These Indian Constitution FACTS WILL SHOCK YOU!! Journey Of Making The Constitution

12,558 views Wait, is this logic right? • Jan 24, 2025

Slog Reference: Constitution of India

Description

This episode teaches about India’s independence and the Constitution that shaped India. We talk about the Indian Constitution, which is the longest and most amended in the world. Even though India became independent in 1947, it still followed British laws until 1950, when the Constitution was fully adopted.

Further into the episode we also talk about how the Constitution was made, who helped write it, and the big debates that happened, like whether India’s government should be more like Gandhi’s village-based ideas or Nehru’s vision of modern cities. We learn about the role of Dr. Ambedkar, who is known father of the Indian Constitution, and how his ideas were different from Gandhi’s.

In the episode, we explore how the Constitution has been changed many times since it was made, and why it is so different from the constitutions of other countries. The episode also talks about important topics like freedom of speech, property rights, and why India’s Constitution is still very important today.

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Links:
Preamble: https://www.constitutionofindia.net/articles/preamble/
UISR: https://www.constitutionofindia.net/debates/17-oct-1949/#135356
Gandhi: https://www.constitutionofindia.net/debates/17-oct-1949/#135460
First Amendment: https://theprint.in/past-forward/how-nehru-added-conditions-apply-to-article-191a-india-lost-way-to-gates-of-freedom/1043270/
Making of the Constitution: https://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/News-Analysis/2015-11-26/Making-of-Indian-Constitution/188947
Indian Constitution is handwritten: https://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/News-Analysis/2015-11-26/Making-of-Indian-Constitution/188947
Basic Of Structure Doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_structure_doctrine
Gandhi's Vision Of Constitution: https://www.flame.edu.in/in-the-media/gandhis-vision-of-a-constitution-was-imperfect-but-is-india-paying-the-price-for-neglecting-it
Gandhi And Indian Constitution: https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/Gandhi-and-the-Indian-constitution.php
Ceylon Citizenship Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceylon_Citizenship_Act
Early Phase of Electoral Politics in Pakistan: https://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/csas/PDF/7-Tahir%20Kamran.pdf
The cabinet of talents: https://historypak.com/cabinet-of-talents/

00:00 Why was 26th January is Republic Day?
00:30 Indian Constitution Vs Other Constitutions
01:21 Why 106 Amendments in 75 Years?
04:52 Fundamental Rights which were removed
06:29 Indian Constitution Is Global Inspiration
07:22 Who wrote the Constitution?
12:28 Preamble Of the Constitution
16:45 Gandhi's Principles were IMPRACTICAL?
19:30 The constitution isn't Gandhian then what is it?

#futureiq #indianconstitution

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Constitution of India

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Transcript

- 26th January Republic Day yeah do you know why 26th January is Republic Day because the Constitution came into effect on that day no but why was 26 Jan chosen for this I actually have no idea because in 1930 the lore Declaration of paa swaraj was on 26 January and that's why they chose this as a nice symbolic date for getting our own Constitution very interesting I actually didn't know about that well there's a whole bunch of things that you probably don't know about our constitution okay uh like what our constitution is the longest constitution in the world really it is 10 times longer than the Constitution of United States really and it is infinite times longer than the constitution of UK

0m 50s what do you mean infinite that would mean UK doesn't have a written Constitution really they don't nope they just have a collection of law laws and precedences and case laws starting in 1215 12 1215 as in 12158 yes that's when the Magna Carta happened oh wow and since the Magna Carta they didn't bother to codify it into like a document or anything no wow yeah I didn't know that also our constitution is one of the most amended constitutions in the world all right we have 1006 amendments in 75 years all right compare that with just 20 7 amendments in 250 years for the US okay so we are like at a 10 times the Run rate but why so many amendments in

1m 39s the Indian constitution because our constitution goes into a lot of detail in many different areas okay as a result if you want to pass any laws or change any laws there is a good chance that that thing is mentioned in the Constitution so now passing that law requires a constitutional amendment right oh but what kind of amendment are we talking about can you give me an example the First Amendment the freedom of speech well are you talking about India or us the US also has freedom of speech as the first amendment and so does India actually well except that they're opposite in the sense in the US the Constitution originally didn't promise freedom of speech so the first

2m 23s amendment is giving freedom of speech in India which did the Constitution like 200 years later uhhuh freedom of speech was already there in the Constitution so why does the first amendment of India talk about freedom of speech uh if they had already given the freedom of speech then the amendment must have restricted it absolutely so Neu huh felt that restricting freedom of speech was necessary for stability in the country right okay to prevent sedition to prevent riots and things like that that whereas his political opponents felt that he was using this to control or to reduce political descent right so there was a lot of opposition a lot of debate but Neu and Congress had

3m 14s pretty much controlled everything so they managed to pass these laws right this is also when the Sedition laws became a little too powerful okay okay the original sedition laws in the Constitution huh we inherited from the British right obviously British trying to prevent the freedom struggle from overthrowing and all of that right but the Sedition law originally could only be applied if the security of state was threatened which makes sense right but the First Amendment changed it so that sedition law could be applied if you were disturbing public order you were inciting an offense right okay so you know that seems reasonable if you look at it from some mangle but also it is quite unreasonable because you know

4m 04s authoritarian governments can misuse it and over the years this has been misused quite a lot so you have to be careful with Constitutional Amendments I was just thinking if I end up in a fight on a road with someone who cut across my car yeah technically the Sedition law could get applied uh so yeah it's a very uh dangerous situation if uh sedition concept is watered down so much right because Banning of the satanic versus MF Hussein's paintings Mohammad zub's tweets Kaya Kumar speeches all of these are now Downstream of those changes the First Amendment right okay so the first amendment in uh Indian context in the Indian constitution actually ended up taking away some of that freedom yeah oh

4m 52s there are other things right more fundamental things that were removed oh so uh right to property okay was a fundamental right okay which means a fundamental right in our constitution is the kind of right which cannot be removed even by passing a law makesense and right to property was one of them so what does right to property entail here as in I have the right to own property or what yeah you have the right to your own property and nobody can force you to give up that property right okay so can you think of why this was removed by an amendment no why would this be removed because if it is my own property I have every right

5m 34s to own it why would anybody take it away from me well remember after Independence there was the whole movement to redistribute property to get rid of the zamindari system all right and all the zamindars used this fundamental right to fight those laws right and that is why the government actually amended the Constitution so that redistribution of property under the anti zamindari laws could happen without facing challenges in our Supreme Courts right interesting I wouldn't have thought of that particular Amendment as necessary but given the context of the time that amendment was absolutely necessary correct it was changed from a fundamental right to a constitutional right right so that it could be amended makes sense man there's a lot of things

6m 26s I don't know what else don't I know about the Indian constitution well the Indian constitution has a truly Global inspiration as in as in the Indian constitution collected a lot of things from constitutions and systems all over the world right so the Parliamentary form of government obviously has come from the British correct right fundamental rights the concept has come from the United States so rights which even laws cannot take away right right directive principles of State polic es okay come from Ireland okay trade and commerce rules probably come from Australia we're not entirely sure but there is some evidence of that okay and the kind of Center State relations that we have the distribution of power

7m 17s between the center and the states that has come from Canada okay looks like uh Dr edar traveled the entire world to collect all of these laws do all of the research us UK Australia austri no that's another thing people don't realize right most people think that ambedkar wrote the Constitution what are you saying naen so the Constitution who wrote the Constitution Dr Babas sahb ambedkar anything you say other than that channel so let's understand the chronology okay chronology yes so the constituent assembly right which is equivalent to the our Parliament which existed when we got independence right that had 299 members okay and they were given the job of writing the Constitution okay obviously 300 people

8m 11s can't write a document so they created a seven member drafting committee okay and the chairman of that committee was Dr edar okay okay they were supposed to write the Constitution correct but they also didn't actually write the first draft what they did was they asked B and raal an eminent jurist a legal scholar huh to travel the world figure out the best ideas from all over the world and come up with a first draft okay ah I was worried they gave it to an intern or something yeah well no chat GPT didn't exist in those days so B and ra who knew all these systems of the world he came up with the first draft okay and this

8m 56s draft had about 243 articles okay okay now this draft he gave to the drafting committee the drafting committee did a big rewrite okay from 243 articles they went to 3155 articles they changed a whole bunch of things okay T Krishna machari who was a member of the drafting committee is on record pretty much saying that really most of the work was done by Dr edar because you know like uh one of the MERS of the drafting committee was dead two of them were living outside the country a couple of them were not even in Delhi at the time and things like that right so like the college project where there are four people assigned to a project but one

9m 41s does all the work yeah I mean all contributed but bulk of it was edar and that's why he's called the father of our Constitution and ban ra is the Pioneer of our constitution okay okay I can I can live with that Chanel yeah next thing to keep in mind mind is that this was just a first second draft okay right this was then given to the constituent assembly to debate and discuss and the constituent assembly actually took this very seriously and they debated it and discussed it for 114 days over a threee period on 114 actual days wow okay they suggested a total of 7,635 changes wow these were discussed a lot of them were not accepted but

10m 35s 2,427 modifications were actually accepted okay okay and this really makes our constitution so powerful because the constituent assembly had everybody right it had high cast people it had low cast people it had people from the north people from the South Hindi speaking people Udu speaking people South Indian languages it had uh complete representation across the length and Bre there were only 15 women okay okay but still I mean the fact we did have women and they did fight for women's issues and women's equality okay okay some male members made fun of them they said things like oh if we make it equal that goes against our Traditional Values and our family structure will get uh broken

11m 29s by that and things like that okay to those 15 women I say thank you very much for your service you have done an important job in the history of India but because the Constitution was really debated and adjusted by so many different people everyone in the country felt like it was their constitution felt a sense of ownership about it the same can't be said of some other countries right like in Pakistan the constituent assembly was so divided that they were not able to come up with a draft that everyone agreed on even by 1956 oh wow that's six years after our constitution came into effect and nine after achieving Independence gaining independence and I mean I could argue

12m 15s that a lot of their problems are because of that okay okay that is very interesting and he's just left it as a side note but I'm going to make him go into that side note later probably a shot or something but also another interesting thing is that a lot of the debate was just on the Preamble of the Constitution on the Preamble yes why did they spend so much time on the Preamble let's go over some of the discussions related to the Preamble okay KT Shaha wanted socialism to be mentioned that we are a socialist country in the Preamble of the Constitution right and uh Dr edar said no a constitution is supposed to be

12m 56s the legal framework not the economic system okay so that was not there in the Preamble originally okay all right much later in the 1970s Indira Gandhi added that word into the Preamble as part of the emergency right So ksha eventually got his way except through someone else she also added the secular socialist republic correct and so secular and socialist were the words uh she added and that is still a point of contention for uh many people right right right uh but there were other very interesting things right so for example hasat moan wanted the country to be called Union of Indian socialist republics that sounds very much like the USSR he was absolutely inspired by the

13m 47s USSR right at that time USSR was considered a huge success they didn't know that in 1990 the whole thing would collapse right yeah another H Kut wanted the preamble to start with in the name of God so instead of we the citizens of India that is bat he wanted it to be in the name of God we the citizens of India that is bat give to ourselves Etc adding God to the Constitution is an entirely different debate I wonder how that debate went well I mean you can actually look up all the debates are there online they're fascinating but it was voted down for 41: 68 okay and H kamut was so angry he said this sir is a

14m 35s black day in our annals God save India which God couldn't because he wasn't there in the Constitution let's not say that but I get what you mean he he means some never mind okay another word which was there in the Preamble but was removed was was a mention of Gandhi Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi yes Brar Prasad did not want Gandhi's name in the Preamble he got it removed can you guess why uh around the time of independence of partition would have caused the Muslims to not like him also some of the higher cast people to not like him uh there were a fair few detractors by that time so one of them probably got it removed nope no it was a

15m 22s supporter of gandi yes brajesh Prasad got the name removed because he did did not want Gandhi's name to be dragged into this rotten Constitution which was based on the American Supreme Court cases and the government of India act and it was not a gandhian constitution gandhian what would a gandhian constitution even look like a gandhian constitution would be something that had panchayat Raj right where most of the people lived in villages most of the power was with the village panchayat and the center had only a small number of powers related to Military and things trade and things like that right okay so these people there were people who wanted this entire paragraph in the Preamble I'm going to read it because

16m 12s it's a lovely paragraph okay okay in the name of God the almighty under whose inspiration and guidance the father of our nation Mahatma Gandhi led the nation From Slavery into Freedom by unique adherance to the Eternal principle of Satya and a himsa and who sustained the millions of our countrymen and martyrs of the nation in their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the complete independence of our motherland we the people of bat having solemnly resolved to constitute Etc okay I can see how that would have been a little bit too much even if he was the father of the nation but now I'm thinking Gandhi back then was the most powerful leader in the country how then did the

16m 55s Constitution become something that is not what his beliefs espoused yeah so overall most of the people felt that Gandhi's principles the Gandhi model of decentralization was Impractical utopian and that is why it was sidelined sidelined by who okay let's go through them step by step right okay edar himself did not like Gandhi's model right the thought was that this Village level power would enhance the power of the traditional upper cast which is what most of the panchayat was made up and the parts who were not upper cast would be the rich dominant majorities and the cast divisions would get perpetuated right edar has criticized the Gandhi vision of Village republics calling Villages a SN of localism a den of

17m 49s ignorance narrow-mindedness and communalism okay wow but that's not all right Gandhi was pretty good at sidelining edar but even Neu and other young leaders were against this right Neu felt that rapid industrialization and mechanization was the key strategy uh for the country right Neu regarded The Villages as intellectually and culturally backward believing that progress could not be achieved in such an environment right he saw narrow-mindedness as breeding untruthfulness and violence okay right so when Neu himself was against it Gandhi realized that he was not getting anywhere right so at one point Gandhi explicitly distanced himself from the Congress and the whole Constitution process right and he said that I do not know how many Congressman swear by

18m 50s nonviolence or chka or believing in decentralization or regard The Village as a nucleus so he just stayed away from this whole process and focused on communal Harmony and other things around those last years this is literally TV series level drama man I mean I can imagine the uh the not exactly infighting but uh the kind of opposition within what was then perceived to be a very unified group of leaders oh it was not at all unified I mean you know the number of fights and over little little things that happened during the constituent assembly debates so that explains why the Constitution isn't gandhian but then what is it it is a combination of the principles of edar

19m 39s Neu and Patel okay and it has a whole bunch of interesting bits which we just take for granted they seem obvious to us but which required a big fight right social justice equality for all why is equality for all even debated well see nobody wanted to explicitly say oh we don't want equality right but lots of back doors there right there are people saying that oh government shouldn't interfere with tradition okay right don't change anything Suddenly by law right let the change be gradual otherwise if you give equality suddenly overnight people won't be able to handle it and the social fabric of the country will be into trouble right those kinds of debates happened but our leaders insisted no we

20m 29s will do it equality from day one right hats off one person one vote was a radical idea at that time wait what one how can one person one vote be a radical idea it is the fundamental in every democracy right it wasn't at that time right internally and externally okay externally do you know that in 1947 even the United States did not have one person one vot wa how many Southern States had laws called Jim Crow laws oh right where basically to be able to vote you needed to pass a literacy test and you needed to pay some pole taxes correct these were clearly designed so that black people wouldn't be able to vote and poor people again

21m 19s black people wouldn't be able to vote and they were clever white people who were not literate and couldn't pay the pole tax were allowed to vote under grandfather clauses if your grandfather voted you can vote otherwise you have to pass these test okay other countries huh which created a constitution around the same time they didn't do what we did so South Africa up our side whites only could vote correct Sri Lanka SRI lka they passed a law called the Sone citizenship act which disenfranchised Tamil around 10% of the country not allowed to vote and over the next 70 years we can see what problems that caused yep The Liberation Tigers of Tamil ilum looked at look it up it's a very interesting

22m 10s history there and even internally this was opposed by both ends right the elites wanted votes by property holders only or votes uh only for literate people they sound sensible but in practice they cause serious problems minorities wanted separate electorate for that Minority that could have caused a different kind of problem right yeah I mean uh like oh this seat is a Muslim only seat so only Muslims can vote for that seat that kind of minority representation are you talking about yeah something along those lines so all of those were cancelled and basically we had strong sensible leaders who fought of all these short-term interests and wested interests and gave us a constitution because of which I am

22m 59s pretty sure that we are in better shape as a country compared to some other comparable countries yeah and some of them are neighbors like Sri Lanka and while Bago you mentioned Pakistan as well yeah we'll do shorts on these going into detail on how our constitution gave us a better life than our neighbors okay so keep an eye out for those shots on this channel uh subscribe and follow us on all of the various social media channels that we've recently started working on operating on and do talk to us there we love your questions we love answering those questions and uh there's a lot about the Constitution that I didn't know I just uh thought of it as a

23m 43s national holiday but clearly this national holiday holds a lot of importance in the way we conduct ourselves in our day-to-day lives how the government conducts itself in our day-to-day lives what powers they have what rights we have and all of that looks like it is time for me to go and do like a slightly more detailed reading of the Indian constitution hopefully we've generated that little bit of spark in you as well shrikant naen future IQ