Essay on The Pawn of a New Era

The twenty-sixth January 1950 marked a great event in the long and chequered history of India. For, on that day, was brought into force the present Constitution of India, which announced to the world the birth of a new republic. It was in fact the re-birth of an ancient country, after centuries of dire vicissitudes.

The struggle for national independence was over by August 15, 1947. On that day the two- hundred years-old British rule in India was brought to an end by the transfer of political authority to Indian hands.

However, the attainment of independence was not an end in itself. It was only the beginning of a new struggle, the struggle to live as an independent nation and, at the same time, to establish a democracy based upon the ideals of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.

The need for a new constitution forming the basic law of the land for the realisation of these ideals was paramount. Therefore, one of the first tasks undertaken by independent India was the framing of a new constitution. The present Constitution of India is its result. It represents the political, economic and social ideals and aspirations of the vast majority of the Indian people.

A constitution is a set of laws and rules setting up the machinery of the government of a State and which defines and determines the relations between the different institutions and areas of government, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, the central, the regional and the local governments.

The first well-known instance of a written constitution was that of the United States of America which set up an original pattern and which for its “brevity, restraint and simplicity” is universally hailed as a remarkable document.

The makers of the Indian Constitution ‘drew much from the American Constitution’ though not its brevity, and added to that experience of later constitutions in different parts of the world, especially much from the British-made Government of India Act of 1935.

Thus, the Constitution of India is the result of considerable imitation and adaptation rather than the originality.

Napoleon once told Talleyrand, his leading political adviser, that a constitution ought to be short and clear. But the latter countered. No Sire, it ought to be long and obscure! Of the two qualities prescribed by the ingenious Frenchman, there can be no doubt that the Indian Constitution possesses the first; it is debatable, however, whether we have achieved the second quality.

The Constitution in XXII Parts, with its 395 Articles; ² many of which contain a number of exceptions, limitations and qualifications, and twelve Schedules and ninety-one Amendments (so far) runs into some three hundred pages making it the longest in the history of constitutions.