Constitution: Why and How? Notes | Class 11 Political Science

13 September 2022 · 7 min read

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This chapter gives you a clear overview of the Indian Constitution: its history, its main features, and the institutional arrangements worked out by the drafting committee. It also covers the features India borrowed from other countries and the bodies that shaped the making of the Constitution. For more of the same, browse our full set of Class 11 Political Science notes.

Constitution: Why and How?

What is a constitution and why do we need one?

A constitution is a body of fundamental principles according to which a state is constituted or governed. It provides a set of basic rules that allow for minimal coordination among the members of a society, and these rules are legally enforceable.

Who decides which rules best suit a society?

The constitution specifies the basic allocation of power in a society.
It decides who gets to decide what the laws will be.
In the Indian Constitution, it is specified that in most cases Parliament gets to decide laws and policies, and that Parliament itself must be organised in a particular manner.

Functions of a Constitution

It gives Parliament the authority to make laws and to constitute a government in the first place.
It specifies who has the power to make decisions in a society.
It places limitations on the government.
It decides how the government will be constituted.
It specifies certain fundamental rights that all of us possess as citizens, which no government is ever allowed to violate.
It enables the government to fulfil the aspirations of a society and to create the conditions for a just society.

What are the features of the Indian Constitution?

The main features of the Indian Constitution as it stands today are as follows:

The lengthiest written constitution in the world
A blend of rigidity and flexibility
A parliamentary form of government
An independent judiciary
A federal system with unitary features
A secular state
Universal adult franchise
Emergency provisions

The Constitution and our shared identity

The Constitution does more than organise power. It also shapes who we are as a people. Consider the following points:

The people, as a collective body, come into being only through the basic constitution.
Constitutional norms are the overarching framework within which each person pursues individual aspirations, goals and freedoms.
The constitution sets authoritative limits on what one may or may not do.
It defines the fundamental values we may not cross, and so it also gives us a moral identity.
Many basic political and moral values are now shared across different constitutional traditions.

Mode of promulgation refers to how a constitution comes into being: who crafted it, and how much authority they had.

Why do constitutions become defunct in some countries?

In many countries the constitution remains defunct because it was drafted either by military leaders or by leaders who were not popular among the citizens.

The deeper reason such constitutions fail is that the people who made them lacked the ability to carry the wider public along with them.

Why are the constitutions of India, South Africa and the United States seen as successful?

These countries each had a constitution that was drafted in the aftermath of a popular national movement. Having faced real challenges together during that movement, the makers were able to create a well structured and widely accepted document.

An overview of the Indian Constitution

The Constitution was formally created by a Constituent Assembly between December 1946 and November 1949. It drew upon a long history of the nationalist movement, which had a remarkable ability to take different sections of Indian society along together.

It carried enormous legitimacy because it was drawn up by people who enjoyed immense public credibility. They had the capacity to negotiate and to command the respect of a wide cross section of society, and they were able to convince ordinary people that the constitution was not an instrument for increasing their own personal power.

What the Constitution provides

It gives everyone in society some reason to go along with its provisions.
It gives minorities security against oppression by permanent majorities.
A constitution that systematically privileged some members at the expense of others, or that entrenched the power of small groups, would cease to command allegiance.
It preserves the freedom and equality of all its members.
The more a constitution preserves the freedom and equality of all its members, the more likely it is to succeed.

Making of the Constitution

The Constituent Assembly

M. N. Roy proposed the idea of a constituent assembly for the first time in 1934. The British accepted the demand for a constituent assembly for the first time in the August Offer of 1940.

In 1946 the Cabinet Mission Plan established the Constituent Assembly. The assembly met for the first time on 9 December 1946, and was reconvened on 14 August 1947 as the Constituent Assembly for a divided India.

Members were chosen through an indirect election by the members of the Provincial Legislative Assemblies, which had been set up under the Government of India Act, 1935. On 11 December 1946, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected president of the Constituent Assembly.

Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha served as the interim, or provisional, president of the Constituent Assembly.

Balanced institutional design

The Constitution is designed so that no single institution can acquire a monopoly of power. This is achieved by distributing powers across different institutions.

The Indian Constitution therefore assigns different powers to different institutions:

The legislature
The executive
The judiciary

Powers are also given to statutory bodies such as the Election Commission. This arrangement ensures that even if one institution tries to subvert the Constitution, the others are able to check it.

A constitution must strike the right balance between making certain values, norms and procedures authoritative, while also allowing enough flexibility to respond to changing needs. A constitution that is too rigid is likely to break under the weight of change. A constitution that is too flexible gives a people no security, predictability or identity.

What was the Cabinet Mission Plan?

The British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, decided to send a mission to India to arrange the transfer of powers from the British Indian government to Indian leaders.

Its objectives were:

To reach an agreement with Indian leaders on the framing of a constitution for India.
To set up a constitution making body, the Constituent Assembly of India.
To establish an Executive Council with the support of the major Indian parties.

According to the Cabinet Mission Plan:

Each province and each princely state, or group of states, was allotted seats in proportion to its population, roughly in the ratio of one seat for every million people.
The seats in each province were distributed among the three main communities, Muslims, Sikhs and General, in proportion to their populations.
Members of each community in the Provincial Legislative Assembly elected their own representatives by proportional representation with a single transferable vote.
The method of choosing representatives of the princely states was to be settled by consultation.

On procedures:

The Constituent Assembly had eight major committees, chaired by popular leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and Bhimrao Ambedkar.
Each committee usually drafted particular provisions of the Constitution, which were then debated by the entire Assembly, and some provisions were put to a vote.

What task did the Drafting Committee perform?

The Drafting Committee was entrusted with preparing the draft constitution. It was set up on 29 August 1947. In all, the Constituent Assembly took 2 years, 11 months and 17 days to frame the Constitution.

Chairman: Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. Members: N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, K. M. Munshi, Mohammad Saadulla, B. L. Mitter and D. P. Khaitan.

An assembly as diverse as the Constituent Assembly of India could not have functioned without a background consensus on the main principles the Constitution should enshrine.

The Objectives Resolution

The Objectives Resolution was moved by Jawaharlal Nehru on 13 December 1946. It laid down the underlying principles of the Constitution, and later became the basis of the Preamble.

The Objectives Resolution was adopted on 22 January 1947. Through it, the Indian Constitution gave institutional expression to equality, liberty, sovereignty and a broad, inclusive national identity.

Main points of the Objectives Resolution

India is a sovereign and self governing nation, formed from the former British Indian territories, the Indian states and any other areas willing to join the union.
Except for the powers assigned to the Union, all powers and functions of government were to be exercised by the territories that make up the Union.
The people are the source of all the powers and authority of a sovereign and independent India, as well as of its constitution.
All Indians are guaranteed social, economic and political justice, equality of status and opportunity, and fundamental freedoms of speech, expression, belief, faith, worship, vocation, association and action, subject to the law and public morality.
Adequate protection is provided for minorities, backward and tribal areas, and the depressed and other backward classes, while the territorial integrity of the republic and its sovereign rights on land, sea and air are safeguarded in line with international law.
India would willingly contribute to the advancement of world peace and human welfare.

Institutional arrangements

The Constituent Assembly spent a great deal of time working out how to strike the right balance among the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

It adopted a parliamentary form of government and a federal arrangement. This divides governmental powers between the legislature and the executive on the one hand, and between the states and the central government on the other.

Borrowed features of the Constitution

The makers of the Constitution studied many other constitutions and adapted the best ideas to Indian conditions. Some of the most important borrowings are listed below.

From the British Constitution

A nominal head of state, the President
The cabinet system of ministers
The office of the Prime Minister
A parliamentary form of government with a bicameral parliament
A more powerful lower house
A Council of Ministers responsible to the lower house, and the office of Speaker in the Lok Sabha
The first past the post electoral method
The law making procedure
The idea of the rule of law

From the United States Constitution

Fundamental Rights
The independence of the judiciary and the power of judicial review
The impeachment of the President
The procedure for the removal of judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts
The office of the Vice President

From the USSR

Fundamental Duties
The idea of Five Year Plans and planned economic development

From Australia

The Concurrent List
The language of the Preamble
Provisions regarding trade, commerce and intercourse

From Japan

The procedure established by law on which the Supreme Court functions

From the Weimar Constitution of Germany

The suspension of Fundamental Rights during an emergency

From Canada

A scheme of federation with a strong centre
The distribution of powers between the centre and the states
Residuary powers vested in the centre

From Ireland

The concept of the Directive Principles of State Policy (which Ireland in turn borrowed from Spain)
The method of election of the President
The nomination of members to the Rajya Sabha by the President

From South Africa

The procedure for amending the Constitution

Schedules of the Constitution

First Schedule

The list of states and Union Territories.

Second Schedule

The salaries of the President, Governors, Chief Justice, judges of the High Courts and the Supreme Court, and the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Third Schedule

The forms of oaths and affirmations.

Fourth Schedule

The allocation of seats to each state in the Rajya Sabha.

Fifth Schedule

The administration and control of scheduled areas and scheduled tribes.

Sixth Schedule

Provisions for the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.

Seventh Schedule

It sets out the allocation of powers and functions between the Union and the states, and contains three lists:

The Union List
The State List
The Concurrent List

Eighth Schedule

The list of 22 languages of India recognised by the Constitution.

Ninth Schedule

Added by the First Amendment in 1951. It contains acts and orders related to land tenure, land tax, railways and industries.

Tenth Schedule

Added by the 52nd Amendment in 1985. It contains provisions on disqualification on the ground of defection.

Eleventh Schedule

Added by the 73rd Amendment in 1992. It sets out the provisions of Panchayati Raj.

Twelfth Schedule

Added by the 74th Amendment in 1992. It sets out the provisions relating to municipalities.

Why it still matters

The Constitution is not a museum piece. It is a living document that courts, governments and citizens argue over even now, and the very ideas in these notes keep showing up in the news.

Take the words socialist and secular, which describe India as a secular state, one of the features listed above. These two words were added to the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment in 1976. In November 2024 the Supreme Court dismissed a set of petitions that asked for them to be removed. The bench, led by the then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, held that there was no good reason to challenge the amendment nearly 44 years later, and explained that secular simply means equal respect for all religions and socialist means a state committed to ending exploitation. This shows how the Preamble you study is still being tested and defended in the highest court.

The timing was fitting. The Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949, and 26 November 2024 marked 75 years since that day. The government launched a year long commemoration under the campaign Hamara Samvidhan, Hamara Swabhiman (Our Constitution, Our Pride), which ran until 26 November 2025, with schools and offices across India reading the Preamble together. A chapter that begins with why we need a constitution ends, three quarters of a century on, with millions of Indians reading its opening lines aloud.

If ideas like these interest you, the Learnacy Hub connects school topics to real world affairs, and you can find more study guides across our resources library.

Sources

Supreme Court dismisses pleas challenging inclusion of socialist and secular in the Preamble, LiveLaw, 25 November 2024: https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-dismisses-pleas-challenging-inclusion-of-socialist-and-secular-in-constitutions-preamble-276196
Historic year long celebration to commemorate 75 years of the adoption of the Constitution of India, Press Information Bureau, Government of India: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2076894

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