It was 76 years ago on this day that the Constituent Assembly of India approved and adopted the Constitution of India. While Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, it had contributions of the best minds of the country. There were 22 committees set up by the Constituent Assembly in total, which had 299 members.
In the Drafting Committee, besides Dr Ambedkar, there were six other members who were people of eminence like Alladi Krishnaswamy Ayyangar, N Gopalaswami Ayyangar, KM Munshi, Mohammad Saadulla, BL Mitter and DP Khaitan. Mitter and Khaitan passed away during the drafting process and were replaced by N Madhava Rao and TT Krishnamachari respectively.
It is obvious that the framing of the Constitution was not done by a single person, as there were 299 members in the Constituent Assembly headed by Dr Rajendra Prasad, who later became the first President of the Independent India.
However, the Congress, the principal opposition party in the country today, seeks to attribute everything to Dr Ambedkar for obvious reasons. Dr Ambedkar did have a contribution towards the making of the Constitution and he was indeed one of the brilliant legal luminaries of the country, but to attribute everything to him amounts to belittling the contribution of others.
There is no secret about the Congress’ linking and relating the Constitution exclusively with Dr Ambedkar and making it look like he alone wrote every word of it. Since Dr Ambedkar came from a Dalit background, the Congress under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership seeks to identify it exclusively with them. And it did serve some purpose for the party in the 2024 General Elections when the party raised the bogey of “threat to the Constitution” from the BJP if it got “400 plus” seats. Rahul used to display a small copy of the Constitution at every public meeting and he continues to do so till now.
Should the Constitution be “untouchable” as Rahul is trying to make it with a definite purpose and agenda? The Constitution of a country should be a dynamic document and not something static as if carved in stone that cannot be changed. Nor is the Constitution like a “divine revealed book” that it cannot be questioned or amended. Seventy-six years is a long period and so much has changed since then.
In February 2000, the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre headed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee set up the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution headed by former Chief Justice of India, Justice MN Venkatachaliah. The commission made 58 recommendations to improve and modernise the Constitution, keeping in view the socio-economic changes that have taken place in the country since then without changing its basic framework. Not much follow up action was taken afterwards, as it required Constitutional amendments for which the NDA did not have adequate numbers in the Parliament that time.
Interestingly, there was no resistance from any quarter to the ‘Review Commission’ from any of the opposition parties. Imagine if such a commission was set up today, the entire opposition would raise hue and cry that “Dr Ambedkar’s Constitution was being attacked”. It is understandable that anything like reviewing the functioning of the Constitution today will be counted as “sacrilegious”, but time has come that the Parliament should debate the issue and if it deems anything necessary, that should be followed up. After all, the Parliament is a democratically elected house and has the authority to pass the laws on everything including amending the Constitution.
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However, overall the Constitution of India has survived the test of times. The success of our Constitution can be gauged from the fact that it has ensured that a diverse country like India continues to work as a stable and strong democracy uninterruptedly despite such innumerable lingual, cultural, regional and religious diversities.
Although it will be extremely unfair, rather insulting for Indian democracy to be compared with neighbouring countries like Pakistan or Bangladesh both of which are failed states, yet when we look at such countries, despite religious uniformity, the two countries have failed to provide even stable governments, leave aside establishing strong democracies.
Credit goes to the great leaders of the post-Independent India who have contributed further to strengthen the democracy. Greatest example of its success has been the smooth transfer of power whenever an incumbent government loses in the elections.
Even the United States of America cannot claim this distinction of smooth transfer of power after elections, after what happened in Capitol Hill in January 2021, after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential elections.
While our Constitution is one of the best constitutions in the world and one of the longest, it has ensured peace and stability in the country. If India today is an emerging power being the fifth largest economy, main credit goes to the founding fathers of our Constitution, who bequeathed us a great legal and Constitutional system to govern our country. Peace and stability are the foundation of economic progress and our Constitution has facilitated it all along. Long live the Constitution, our democracy and our country.
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