Prof. Dr. K. L. Bhatia
Fourteenth day of April every year is an historic day in the post-independence of India and an apt occasion to pay deferential tributes to Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, a man of letters who believed in work is worship, which alone enabled him to rise from scratch to the echelons by the blissful grace of hard work. He was an architect of the Constitution of India that was adopted, enacted and enforced on the genesis of Yesterday and Today, Tomorrow, which has been expounded to binding the posterity for ages. He was a staunch believer of egalitarianism.
Preamble is entrenched an immutable Basic Structure of the edifice of the Constitution of India. Our Constitution’s spirit is the Preamble, which is the backbone of our Constitution. It is the guiding spirit for Indian Nation on the touchstone of Basic Feature of our Constitution. Preamble indicates the language and expressions of the Constitution as its Vision-Mission and not in a rigid or exhaustive sense. Preamble is poetry in prose expressed in the majestic language of its architect-engineers:
“We the People of India having solemnly resolved to Constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Seculari Democratic Republic and to Secure to all its citizens:
Justice, social, economic and political;
Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
Equality of status and opportunity and to Promote among them all
Fraternity Assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
In our Constituent Assembly this twenty sixth day of November, 1949, do hereby adopt enact and give to ourselves this Constitution.”
The Preamble is not a mere solemn resolution; it is something more than a resolution. It is declaration; it is a firm resolve; it is a pledge and an understanding. It is not a spirit of narrow legal wording, but a majestic expression of constitutional morality, constitutional polity and constitutional culture. It is an expression of dedication to the people of India. The Preamble, in fact, is the very life and breadth of the Constitution which the founder-authors have framed. Its dedication to the people of India unequivocally speaks about the sovereignty of the people of India; viz., the sovereignty will vest in the whole body of the people of India. The founder-authors expressed that the sovereignty of the people of India will not be bartered away or bargained in the name of Commonwealth; it does not vest in any foreigner. Sovereignty does not vest even in the Government. Government only represents the people of India. Acharya J. B. Kriplani expounded the genesis of the preamble which encapsulates also the genesis of basic feature philosophy for the future emulation. His eloquent words were: “What we have stated in this Preamble are not legal and political principles only. They are also great moral and spiritual principles and if I may say so, they are mystic principles. In fact these were not first legal and constitutional principles, but they were really spiritual and moral principles.”
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in his concluding remarks on the Preamble expressed with elocution: The general intention of the House, viz., that this Constitution should emanate from the people and should recognize that the sovereignty to make this Constitution vests in the people. The Preamble falls into three distinct parts. There is one part which is declaratory. Now, the declaratory part consists of the phrase: “We the people of India, in our Constituent Assembly, day this month do hereby adopt enact and give to ourselves Constitution”. Does this Constitution say or does this Constitution not say that the Constitution os ordained, adopted and enacted by the people. I think anybody who reads its plain language, not dissociating it from other parts, namely, the descriptive and the objective, cannot have any doubt that is what the Preamble means. Does this Constitution or does it not acknowledge, recognize and proclaim that it emanates from the people? I say it does. As most Members know that United States Constitution was drafted by a very small body of 13 States which met at Philadelphia to draw up the Constitution. Therefore, if the representatives of 13 States assembled in a small conference in Philadelphia could pass a Constitution and say that what they did was in the name of the people, on their authority, basing on it their sovereignty. I personally myself, do not understand unless a man was an absolute pedant that a body of people 292 in number, representing this vast continent, in their representative capacity, could not say that they are acting in the name of the people of this country. No person in this House desires that there should be anything in this Constitution which has the remotest semblance of its having been derived from the sovereignty of the British Parliament. Nobody has the slightest desire for that. In fact we wish to delete every vestige of the sovereignty of the British Parliament such as it existed before the operation of this Constitution. There is no difference of opinion between any Member of this House and any Member of the Drafting Committee so far as that is concerned. This Preamble embodies what is the desire of every Member of the House that this Constitution should have its root, its authority, its sovereignty, from the people.
It is, therefore, the backbone of the complete edifice of the Constitution. It shapes the Constitution into a dynamic document. It mirrors the inner theme of the Constitution. The phrase or expression “We the People of India” reflects the source and authority for drawing up the Constitution. It is a statement of objects, aims and philosophy of the Constitution and its makers. The Preamble is considered a key to open the mind of the Constitution makers and is a guide to interpretation of the provisions of the Constitution as expounded by the Apex Court of India in Kesavanada Bharati v. State of Kerala. Kesavananda Bharati’s case is sui generis as it expounds new contours to the constitutional language of Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles of State Policy and amending power of the Parliament under Article 368.
The opening words of the Preamble “We the People of India” made it unequivocally clear that the Constitution has emanated from the people of India and not from any external authority. Its poetry in prose language is undoubtedly a masterpiece of uniqueness encompassing the quintessence of the basic features of the basic structure of the edifice on which the Constitution of India is built. Sovereign, secular, socialist, democratic republic, justice, equality, liberty, fraternity, dignity of the individual and unity and integrity of the Nation are entrenched as immutable foundational fundamentals of the basic structure of the Constitution of India.
(The author is former Dean Faculty of Law and Founder Director The Law School University of Jammu; Prfessor National Law University Jodhpur)
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