Constituent Assembly and the Drafting Committee for reposing in me so much trust and confidence and to have chosen me as their instrument and given me this opportunity of serving the country. (Cheers) ..." - Dr. Ambedkar's address to the Constituent Assembly, 25 November 1949
Under Watchful Eyes
Was the DC free even to prepare the revised draft as it thought best? Not at all. Actually it did not author any original draft. It was tasked to ‘scrutinize’ a draft already prepared by Sir Benegal Narsing Rau[1], an eminent jurist who had been appointed as the advisor to DC. Every such revision (of the first draft prepared by Rau) had to be sent to the relevant ministry, and to the Congress Parliamentary Party headed by the quadrumvirate of Nehru, Patel, Rajendra Prasad, and Maulana Azad for rigorous checking. The two-tier checking and consultation (when required) took much time and Ambedkar submitted a revised Draft Constitution to Rajendra Prasad, President of the Constituent Assembly, on 21 February 1948 (the DC was formed on August 29, 1947). The CA on its part spent even more time on debates and finalization, and adopted the Constitution on 25 November 1949.
Muhammad Saadulla, a member of the DC, gives us a vivid account of how the DC functioned:
“I remember that many sections of our Draft Constitution had to be recast as many as seven times. A draft section is prepared according to the best in each of the members of the Drafting Committee. It is scrutinised by the particular Ministerial department of Government. They criticise it and a fresh draft is made to meet their criticism or requirements. Then it is considered by the biggest bloc, the majority party in the House—I refer to the Congress Parliamentary Party, who alone can give the imprimatur of adoption in this House: and sometimes we found that they made their own recommendations which had to be put into the proper legal and constitutional shape by the members of the Drafting Committee.”
From Saadulla’s account it is clear that the DC was not, in his words, a “free agency”. It was “handicapped by various methods and circumstances from the very start”[2.]
The behind-the-scene control over Constitution-making thus shows that Ambedkar was not far from the truth when he said, during a discussion on the role and power of the governor in the Rajya Sabha on 2 September 1953, that he was “used as a hack”. He went on to say, ‘What I was asked to do, I did much against my will. . . . I will be the first to burn it down’. At this point someone quipped, ‘But you defended it’ and Ambedkar shot back saying, ‘We lawyers defend many things…’[3]
Making the Best of a Bad Bargain
In the first draft the DC received from Mr. Rau, about three-fourths of the Constitution, mainly dealing with administrative provisions, was taken directly from the Government of India Act, 1935. Apart from the interventions by the Congress leadership, this was also responsible for the many limitations of the Constitution or, one might say, for many provisions that one would not expect from Ambedkar. If this was in a way normal, given that it was after all a bourgeois constitution in the making, what was really extraordinary and remarkable was the fact that even in the prevalent communal tension and riots and in the face of aggressive RSS campaign for formatting independent India in a Hindu mould, the CA boldly resisted veiled attempts at diluting India’s secular character highlighted in the draft under consideration. During debates in the CA there was no open call for a Hindu Raj, but a few proposals like depicting India as “a religious country”, and highlighting the state’s duty of imparting “spiritual training” to citizens, did come up. Ambedkar along with some other members thoroughly defeated such proposals and the Congress leadership supported this stance. So we got a Constitution that firmly stands by the principle and practice of secularism. The source of this strong commitment was none other than the glorious legacy of our protracted freedom struggle, unitedly fought and won by Hindus, Muslims and other communities, of which the Constitution is a political product.
Combined with the strong secular overtone, the independence movement was also marked by a vibrant Left imprint. The communist movement and the transition of Bhagat Singh and his comrades from revolutionary nationalism to communism, the activities of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) and its alliance with the CPI, the Kishan Sabha movement under the leadership of Sahajanand Saraswati, even Ambedkar’s tryst with workers’ movement under the banner of Independent Labour Party -- all these served to make the demands of peasants and workers an inalienable part of the national movement. The Constitution, evolving out of this movement, could not but endorse these concerns.
Finally, it was Ambedkar who, drawing upon his deep knowledge of legal and constitutional matters, enormous intellectual prowess, skill of persuasion and sincere commitment to full-blown democracy, led his team to insert into the golden book of Indian Republic sparkling ideals and provisions like the Liberty-Equality-Fraternity trinity, the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles, the principles of federation and division of power among the three wings of the state, independent judiciary, affirmative actions like reservation and so on -- which, together, made the constitution the Indian people’s most potent weapon in the struggle against injustice, discrimination, exploitation and oppression by private actors and the state.
Beyond the Constituent Assembly[4]
It is well-known that there were ninety-three representatives of the princely states worked in the CA. But it is rarely noted that parallel to the constitution-making process in the CA, more than sixty princely states also wrote their own constitutions before or just after India achieved independence and that this also should be counted as a part of the history of the Constitution of India.
A day before India’s independence day, His Highness the Rajadhiraj Sahib of Shahpura, a small state in what is now Rajasthan, gave assent to his state’s new constitution. It granted the people of Shahpura responsible government based on universal adult franchise and declared the ruling prince as constitutional head of state, with all his executive, legislative and judicial powers to be exercised through the State Council, its Assembly and the courts respectively. In striking similarity with the yet-to-be-drafted Constitution of India, the constitution of Shahpura contained a section entitled ‘Fundamental Rights including General Directions of State Policy’. The very next day – on 15 August – the prince signed the instrument of accession to the Dominion of India in the three areas of defence, external affairs and communications. Next month, the post of dewan (chief administrator) was abolished and an interim government headed by a prime minister was formed.
Many other princely states such as Aundh, Banswara, Baroda, Benares, Berar, Bhavnagar, Bhopal, Bikaner, Gwalior, Indore, Jaipur, Jammu and Kashmir, Rewa, Tehri-Garhwal, Udaipur etc. followed more or less the same course.[5] The ground work had been done at the ‘Princes’ Meeting’ held as early as on 29 January 1947, even before the DC was formed. A resolution passed at the meeting declared that (a) the entry of the States into the Union of India shall be on no other basis than that of negotiation, and the final decision shall rest with each State, and (b) the Constitution of each State, its territorial integrity, and the succession of its reigning dynasty in accordance with the custom, law and usage of the State, shall not be interfered with by the Union. The meeting was preceded, in most states, by some form of dialogue between the respective ruler and his subjects, with both sides bargaining for securing their own interests in the emerging political set-up. Thus the subjects and rulers of non-British India also played an indirect but vital role even in the preparatory stage of the constitution-making process, thereby adding to the vitality and authenticity of the Constitution that was finally adopted.
Apart from the princely states, numerous tribal groups also put forward their own demands, e.g., asking for tribal-majority provinces where their ‘customary law [would be] supreme’, or demanding ‘rights of territorial unity and solidarity and self-determination’ within a province. An interesting example would be the ‘Memorandum on the Adivasis of Jharkhand, Demanding Separation from Bihar on a Constitutional Basis, Requesting Final Decision before June 1948’. The demand was not immediately met, but it continued to agitate the minds of Adivasis of the region, who ultimately achieved it in the year 2000.
Also notable in this connection is the Naga demand for their own constitution and flag. This was not entertained in the Constitution adopted in 1949, but remained a basis of political struggle and negotiations until the Indian government was forced to consider it as part of a peace agreement with Naga groups in August 2015; to this day it is still a crucial bargaining point.
Onslaughts on the People and the Constitution
The Constitution we the people of India gave ourselves was a new social contract for a new India. We saw in it the promise and prospect of a new dawn. But as years and decades passed by, we woke up to a bitter truth. We realised that Ambedkar had got it right: the constitution is only as good as the people who ‘work’ it. Those who sat on the seat of power in the name of the Constitution, went on killing its body and soul with a thousand cuts. And now under Modi, social justice remains elusive, as Dalits, Adivasis, women and marginalised groups face systemic discrimination and violence. Liberty is increasingly compromised, as restrictions on freedom of expression and the press intensify. Communal polarisation, religious intolerance and exclusionary rhetoric lead to growing alienation of religious minorities, particularly Muslims. Fraternity looks like a fleeting will-o’-the-wisp, as state-sponsored Sanghi terror, hate speech, fake news, pre-planned pogroms grip the country.
In a democracy, dissent is a fundamental right, yet activists, journalists and academics are routinely targeted with sedition and UAPA charges just for telling the truth to power. Manipulation of elections, disruption of parliament, passage of key legislations with minimal debates and frequent resort to the ordinance route, subversion of rule of law by encounter killings, bulldozer ‘justice’, misuse of central agencies and saffronisation of vital institutions like the Election Commission, the Army, cultural and educational institutions and even the judiciary – there is really no end to the list of brazen violations of the Constitutional mandate.
The Neoliberal Offensive
Our Constitution prioratises economic justice for humans over GDP figures. It counts equality as one of the founding principles of the republic of India. Article 38(2) of the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) insists that the state shall strive to minimise the inequalities of income and eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities. Further, Article 39(c) emphasises that the economic system ought not to result in a concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment. And yet, continuing attacks on livelihood issues like food, shelter, health, education, income etc., and policy-induced escalating inequality, are rarely recognised as violations of the constitutional mandate. So let us examine the matter in some detail.
The rising inequality in India was graphically captured by Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty from the Paris School of Economics documented in their 2019 work, “Indian Income Inequality, 1922-2015: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?” It shows that in the 1930s the top 1% of earners had a share of nearly 21% of total income. After Independence, however, this gap came down to a level where, in the 1980s, the top 1% earners had a share of no more than 6% of the total income. The thing is that the neoliberal reforms in the 1990s led to a gradual withdrawal of the interventionist welfare state and unshackled market forces, while prioritising and facilitating foreign and domestic private capital investment. As a result, by 2014-15 the top 1% income earners were eating up as much as 22% of the total income, pushing India back to an inequality situation worse than what prevailed in the pre-Independence period.[6]
The chief beneficiary of this skyrocketing inequality has been, as expected, the upper castes. A recent document[7] from the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics clearly demonstrates this overlap between economic inequality and social inequality. By 2022-23, 90% of the billionaire wealth was held by the upper castes, while Scheduled Tribes had no presence in the billionaire club. Other Backward Classes had a mere 7.4% representation here, and Scheduled Castes were at a microscopic 2.6%. The upper castes are the only group which owns wealth more – much more – than its proportion of population, underscoring how social capital and economic advantages overlap in our country.
As these documents correctly indicate, the rising inequality graph is an outcome of a deliberate policy shift from the initial welfare economy (with the state sector playing a major role) model to the market economy (with privatization and opening up to global market forces as its essential component) paradigm. Introduced in small doses from the 1980s on the pretext that the egalitarian approach was not delivering desired growth and needed to be replaced by a free market approach, the neoliberal model took a definite shape in early 1990s. It continued to gain momentum ever since and, with the installation of the Modi regime, scaled dizzy heights. To make matters worse, diabolical measures like the note ban and a cruel lockdown not only caused immense hardships, they inflicted deep wounds in the economy that are yet to heal. These two measures, together with others like the badly planned and callously implemented GST scheme, effectively ruined the unorganised sector, killing jobs and therefore, effective demand. For the working people, this has meant nothing less than a dystopia marked by vanishing jobs and rising prices, even as the rich and super rich revel in obnoxious plenitude. If this is not a betrayal of our Constitution, what is?
THIS CONSTITUTION IS OURS
We must Protect it to Save our Democratic Rights
As we go to press, we confront the latest salvo of the fascist rulers -- the ONOE conspiracy. Modi and Shah hate the Constitution and abhor Ambedkar, they dream of a fascist Hindu Raj in India. So they are now out to destroy the basic structure of the Constitution and undermine the federal principle and the crucial democratic rights of citizens. We must face the challenge head on – on the streets, in parliament and legislatures, in every form and forum available to us. We shall fight, we shall win. This is the only way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution and foundation of the Republic of India.
Protests Rage Across the Country Condemning Amit Shah’s Insulting Remarks Against Ambedkar
Widespread protests erupted across India against the Union Home minister for his derogatory remarks about Dr B.R. Ambedkar in the Rajya Sabha. Across the country, CPIML, AISA, RYA, AICCTU, and AIPWA led demonstrations, effigy burnings and marches to demand Amit Shah’s resignation and a public apology by Modi government. On 18 December, CPIML MPs Raja Ram Singh and Sudama Prasad joined the INDIA bloc MPs in Parliament to condemn Amit Shah’s remarks against Ambedkar. In Delhi, on 18 December, AISA activists staged a protest at Delhi University, burning Amit Shah’s effigy and demanding accountability for the insult to Ambedkar’s vision. The Delhi Police responded with violence, detaining several protesting students.
Meanwhile, in Bihar, on 19 December, CPIML and AISA activists burnt Amit Shah’s effigy at various locations, including Bankipur, Patna Sahib, Digha, and Danapur. At Jakkanpur near the Gaya line crossing, CPI(ML) senior leaders K.D. Yadav and Kamlesh Sharma led a march culminating in the effigy’s burning. Protesters declared that the BJP’s mask of “constitutional respect” had been exposed and vowed to resist any attack on Ambedkar and his ideals. Protests also took place in other districts including Saharsa, Jehanabad, Buxar, Arwal, Begusarai, and Madhubani.
Similar protests were held in Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad, where AISA members, led by State Executive President Manish, marched from Swaraj Bhawan to Balsan Crossing, holding Ambedkar’s portraits and placards. They called for Amit Shah’s immediate resignation. The protests extended to rural areas, with workers and farmers joining the protest. At the Phulpur IFFCO factory, contract workers held a gate meeting on 19 December, condemning Amit Shah’s statement and demanding his resignation. In Sonbhadra, CPI(ML) Polit Bureau member Ramji Rai and State Secretary Sudhakar Yadav addressed a gathering in Shivdwar village after garlanding Ambedkar’s statue. In Jharkhand’s Dhanbad, CPI(ML) members protested at Randhir Verma Chowk, burning Amit Shah’s effigy and highlighting the Modi government’s attempts to dismantle Ambedkar’s vision of a socialist, secular, and egalitarian India. The party’s State Secretary Manoj Bhakt stated that Amit Shah and the BJP’s hostility towards Ambedkar stemmed from their desire to replace the Constitution with Hindutva’s Manusmriti. “Ambedkar represents the aspirations of Dalits, tribals, minorities, and women. Amit Shah’s statement is an affront to millions of Indians who cherish Ambedkar as the architect of modern India,” he said.
On December 21, AIPWA along with other women’s organisations held a protest in Delhi. AIPWA leader Shweta Raj said that Ambedkar’s principles remain an indomitable barrier against Hindutva’s regressive ideology. She asserted people of India will not allow the Manuvadi rule and ideology to throttle Ambedkar’s constitution and his legacy of social justice. The people's anger transcended state borders, with protests organised in Karnataka, West Bengal, Odisha, and Uttarakhand. At Freedom Park in Bangalore, AISA activists and other organisations burnt Amit Shah’s effigy, denouncing his insult to Ambedkar.
As the BJP faces mounting backlash over Amit Shah’s comments, the CPI(ML) and other left parties, in a meeting held on 22 December, have called for a joint nationwide protest on 30 December to resist the BJP’s attack on India’s constitutional values and Ambedkar’s legacy.
Notes:
In his 25th November, 1949 speech to the CA, Ambedkar declared that the credit for authoring the Constitution belongs not him but to Mr. Rau.
Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly, BAWS, Vol. 13, 1994, p. 1174.
Vasant Moon, ed., Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches vol. 15 (Mumbai: Government of Maharashtra, 1989), pp. 860, 862. From the last part of his comment, one gathers that he was bound by his brief (which refers to prewritten a summary of the legal position a lawyer needs to present in court on behalf of his client) and often could not act or speak as he would like to. In fact a comparative study of Ambedkar’s 1947 document States and Minorities-- which reads like a mini-constitution -- and the draft constitution he presented to the CA would reveal that in the latter instance he did not press for many of his original positions such as State Socialism (which he considered appropriate and necessary in the concrete conditions of India) because he knew that such an attempt would be only a waste of time.
This section draws heavily on Rohit De, Assembling India's Constitution: Towards a New History in Past & Present, no. 263 (May 2024)
However, Hyderabad and Kashmir, along with Junagad, did not accede to the Dominion of India on 15 August 1947.
From these telltale figures, the authors of the study conclude: “… income and wealth inequality in India have reached historical highs under the Billionaire Raj. These extreme inequalities and their close link with social injustices can no longer be ignored. To tackle concentration at the very top of the distribution and create valuable fiscal space for crucial social sector investments, we propose a comprehensive wealth tax package on the ultra-rich.”
Towards Tax Justice &Wealth Redistribution in India: Proposals based on latest inequality estimates, May 24, 2024.
