The debate in parliament on the 75 years of the glorious journey of the Constitution did not live up to its billing. It started on a serious note with Rajnath Singh, the senior-most minister in the government, initiating it, but it soon became a slanging match and lost its gravity. It possibly could not be avoided because of the form of adversarial politics being practised today.
There used to be scintillating parliamentary debates on issues of national and international importance. Those were times when the country was proud of its parliamentarians. So when it was announced that they would be discussing the Constitution’s journey across decades, the old-timers sat up and watched the debate with great interest. But it was a frustrating experience.
Speakers hurled allegations on the damage done to the Constitution by the other side of the aisle. The debate culminated in the prime minister’s take on the first of his office, Jawaharlal Nehru, for amending the Constitution several times to take away the rights of citizens, and that too with retrospective effect at times.
The main focus was the first amendment, made in 1951. Hence there is a need to dwell on the nature and context of those changes Nehru introduced through the first amendment.
A bill to amend various provisions of Article 19 and certain other ones of the Constitution was introduced by Nehru in the provisional parliament on May 12, 1951. It may be noted here that the Constituent Assembly had converted itself into the provisional parliament on January 26, 1950 on completion of its work and served as India’s highest law-making body till 1952, when the first general elections were held and a new parliament came into existence. The provisional parliament was fully competent to legislate as well as amend the Constitution as per the provisions of Article 379 (Draft Article 311). The Representation of the People Acts of 1950 and 1951, under which all elections have been held since 1952, were also enacted by the provisional parliament.
The first amendment was brought in against the background of a series of court judgements that created serious administrative and legislative problems for state governments. In Romesh Thapar vs State of Madras (1950) the Supreme Court struck down the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act on the grounds that it violated the fundamental right of freedom of the press. The Supreme Court held that Article 19(2), which specified the restrictions on the freedom of speech, did not contain ‘public order’ and therefore the Madras government order did not get protection. Article 19(2) contained only two restrictions at that point—restriction on the ground of security of the state and on those advocating overthrow of the state. This and other decisions in 1950 created great problems for a number of governments.
So the first amendment sought to insert the words “in the interest of the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign state, public order, decency or morality, incitement of offence”; the words “tends to overthrow the state” were deleted. Similarly, the word ‘defamation’ replaced ‘libel, slander’. It was also provided that these changes would have retrospective effect.
The first amendment also sought to amend Article 15. The purpose of this was explained in the statement of objects and reasons of the bill: “In order that any provision that the state might take for the educational, economic or social advancement of any backward class of citizens shall not be challenged on the ground of being discriminatory it was proposed that Article 15(3) should be suitably amplified.” The new clause added the words “for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the benefit of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes”.
The next provision was for saving land reform legislations, including the abolition of the zamindari system, that had been challenged in various high courts and were causing inordinate delay in the implementation of agrarian reforms. For this purpose, two articles—31A and 31B—were inserted. The statement of objects said: “The validity of agrarian reform measures passed by the state legislatures in the last three years had in spite of the provisions of clauses of (4) (6) of Article 31 formed the subject matter of dilatory litigation as a result of which the implementation of these important measures affecting large numbers of people has been held up.”
While Article 31A declared that any law that provides for the acquisition of estate shall not be deemed void on the ground that it abridges any of the fundamental rights, Article 31B provided for the validation of certain land reform measures already enacted by state governments. Under this article, Schedule 9 was added and all those state legislations were put in that schedule. This article declared that none of those legislations shall be void on the ground that they take away or abridge any of the fundamental rights.
Thus, the object of the first amendment was to enable the government to enact laws in the interest of the security of the state and public order, for advancing the educational, social and economic interest of the backward classes, and to protect agrarian reforms.
All governments in India are supposed to be in favour of these measures. Therefore, Nehru cannot be singled out for bringing this amendment. History has a way of reminding generations of Indians how our forefathers thought best for the country when they put their legacies at stake.
(Views are personal)
P D T Achary | Former Secretary General, Lok Sabha