Polity Class 04

Criticism of the Indian constitution 

• Lengthiest constitution in the world
• Indian constitution has been criticized as one of the lengthiest constitutions in the world. The original constitution has 8 schedules and hundreds of Articles. It is said that our constitutional forefathers could not differentiate between what is a constitution and what is day-to-day administration. They included all activities related to day-to-day administration in the constitution.
• It is argued that our constitutional forefathers have included minute aspects of governance in the constitution because they did not want future generations to suffer because of any ambiguity
• Bag of borrowed materials
• Critics have alleged that there is nothing original in the Indian constitution and it is nothing but a bag of borrowed materials. 
• Indian constitution borrowed from various sources including American, British, German, Canadian, and other constitutions.
• Dr B R Ambedkar, the chairman of the drafting committee has accepted this criticism but at the same time, he argued that the constitutional forefather's desire was to give the best constitution to the people of the country and they have borrowed the best features of various constitutions. 
• Indian constitution is criticized as an extension of the Government of India Act of 1935 
• Major features of our constitution are borrowed from the GOI Act 1935 including Federalism, Judiciary, a Parliamentary form of Government, and so on. 
• But this criticism is not valid because our constitutional forefathers have made significant changes to all those features. The Basic difference between GOI Act 1935 and the Indian constitution is that our constitution is a Sovereign Document whereas GOI 1935 Act was legislation passed by the British parliament for its colony India
• Complete Exclusion of Gandhian values 
• Critics have alleged that the Indian constitution reflected more western Liberal Political ideologies than Gandhian Values. 
• Mahatma Gandhi believed in Community life, Village self-rule, Minimal state, and more freedoms for people but our constitutional forefathers have given more importance to a strong power, and centralized state. They also gave a lot of importance to Fundamental Rights. 
• They realized the mistake of Igniring Gandhian values and included them later in DPSP 
• Our constitution is criticized as a "Lawyer's paradise and a common man's Nightmare"
• Most of the members of the constituent assembly had legal backgrounds. It is reflected in the constitution. The language used is very complicated and extremely difficult to understand. It is one of the reasons why our constitution did not become popular with the masses 
• It is also the reason for the inability of ordinary people to make use of the rights and freedoms provided in the constitution.  

Schedules of the Indian constitution 

• The original constitution had 8 schedules later, 4 more schedules were added through various constitutional amendments
• First schedule-
• It includes names of states and Union territories. It also includes their territorial jurisdiction
• It covers Articles 1-4
• Second Schedule
• It has provisions related to the emoluments, allowances, and privileges of constitutional authorities like the President, Governor, Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Chairman & Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha, state legislative assemblies, Judges of SC and HCs, and CAG
• Third Schedule 
• It defines the forms of oaths or affirmations of Union ministers, Members of Parliament, Judges of SC & HCs, CAG, State MLAs, and so on
• Fourth Schedule 
• Allocation of seats in Rajya Sabha to the states and UTs
• Article 4 and Article 80 talk about the allocation of seats
• Fifth Schedule 
• Provisions related to the administration and control of scheduled areas and scheduled tribes
• Article 244 of the Indian constitution talks about this
• Sixth Schedule
• It has provisions related to the administration of tribal areas in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram
• Seventh Schedule 
• It has provisions related to the division of powers between the union and states in the form of list I, List II, and List III
• List I am a union list, List II is a state list, and List III is the concurrent list. 
• Eighth schedule 
• Languages recognized by the constitution 
• Originally 8th schedule had 14 languages, at present 22 languages are there
• Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri/ Dongri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odiya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu
• Sindhi was added by the 21st Amendment in 1967. Konkani, Manipuri, and Nepali were added 71st Amendment in 1992
• Bodo, Dongri, Maithili, and Santhali were added by the 92nd amendment in 2003
• Oriya was renamed Odiya in 2011 by the 96th Amendment.  
• Ninth Schedule 
• It was added by First Amendment to the constitution to protect laws from Judicial scrutiny
• Tenth Schedule
• It was added by the 52nd Amendment to the constitution 
• It is related to the disqualification of members of parliament and State legislatures on the ground of defection.  
• Eleventh Schedule 
• It was added by the 73rd Constitutional amendment of 1992.
• It is related to rural local self-governments
• Twelfth Schedule 
• It was added by the 74th constitutional amendment of 1992
• It is related to Urban local self-governments