Viswanathan K's Thoughts

In Missing in Action , Pranay Kotasthane looks at how the concept of the nation called India evolved at independence. It had to be different from its (British) predecessor for multiple reasons. The predecessor form of government (1) answered to the British Parliament; (2) had limited powers; and (3) was elected by a small electorate. None of these attributes could be retained in independent India, obviously.   Several leaders at the time of Independence felt that society was too mired in regional identities, superstition, caste and religion. They felt that it was the responsibility of the state (independent India) to change society to move away from these tendencies. “The modern Indian constitution in its intent… was fashioned to be a tool not just for an economic and political revolution, but a social revolution.”   One can certainly understand that intent. Inevitably though, the state became increasingly paternalistic – it knew what was good for society and the individual

The constitution. It defines the core principles of how a country should be governed, with which all laws must align. Put differently, the government of the day, no matter how popular it is or how many elected members it has, cannot frame laws that violate the constitution. Sure, one can amend the constitution and then frame new kinds of laws, but amending the constitution isn’t easy. That is by design, a feature of the constitution, not a bug. It ensures core principles of nationhood and governance cannot be overturned or changed too easily. This can be frustrating at times, but it has a deeper reason –nations were formed based on some common values, beliefs and principles. The constitution is way to ensure those core components that brought a nation together don’t get erased easily. Otherwise, the nation could split since many parts may not want to be part of a union that doesn’t care for certain values. Another key point to most democratic constitutions is that they declare the laws

These words by BR Ambedkar surprised me: “However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be good.” How can “good” people compensate for a “bad” constitution – were they expected to violate the constitution?! Conversely, doesn’t a “good” constitution prevent make it harder for “not good” people to do harm? And since making changes to a constitution is hard, surely a well written constitution is very critical, right? What was Ambedkar thinking, I wondered.   Bibhudutta Pani wrote this piece on some interesting tidbits of the Indian constitution. While the Indian constitution allows for amendments, it also has a Basic Structure Doctrine , i.e., a Lakshman Rekha – the legislature should not meddle with those parts. (They include the preamble, rule of law, fundamental rights, federalism, and secularism).   While there are obvious

In Privacy 3.0 , Rahul Matthan wonders why the Indian constitution didn’t have any mention of the right to privacy. Was it an oversight or a conscious choice? He went over the transcripts of the Constituent Assembly Debates to find out.   RK Sidhwa’s speech from the time shows he had called for the “secrecy of correspondence be guaranteed”. KT Shah had called for something similar even in 1946 – “privacy of the home”. Prevention of unreasonable search and seizure was almost universally considered necessary by the framers of the constitution.   Why then did none of the above, except the point against unreasonable search and seizure, make it to the constitution? The short answer is – path dependence : “Path dependence is a concept in economics and the social sciences, referring to processes where past events or decisions constrain later events or decisions.” Let me elaborate on that.   Unreasonable search and seizure – almost every Indian, esp. those in leadership positio

Alex E. Jones once said: “The answer to 1984 is 1776.” If you don’t like the American slant of that line, feel free to replace 1776 with “a constitution”. And the Internet just made that a whole lot easier. Yes, that’s right: the Internet just made it easy to cross-reference material while you try to be the next BR Ambedkar or Thomas Jefferson. Which makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, with around 160 active constitutions around the globe, there’s a whole lot of material to refer to. The problem (until now) was that each one was written in a different format: so how does one pick and choose parts from each? As Google said in its blog : “Although the process of drafting constitutions has evolved from chisels and stone tablets to pens and modern computers, there has been little innovation in how their content is sourced and referenced.” That is where Google’s partnership with Comparative Constitutions Project comes into the picture. Together, they launched a site called C

One always hears and reads about how the Brit constitution is the only one that was never written, and yet has survived for ages. We also hear about how smart the founding fathers of the US were to come up with a constitution that was radically different from the British one and yet proved resilient enough to last to this day. With that backdrop, it was interesting to read the history of the Indian constitution: of how far before independence (almost 30-40 years prior to 1947), several Indians had already started thinking of how our constitution should be. Of how they had already evaluated whether it was better to frame a constitution via elected representatives who spoke on behalf of the majority (which inevitably meant leaving out the experts in the field) or via the experts (who usually would not be representative of the people’s preferences). Turns out we decided to do it with a bit of both types! If you wonder whether that made any difference, consider Sri Lanka’s constitution