The celebration of November 26 as the Constitution Day is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea. It was through a gazette notifi cation that the government declared the day in this manner in 2015. It was on this day in 1949 that the Constituent Assembly passed the Constitution which came into force on January 26 the next year. Last year, on this occasion, the government organised quiz competition among school and college students. It was also decided to translate the Constitution into all the Indian and foreign languages and popularise it among the people. It is only reasonable to expect the people of India to know better about the Constitution.
The Indian Constitution is one of the most well-drafted constitutions in the world. Dr B R Ambedkar, who presided over the drafting committee, is rightly considered the architect of the Constitution. The drafting process was not easy. Marathon sessions of the Constituent Assembly were held and threadbare discussions on all aspects of the Constitution were allowed before the document was passed unanimously. In fact, it can be considered as representative of the collective wisdom of the people of India. The founding fathers liberally used ideas from all corners of the world to draft the Constitution which has the best of both unitary and federal systems of government. Yet, the fact also remains that few other constitutions have been amended as many times as the Indian Constitution.
At last count, it underwent 101 amendments, the latest one in regard to the Goods and Services Tax. It is also a fact that if the ideals contained in its preamble were translated into reality, India would have become what Tolstoy called the Kingdom of God and what Gandhi called Ramarajya. It lists all the principles that should govern governance but they remain just Utopian principles. Those in power and those who aspire for power violate the Constitution while paying lip service to it.