India's constitutional tenets, structure may need reflection

While there may have been reasons to draft an executive-oriented document in 1949, a public debate is needed on what an alternative constitutional vision might look like

- Gautam Bhatia

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Constitution. The Constitution, which was framed over a period of three years, and during the tumult of the Partition as well as the incorporation of the princely states into India, was a remarkable achievement for its time; the fact that it has endured for 75 years (the average lifespan of Constitutions is less than two decades) is equally remarkable. In many ways—such as the grant of universal adult suffrage in one stroke, or in its abolition of untouchability and forced labour—the Constitution was a leap of faith, which expanded the horizons of social and political imagination in the newly born nation-State.

The occasion of 75 years is also a chance, however, to reflect critically on the Constitution's structure and design, and to ask whether some of those design choices might call for greater scrutiny. The framers of our Constitution were faced with numerous problems, on a vast scale: Problems of poverty and illiteracy, of communal violence, and of deep social inequalities. They, therefore, believed that a strong executive was necessary to tackle these problems at the speed and at the scale that they demanded. Thus, while the Constitution, in formal terms, guaranteed a parliamentary and federal structure of government, in the fundamental principles of design, it skewed heavily towards the executive.