Who changed the Indian Constitution?

Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, last May, the Indian National Congress (INC) party alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hoped to change the Constitution if it managed to get a two-thirds majority in Parliament. This is a charge vehemently denied by the saffron party, which in turn said it had a clear mandate twice and changing the Constitution or ending the caste-based reservation was never on its agenda. The BJP countered the allegation by reminding the grand old party of the “Emergency” imposed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which is considered the darkest days of Indian democracy.

Amid the “Save Constitution” campaign of the Congress party and the Modi government observing June 25 as “Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas,” as a reminder of the day when the Emergency was imposed, the Indian Constitution has undergone as many as 106 amendments to date.

Of the 106 amendments made to the Indian Constitution since its inception in 1950, as many as 76 amendments were made by the Congress governments, and 31 amendments by non-Congress governments including that of Atal Behari Vajpayee (14) and Narendra Modi (8), writes author Vikas Puttur, in his Kannada book titled Samvidaanavannu Badalaayisiddu Yaaru? (Who Changed the Constitution?) released recently.

On November 26, 1949, the Indian Constituent Assembly formally adopted the Constitution, which came into effect on January 26, 1950. However, the first-ever amendment to the statute was made as early as June 1951 by the Jawaharlal Nehru government, which added “conditions” to Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution—the right to freedom of speech and expression.

This decision followed criticism in the press regarding the government’s response to issues like the West Bengal refugee crisis and extrajudicial killings in Madras. Despite opposition concerns about democratic principles, the Congress government passed the amendment, citing international examples of regulating speech to “prevent abuse”.

Parliament could now impose “reasonable restrictions” on freedom of speech if it disturbed public order, incited people to commit a crime, or endangered the state’s security.

The next significant change that drew strong criticism was the 38th Amendment passed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on July 24, 1975, which enhanced the powers of the President and Governors to pass ordinances.

On June 12, 1975, Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha found Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices, declaring the election “null and void” and barring her from holding an elected office for six years. While Justice Sinha dismissed the charges of bribery, he found Indira Gandhi guilty of misusing government machinery.

On June 24, 1975, Justice VR Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court granted a conditional stay on Justice Sinha’s verdict, allowing Indira Gandhi to continue as the Prime Minister but debarred her from taking part in the parliamentary proceedings and drawing salary as an MP.

Jayprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai called for daily anti-government protests, and JP organised a big rally in Delhi. Indira Gandhi requested President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to proclaim a state of emergency.

Indira Gandhi pushed for the 39th Amendment on August 5, 1975, to escape judicial scrutiny of her election by imposing restrictions on judicial review of top offices.

The 42nd Amendment Act (1976) is also known as the “mini Constitution” as it has a large number of amendments. It altered the basic structure of the Constitution as it disempowered the President and the courts, it raised the tenure of the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies from five to six years, it empowered the Centre to deploy its forces in any state to deal with the law and order situation, extended the tenure of President’s rule from six months to one year.

However, the most contentious amendment made by the Indira Gandhi government was changing the description of India from a “sovereign, democratic republic” to a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic” and changing the words “unity of the nation” to “unity and integrity of the nation” in the Preamble.

It was a strategy to remain in power. But Indira lost the 1977 elections, and the Janata Party government enacted the 44th amendment to restore the Constitution to its pre-Emergency state.

On November 25, 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions to delete the words “socialist” and “secular” from the Preamble. Interestingly, during the Constituency Assembly debates on November 15, 1948, Prof K.T. Shah called for the introduction of the words “secular, federal socialist union of states”. But Dr Ambedkar had opposed stating that it would destroy democracy if the Constituent Assembly were to define in 1949 what India’s priorities should be for posterity. “How a society should be organised in its social and economic sides are matters which must be decided by people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution.”

Major milestones in the form of Constitutional amendments

In 1985, the anti-defection law in India was enacted through the 52nd Amendment as part of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. The law aims to prevent or discourage defection by politicians as it could destabilise the governments or violate party discipline.

The three-tier government came into being with the 73rd amendment that introduced the Panchayati Raj for village-level administration in 1993.

In 2002, the 86th Amendment made education a fundamental right for children aged 6 to 14 years.

A significant amendment (61st Amendment) to the Article 326, made by the Rajiv Gandhi government on March 28, 1989, reduced the age for voting rights from 21 to 18 years.

The P.V. Narasimha Rao government made a total of 10 amendments. The earlier amendments helped provide for a legislative assembly and council of ministers for the national capital, Delhi, and included both union territories of Delhi and Pondicherry as part of the electoral college for the presidential election.

The other amendments included Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali as official languages, provided ST reservation in Tripura Assembly, made statutory provisions for Panchayati Raj as third level of administration in villages, provisions for setting up rent control tribunals, enabled continuance of 69 per cent reservation in Tamil Nadu by including the relevant Tamil Nadu Act under 9th Schedule of the Constitution, to protect reservation to SCs and STs Employees in promotions and placed land reforms act under 9th Schedule. 

The V.P. Singh government, through the 62nd amendment, extended the period of reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and representation of the Anglo-Indians in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies for another ten years, i.e., up to January 26, 2000. During his short tenure as the PM (less than a year), the Parliament passed the Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989.

The Atal Behari Vajpayee government amended the Constitution 14 times between 2000 and 2004. The changes led to extension of reservation for SC/ST for another 10 years (up to 2010), implementation of Tenth Finance Commission report to simplify tax structures, filling up of backlog vacancies to protect SC ST reservation, relaxation of qualifying marks and other criteria in reservation in promotion for SCs and STs candidates, exemption of Arunachal Pradesh from reservation SCs in Panchayati Raj institutions, extension of usage of 1971 national census population data for state-wise distribution of parliamentary seats, amendment to protect consequential seniority in case of promotions of SC and ST employees, Right to Education until the age of 14, extension of usage of 2001 national census for statewide distribution of parliamentary seats, extending statutory cover for levy and utilisation of service tax, bifurcation of the National Commission for SC and ST into two separate commissions, reservation in Assam Assembly relating to Bodo land territory area, restriction of the size of council of ministers to 15 per cent of legislative members and to strengthen anti-defection laws and inclusion of Bodo, Dogri, Santali, Maithili as official languages.

During his two terms as the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh brought six amendments, which included 27 per cent reservation for the OBC in government and private educational institutes and special status to the Hyderabad-Karnataka region (Article 372J). 

The Constitutional amendments during the Narendra Modi regime have led to the formation of a National Judicial Appointments Commission, the exchange of certain Enclave territories with Bangladesh, the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST), constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes, 10 per cent reservation for Economically Weaker Sections, extension of SC/ST reservation another 10 years up to 2030, removal of reservation for Anglo Indians, restoration of power of the state governments to identify OBCs, and 33 per cent reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state Assemblies.