The Constituent Assembly adopted the Indian Constitution on 26th November 1949, and it came into effect on 26th January 1950. The Constitution of India has borrowed most of its provisions from various constitutions of the countries as well as from the Government of India Act of 1935. The structural part of the Constitution is to a large extent and derived from the Government of India Act of 1935.
The Indian Constitution is neither flexible nor rigid but a synthesis of both that can be amended according to the needs of society whenever required. Constitution under Article 368 grants power to the Parliament to amend whenever there is a necessity. The Article also lays down the procedure for amendment in detail. However, this power of the Parliament is not absolute. The Supreme Court has the power to declare any law that it finds unconstitutional void.
Like any other written constitution, the Constitution of India also provides for its amendment in order to adjust itself to the changing conditions and needs. However, the procedure laid down for its amendment is neither as difficult as in the USA nor as easy as in Britain. In other words, the Constitution of India is neither flexible nor rigid but a synthesis of both.
Though the rights and duties of citizens are correlative and inseparable, the original Constitution, enforced on January 26th, 1950, did not mention anything about the duties of citizens. The framers of the Constitution expected that the citizens of free India would perform their duties willingly. But things did not go as expected. Therefore, ten fundamental duties were added in Part-IV A of the Constitution under Article 51-A in the year 1976 through the 42nd Constitutional Amendment. In 2002, one more fundamental duty was added.
In the Preamble of the Indian Constitution, India is described as a “sovereign socialist secular democratic republic”. Accordingly, the Constitution has extensive provisions to ensure the social and economic welfare of the people of India. In this regard, two specific provisions have been made, one in the form of Fundamental Rights and the other as Directive Principles of State Policy.
The Constitution may be classified into two kinds, written like the U.S. Constitution or unwritten and based on conventions like the British. Therefore, no code of Fundamental Rights exists in the Constitution of England. This does not mean that in England there is no recognition of those basic fundamental rights of the individual without which democracy becomes meaningless.
The population of any country is divided into two kinds of people – citizens and aliens. Citizens of any country enjoy all civil and political rights of that country while aliens do not enjoy all of the civil and political rights of that country. Citizens are members of the political community to which they belong. They are the people who compose the country.
At the time of independence, India existed two types of political units – the British provinces (under the direct rule of the British government) and princely states (under the rule of native princes, but these princely states had accepted the paramountcy of the British Crown). The Indian Independence Act of 1947 created two independent and separate countries, India and Pakistan, and gave three options to the princely states: the freedom to join either India or Pakistan or to remain independent.
Reorganisation of Indian States and Union Territories Read More »
The Indian Constitution is the world’s longest constitution of any sovereign nation. Initially, the Indian Constitution had a preamble and 395 articles, which are grouped into 22 parts and 8 schedules. The Indian Constitution is the second-longest active constitution—after the Constitution of Alabama—in the world.
The provision of the Preamble in the Indian Constitution comes from the American Constitution. The term ‘Preamble’ refers to the introduction or preface to the Constitution. It contains the essence or summary of the Constitution. The words used in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution are some of the noblest. These words embody the highest values of the Indian Constitution.
