The Indian Constitution: Key Feature (भारतीय संविधान की प्रमुख विशेषता)
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Indian national movement had been active in the struggle for independence from British rule for several decades. During the freedom struggle the nationalists had devoted a great deal of time to imagining and planning what a free India would be like.
Under the British, they had been forced to obey rules that they had very little role in making. State convinced Indians that free India should be a democracy which everyone should be treated equally and be allowed to participate in government.
What remained to be done then was to work out the ways in which a democratic government would be set up in Indian was done not by one person but by a group of around 300 people who became members of the Constituent Assembly in 1946 and who met periodically for the next three years to write India’s Constitution.
These members of the Constituent Assembly had a huge task before them. The country was made up of several different communities who spoke different languages, belonged to different religious, and had distinct cultures.
Also, when the Indian Constitution was being written, India was going through considerable turmoil. The partition of the country into India and Pakistan was impending, some of the Princely States remained unclear about their future, and the socio – economic condition of the vast mass of people performed dismal.
All of these issues played on the minds of the members of the Constituent Assembly as they drafted the Constitution. They rose to the occasion and gave this country a visionary document that reflects a respect for keeping diversity while preserving national unity. The final document also reflects their concern for destroying poverty through socio economic reforms as well as emphasizing the crucial role the people can play in choosing their representative.
Listed below are the key features of the Indian Constitution while reading these, keep in mind the above mentioned concerns of diversity, unity, socio economic reform and representation that the authors of this document were grappling with. Try and understand the ways in which they tried to balance these concerns with their commitment to transforming independent India into a strong, democratic society.
Federalism (संघवाद)
This refers to the existence of more than one level of government in the country. In India, we have governments at the state level and at the Centre. Panchayti Raj is the third tier of government. The vast number of communities in India meant that a system of government needed to be devised that did not only persons sitting in the capital city of New Delhi and making decisions for everyone.
it was important to have another level of government in the states so that decisions could be made for that particular area. While each state in India enjoys autonomy in exercising powers on certain issues, subjects of national concerns require that all of these states follows the laws of the central government.
The Constitution contains lists that detail the issues that each tier of government can make laws on. In addition, the Constitution also stipulates where each tier of government can get the money form for the work that it does. Under federal government but draw their authority from the Constitution as well. All persons in India are governed by laws and policies made by each of these levels of government.
Parliamentary Form the Government (संसदीय प्रपत्र सरकार)
The different tiers of government that you just read about consist of representative who are elected by the people. The Constitution of India guarantees universal adult suffrage for all citizens. When they were marking the Constitution, the members of the Constituent Assembly felt that the freedom struggle and that this would help encourage a democratic mindset and break the clutches of traditional caste, class and gender orders.
This means that the people of India have a direct role in electing their representative. Also, every citizens of the country, irrespective of his/her social background, can also contest in elections. These representative are accountable to the people. You will read more about why representation in central to democratic functioning.
Separation of Powers (अधिकारों का विभाजन)
According to the Constitution, there are three organs of government. These are the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The legislature refers to our elected representatives. The executive is a smaller group of people who are responsible for implementing laws and running the government. The judiciary, refers to the system of courts in this country.
In order to prevent the misuse of power by any one branch of government, the Constitution says that each of these organs should exercise different powers. Through this, each organs acts as a check on the other organs of government and this ensures the balance of power between all three.
Fundamentals Right (मौलिक अधिकार)
The section of Fundamentals Rights has often been referred to as the ‘conscience’ of the Indian Constitution. Colonial rule had created a certain suspicion of the State in the minds of the nationalists and they wanted to ensure that a set of written rights would guard against the misuse of State power in independent India.
Fundamental Rights, therefore, protect citizens against the arbitrary and absolute exercise of power by the State. The Constitution, thus, guarantees the rights of individuals against the State as well as against other individuals.
Moreover, the various minority communities also expressed the need for the Constitution to include rights that would protect their groups. The Constitution, therefore, also guarantees the rights of minorities against the majority. As Dr Ambedkar has said about these Fundamental Rights, their objects is two-fold. The first objective is that every citizens must be in a position to claim those rights. And secondly, these rights must be binding upon every authority that has got the power to make laws.
Secularism (धर्मनिरपेक्षता)
A secular state is one in which the state does not officially promote any one religion as the state religion. You know understand the ways in which a country’s history often determines the kind of Constitution that a country adopts for itself.
The Constitution plays a crucial role in laying out the ideals that we would like all citizens of the country to observe to, including the representatives that we elect to rule us. Just like in the game of football, a change of constitutive rules will affect the game.
Indian Constitution has been amended over the years to reflect new concerns of the polity. Often a major change in the Constitution means a change in the fundamentals nature of the country. We saw this in the case of Nepal and how it needed to adopt a new Constitution after it became a democracy. The different feature of the Indian Constitution outlined above, involve complicated ideas that are often not easy to grasp.