There have been many comments , satires on the size and number of amendments of our Constitution. But once we really try to understand it, its not a scary tome at all. When i started reading it , i thought "constitution assembly" (which is responsible for our constitution) deliberately tried to make it big...probably for world record?
The purpose of the constitution is to frame set of rules within which the govt should work. Like election of govt, the duties of govt ,citizenship, guidelines for making policies, about the goals of the govt and about the powers it can possess.
But our Indian constitution, which bulkiest of all the constitutions in the world has more than 395 articles. Some of the articles are repealed but we didnot bother to update the serial numbers. Like articles 79 to 91 were repealed but serials numbers of articles are not updated making it look big. They have not changed probably for administrative reasons. Some of the articles seems to be pointless , like article 393, according to which this constistuion "may be" called constitution of india. Cant we just print "constitution of india" on the book instead having an extra article in it?
One more article which i found funny is article 36 which is in part 4 of constitution. This articles says "The definition of state is same as mentioned in article 12 for part 4". Of course i agree that article 12 is in part 3 not in 4. But cant it say this definition of state is also applicable for part 4 ?? Instead having another article for the same reason?
And there are few "there shall be" articles. Those articles just say something like, there shall be a president or there shall be a parliament.
Constitutional assembly was full of lawyers and even got the name "lawyers paradise". And those lawyers made sure that every minute detail related to india is mention in the constitution. Right from the salary details of president etc etc to the language that should be used in the parliament.
This inclusion of every detail in the constitution lead to more number of amendments to it. For example 60th amendment is related to the maximum value of professional tax which can be charged. Every decade the reservation for SC/ST is increased by 10 years. And these increments in reservation period can be seen as many amendments. Addition of new language as national language is also considered as an amendment. Even the increase in salary of supreme court judge is also an amendment ( fortunately in the same amendment they have freed the salary of judges from constitution)
These are the few things i observed which made our constitution look gigantic. Even without these things, its big ...for all the right reasons. Our constitution makers tried to make sure of everything. Probably that was one of the reasons our constitution has not failed us so far. Of course it has got its own faults...but few amendments really tried to make it perfect. Like 44th amendment. To save her prime minister seat Indira Gandhi exploited the loop holes in constitution and declared emergency showing JP agitations as "internal disturbance" . And the emergency period is legendary in Post-independence indian history. To patch up the loop hole the "internal disturbance" was replaced with "Armed rebellion".
I believe constitution should be the set of rules which control who ever controls the nation. Its book of rules which should not be taken easily. The constitution is the weapon which is used by legislature, executive and judiciary against each other so that none of them can have the absolute power to create laws.By and large our constitution is good at that.
Many people usually think our constitution is that big because we copied a lot from other constituencies. According to me that assumption is baseless. We have copied the ideologies regarding few topics from others but its our own thing which fits Indian political system. Just big nation....big constitution.
The purpose of the constitution is to frame set of rules within which the govt should work. Like election of govt, the duties of govt ,citizenship, guidelines for making policies, about the goals of the govt and about the powers it can possess.
But our Indian constitution, which bulkiest of all the constitutions in the world has more than 395 articles. Some of the articles are repealed but we didnot bother to update the serial numbers. Like articles 79 to 91 were repealed but serials numbers of articles are not updated making it look big. They have not changed probably for administrative reasons. Some of the articles seems to be pointless , like article 393, according to which this constistuion "may be" called constitution of india. Cant we just print "constitution of india" on the book instead having an extra article in it?
One more article which i found funny is article 36 which is in part 4 of constitution. This articles says "The definition of state is same as mentioned in article 12 for part 4". Of course i agree that article 12 is in part 3 not in 4. But cant it say this definition of state is also applicable for part 4 ?? Instead having another article for the same reason?
And there are few "there shall be" articles. Those articles just say something like, there shall be a president or there shall be a parliament.
Constitutional assembly was full of lawyers and even got the name "lawyers paradise". And those lawyers made sure that every minute detail related to india is mention in the constitution. Right from the salary details of president etc etc to the language that should be used in the parliament.
This inclusion of every detail in the constitution lead to more number of amendments to it. For example 60th amendment is related to the maximum value of professional tax which can be charged. Every decade the reservation for SC/ST is increased by 10 years. And these increments in reservation period can be seen as many amendments. Addition of new language as national language is also considered as an amendment. Even the increase in salary of supreme court judge is also an amendment ( fortunately in the same amendment they have freed the salary of judges from constitution)
These are the few things i observed which made our constitution look gigantic. Even without these things, its big ...for all the right reasons. Our constitution makers tried to make sure of everything. Probably that was one of the reasons our constitution has not failed us so far. Of course it has got its own faults...but few amendments really tried to make it perfect. Like 44th amendment. To save her prime minister seat Indira Gandhi exploited the loop holes in constitution and declared emergency showing JP agitations as "internal disturbance" . And the emergency period is legendary in Post-independence indian history. To patch up the loop hole the "internal disturbance" was replaced with "Armed rebellion".
I believe constitution should be the set of rules which control who ever controls the nation. Its book of rules which should not be taken easily. The constitution is the weapon which is used by legislature, executive and judiciary against each other so that none of them can have the absolute power to create laws.By and large our constitution is good at that.
Many people usually think our constitution is that big because we copied a lot from other constituencies. According to me that assumption is baseless. We have copied the ideologies regarding few topics from others but its our own thing which fits Indian political system. Just big nation....big constitution.
