[First published in YouthKiAwaaz]
Between the years 2019 and 2024, the Constitution of India has been used in ways that were perhaps never anticipated by the members of the Constituent Assembly. During the same period, the Constitution has also been elevated to the position of a quasi-deity, by people who claim to uphold the values that the Constitution originally stood for. Between these two extremes is the Constitution itself- a document which was framed by human beings at a certain point in history, and with certain aspirations and apprehensions about the future of the newly independent country. While we think of the Constitution as an inviolable document distilling the wisdom of the members of the Constituent Assembly, it was actually developed using the framework of the laws which were already in effect in the country, and many of the provisions were a compromise between what people with divergent views believed in.
Gautam Bhatia’s The Indian Constitution: Conversations with Power is an extremely timely book which examines the ‘Web of Power’ inherent in the Constitution and explains how the Constitution can only be understood by recognising both the dogmatic part (which includes a declaration of rights) and the organic part (which divides and organises power). The book looks at six major issues which are contained in the Constitution and examines in depth the history behind the issue, the infection points where it was challenged the rulings which formed the basis for subsequent interpretations, and the current status.
I. Power Decentralised
This section examines the federal structure of India. The Constitution of India describes India as a “Union of States”, but a cursory reading of the Constitution shows that the Centre has more power than the States. Was this because the Constituent Assembly recognised the need for a strong Central Government to implement the development policies needed in the newly independent country, or was it because it was understood that what was not implicitly stated in the Constitution came under the purview of the States? Whatever the intention might have been, the rulings of the Supreme Court in the past seven decades have confirmed the ‘central drift’, and today, the Centre is much more powerful than the States, which has wide-ranging consequences for the future of federalisation.
II. Power Divide
India was constituted as a bicameral government with the Executive branch and the Legislative branch being independent of each other in principle. In reality, however, the structure of government ensures that the Executive branch controls the Legislative branch. While India is a Parliamentary democracy, for all practical purposes, it operates no differently from a Presidential form of democracy.
III. Power Dispersed
At the time of independence, India was not a monolith- there was a diversity of political structure, language and religion; there were groups of people (especially Adivasis) who had different ways of social organization, and the territories of North East India were a very different geographic entity. While there was a need to hold together these differences, the Constitution did include some measure of ‘asymmetric federalism’, but much of that has been eroded through constitutional challenges in the past seven decades.
IV. Power Confronted
There is the need for ‘guarantor institutions’ to ensure that the different branches of government perform their functions and serves as checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power by any one branch. But what happens when these guarantor institutions come under the power of any of the branches and are thus no longer able to function independently?
V. Power Contained
The Constitution guarantees that citizens enjoy certain Fundamental Rights. But what happens when the axis of power shifts and allows the State to exercise to deprive the citizens of their personal liberty? Unfortunately, over the last seven decades, the laws, the interpretation of laws and the lack of adequate institutions have resulted in the State having the power to detain citizens.
VI. Power Unbound
While the Preamble to the Constitution begins with the words “We the People of India”, the design of the Constitution is such that once the people “gave themselves the Constitution”, they shuffled off stage and left it to other bodies to interpret and implement the Constitution. As the author writes- “when faced with an inflection point where more than one reading of the Constitution was interpretively possible- they have chosen a path that closes off the possibilities of public participation rather than opening it up.”
This book is an eye-opener for a reader who trusts the Constitution as an ideal without really understanding how power operates within the structure determined by the Constitution. Reading this book makes us realise that ours is a centralising constitution, which is why it has often thrown up “centralizing executives who have been entirely comfortable working with and …(using the document)..to achieve their goals.” There are, however, as the author notes, non-centralizing interpretations of the Constitution, but these can only be arrived at by understanding the language and architecture of the Constitution.
The author ends the book with these lines: “This book is offered up as an initiation of that conversation. If it can serve as a starting point or a signpost, then its goal will have been accomplished.” And it is precisely to get this understanding and to start the necessary conversations that it is essential to read this book.
[I received a review copy of the book from Harper Collins. The views expressed are my own.]
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