EVERY YEAR on August 15, we celebrate the independence from the British Raj by hoisting the national flag, singing songs of freedom and remembering the freedom fighters whose courage and sacrifice made independence a reality. We do something similar for Constitution Day, but instead of the customary song and flag-hoisting, we read the preamble, hold aloft a pocket-sized version of the Constitution, snap a picture and swear by it. We also quote a few pithy sayings from Ambedkar who was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly.
Yet, we rarely read the Constitution itself and even more rarely do we read the Constituent Assembly debates that based on the Constitution was drafted and eventually it was adopted and enacted. As practising lawyers, we believe this to be a problem, not only for lawyers but for all citizens of this country as celebrating the independence day is equally important as that of celebrating the birth of the Constitution of India. While independence day marks the liberation of India from colonial rule, the coming into force of the Constitution marks the advent of freedom for our country. On November 25, 1949, B R Ambedkar very appropriately said in his last speech in the Constituent Assembly that “On 26th January 1950, India will be an independent country.” Both are similar, yet inseparable as one freed us from foreign rule and the other one gave that freedom a meaning for every citizen of the Country.
What the debates actually show
The popular perception of the Constitution is that it is lawyers’ paradise and primarily used as a courtroom document; only people trained in law can comprehend and interpret it. Such an understanding of the Constitution is completely erroneous and fallacious. The Constituent Assembly Debates (‘CADs’) educate us how the framers engaged themselves with the issues faced by people and the newly emerging Republic. They deliberated upon the crucial issue that the people constitute the source of all power and authority and, among others, discussed threadbare host of other matters such as the federal , framework for governance of India, rights of minorities and special safeguards for them, giving constitutional status to several languages , affirmative action, and rights of various kinds including fundamental rights. The debates on those issues and more importantly on several other provisions of the Constitution clearly brought out that the framers were far from united in forming a common view point and that the draft Constitution was a by-product of accommodation and reconciliation of diverse opinions.
Dr. Ambedkar’s last address in the Constituent Assembly went beyond mere celebrations of the kind we associate with the Republic Day celebrations, for he warned the Assembly that the political equality guaranteed by the Constitution sharply stood in contradiction with the prevailing social and economic inequalities. He pointed out that while political equality had been/could be achieved in India, economic and social inequality stubbornly persisted. He questioned how long democracy in India could survive with such deepening contradictions? He cautioned by saying that “We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which is Assembly has to laboriously built up.”
Ambedkar’s cautionary utterances are of enduring significance specially in the context of the “new” problems plaguing the Indian politics festered by inequalities generated by neo-liberal economy. It is not enough to quote a few lines from Ambedkar’s address; more importantly it is of utmost importance to seriously engage with those ideas and persistently pursue to fructify them.
The philosophical undercurrent in the warnings
Another speech by Dr. Ambedkar that has always stayed with me was delivered on November 4, 1948 when he moved the draft Constitution for consideration of the Constituent Assembly. While doing so he discussed, among others, the administrative provisions in the Draft Constitution and cited the historian of Greece George Grote who spoke of “constitutional morality”. Ambedkar warned the members that they must imbibe and cultivate constitutional morality without which it was impossible to successfully implement the Constitution.
For Ambedkar, constitutional morality was more than a code of conduct for members of the Constituent Assembly. He quotes Grote who said constitutional morality meant “a paramount reverence for the forms of the Constitution, enforcing obedience to authority acting under and within these forms yet combined with the habit of open speech, of action subject only to definite legal control, and unrestrained censure of those very authorities as to all their public acts combined too with a perfect confidence in the bosom of every citizen amidst the bitterness of party contest that the forms of the Constitution will not be less sacred in the eyes of his opponents than in his own.”
It meant respect for the forms of the Constitution, established procedures, and most crucially, the ability to allow and accept the differences of opinion . It also meant recognising the constraints that were placed on one citizen were simultaneously placed on their adversaries as well, and therefore acknowledging a common humanity. It is salutary to note that it upheld “…unrestrained censure of those very authorities as to all their public acts” and so underlined the fundamental necessity of interrogating the powers that be and holding them to account.
More importantly, Ambedkar did not take “constitutional morality” to be an innate quality that Indians possessed. He argued that it was something that every citizen had to acquire. At first glance, it might seem like a minor concern. But it raises a far more fundamental issue about constitutional law in India - did the Constitution merely acquire validity by being enacted by the Constituent Assembly, or did its enforcement depend upon us cultivating certain constitutional habits? Ambedkar's position was obviously not merely confined to the adoption and enactment of the Constitution. He was more keen for comprehensive implementation of the Constitution in letter and spirit. He firmly believed that a Constitution could not be self-enforcing and it required summoning of a certain amount of faith, or even belief, in the Constitution if it had to function effectively. This meant that constitutional morality was neither easy to legislate nor merely a matter of law - it was, to use Ambedkar's own word, a question of "habit".
This habit, in turn, meant that the Constitution was something far more than a simple courtroom document or a legal-formal arrangement. Its validity and enforceability could not be determined by the Supreme Court alone - it had to come from the citizens and institutions of the Republic, for they were the ones who would ensure that constitutional morality was upheld.
Solicitor General for Burying Constitutional Morality
It is rather tragic that on April 8, 2026, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta asked a nine-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, hearing Sabrimala reference case, to bury the doctrine of constitutional morality on three grounds -, that it is a “sentiment”, not a doctrine, and cannot serve as a test for the validity of a law; concept is “vague” and “subjective”, and that in a democracy “it is always the majoritarian view which prevails”, because laws are enacted by elected majorities. He also recalled Attorney General, K.K. Venugopal, who called constitutional morality an unfortunate concept that should “die as soon as possible.”
It is preposterous to negate Ambedkar’s advocacy of constitutional morality in the Constituent Assembly and the need to cultivate it on a continuous basis. It is heartening that two members of the bench Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice B.V. Nagarathna expressed their disapproval of the arguments of the Solicitor General.
The scholars who took the Constitution off the courtroom
When it comes to reading the Constitution off the courtroom, there are a few names that stand out for me. First among them is Granville Austin and his The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation. Austin's thesis is simple - the framers did not merely set out to create governmental institutions, but to usher in a new social and political order in India. Therefore, he called the Constitution of India, first and foremost, a social document. He identifies three broad aims that guided the framers - national integration, political democracy and social revolution. He described the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy (‘DPSP’), as the “conscience of the Constitution”.
Constitutional experts to this day draw a distinction between the two, with some arguing that the DPSP cannot be invoked in court. But as recent Judgements have shown, the Supreme Court routinely interprets the DPSP in tandem with the Fundamental Rights when it comes to constitutional law.
Another scholar who has written extensively on the everyday life of the Constitution is A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic by Rohit De . I have had the occasion to write about his book on earlier occasions as well. De examines how ordinary people have engaged with the Constitution, and in doing so shows us that it has a rich social history that goes far beyond its pedantic courtroom battles. In foregrounding citizen efforts in defending the constitutionally enshrined rights and freedoms to deepen constitutional culture right from the early years of Indian independence, Dey argues that because of the deeper engagements of ordinary people with the Constitution it has acquired extraordinary resilience in face of several attempts to throttle it.
He cites four examples of ordinary citizens moving the higher judiciary in defence of their rights in face of the attempts of the State to stifle them. A Parsi journalist who challenged prohibition law; Marwari traders who did not accept restrictions on trade in commodities and moved the apex judiciary against them; , butchers who apprehended danger to their source of livelihood from the legislation banning cow slaughter, or the sex worker who did not take lying down the impositions on her work or profession which she thought she would pursue by exercising her fundamental right.
None of these people were lawyers nor were particularly political. But each one of them intuitively understood the role of the Constitution and its potential to help them challenge the status quo. And that, I think, is why De's book is such a fascinating read - he helps us understand that the Constitution belongs to more than just the people who study it in courtrooms.
There are always people who are willing to challenge the status quo - but it helps to have others who can understand their arguments on a deeper level. For example, Madhav Khosla’s India's Founding Moment examines the Constitution as a pedagogic tool. The Constitution, according to Khosla, did not merely seek to establish a set of governmental institutions, but also tried to educate the citizens of India about how democracy works. It attempted to be something more than a mere rule-book for a population that barely understood the principles of democracy.
Constitutions, he argues, are best understood not as mere laws but as political projects, one that continues to evolve long after its adoption.
The cases everyone half-remembers
Even people who have no qualifications in law are likely to know about a handful of landmark cases, which are even part of popular discourse. For most people, these are little more than talking points, but as a law student, I think these cases deserve to be remembered for more than their catchy names.
Take, for instance, Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala , a case better known among students as the "basic structure" case. Most people know it as the decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that Parliament's constituent power was not absolutely unlimited - in other words, Parliament could not amend the Constitution in a manner that destroyed or altered its ‘basic structure’. However, if read in isolation, this judgement fails to capture the nuanced reality of the situation. One has to remember that for all its grandstanding, this was a decision that was made by a fractured court, and that each judge delivered his or her opinion on the matter independently.
The real importance of this case lies in the fact that it highlighted Parliament's limited supremacy in India and it is a lesson that many politicians could do well to internalise.
Another case that people are likely to remember is Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India. It reaffirmed the judiciary's interpretation of Article 21, expanding its scope to include "procedural fairness".
Prior to this case, A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras had made it clear that the Supreme Court did not consider the expression "lawful procedure" in Article 21 to include grounds beyond the procedures established by law. But Maneka Gandhi, and particularly the dissent in it, went on to highlight the dangers of such an interpretation - most notably, the fact that it could violate Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution. In effect, this judgement created the framework within which most rights jurisprudence in India would subsequently be developed.
We think it’s safe to say that few people would argue against the desirability of rights - what they might disagree with is the means by which they were secured. The fact is that the rights most of us take for granted weren't simply gifted to us by an all-powerful government - they had to be fought for, argued for, and eventually gained through long and sometimes bitter struggles.
Why this belongs to Independence Day too
We think about this every time we meet a client, someone who may not have gone to school and doesn't know American history or the Constitution. They know it's important. They know it gives them some rights, and they understand what those rights mean.
This is thanks to the people who wrote it and fought for it. If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t have the rights we have today. It's not a coincidence that Rohit Dey and Ornit Shani’s book talks about people like Pesikaka and Qureshi, who cared so much about the Constitution. Their actions show us the kind of freedom we have.
Independence Day marks when India became free from foreign rule. But Constitution Day is different; it's when We the People of India gave to themselves the Constitution and on 26th January 1950 when it came into force India truly became independent. When you start a journey, you don't always know where you're going. You just have an idea and hope you get there someday.
I think that's the point of the Constitution. It gives us a goal worth pursuing. This is why I believe the Constitution belongs to everyone, all of us, regardless of our identities and persuasions. The conversations we have about it, in court and school, are all part of our shared history. We should remember them.
As a practising lawyer, I have no illusions about the difficulties of India's constitutional future. The very act of debating the future of Indian democracy is what makes it so fascinating - because it reminds us that the Constitution is not, and never has been, a document confined to the courtroom. The fact that common people are now in the forefront to save it testifies to the fact that it is first and foremost a people’s living document.