The Constitution at 75: A checklist of casualties

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Constitution of India promises justice, liberty, equality and fraternity in a ringing Preamble. In 1950, having made these lofty declarations while enacting the Constitution, the Constituent Assembly found itself in a bind.

Doubling up as the provisional parliament for independent India, the Assembly now had a nation to govern. Riots had to be quelled, inflation curbed and welfare schemes made to take millions out of poverty. If the Constitution got in the way of these practical exigencies, it needed to give way.

Also read: The women architects of the Indian Constitution Justice was the first casualty. The Preventive Detention Act, 1950 was enacted because the constitutional provisions for minimum safeguards for detenus had to be worked around. There were 350 detenus in Calcutta, as well as several more in Bombay, who Sardar Patel claimed were “most dangerous".

Despite the Constitution permitting their detention without following any legal process, a maximum time period had been set for which they could be incarcerated. Now, that time period had to be extended. In many respects, the Preventive Detention Act was reminiscent of the Rowlatt Act, 1919 which Patel himself had led protests against in Ahmedabad.

Now that he found himself running the government instead of agitating against it, he also began reluctantly adopting some of its methods. Torn between their commitment to constitutional justice and the practical demands of governance, members of the Assembly endorsed Patel’s request. Mahavir Tyagi, renowned freedom fighter, who himself had been jailed multiple times by the British, wistfully echoed the views of the Assembly when he said: “I support this Bill, not because it is