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he National Commission to Review the Working of the
Constitution (NCRWC) was set up by a resolution of the
Government of India in 20001. The 11-member
I. TERMS OF REFERENCE OF THE COMMISSION
According to the terms of reference, the commission was required
to examine, in the light of the experience of the past fifty years, as
to how far the existing provisions of the Constitution are capable
of responding to the needs of efficient, smooth and effective
system of governance and socioeconomic development of
modern India and to recommend changes, if any. The terms of
reference clearly specified that the commission should
recommend changes that are required to be made in the
Constitution within the framework of parliamentary democracy and
without interfering with the ‘basic structure’ or ‘basic features’ of
the Constitution.
The commission clarified that its task was to review the working
of the Constitution and not to rewrite it and its function was only
recommendatory and advisory in nature. It was left to the
Parliament to accept or reject any of the recommendations.
The commission had no agenda before it. On its own, it
identified the eleven areas of study and proposed to examine
them. They included the following4 :
1. Strengthening of the institutions of parliamentary democracy
(working of the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary;
their accountability; problems of administrative, social and
economic cost of political instability; exploring the
possibilities of stability within the discipline of parliamentary
democracy).
2. Electoral reforms; standards in political life.
3. Pace of socio-economic change and development under the
Constitution (assurance of social and economic rights: how
fair? how fast? how equal?).
4. Promoting literacy; generating employment; ensuring social
security; alleviation of poverty.
5. Union-State relations.
6. Decentralization and devolution; empowerment and
strengthening of Panchayati Raj Institutions.
7. Enlargement of Fundamental Rights.
8. Effectuation of Fundamental Duties.
9. Effectuation of Directive Principles and achievement of the
Preambular objectives of the Constitution.
10. Legal control of fiscal and monetary policies; public audit
II. FIFTY YEARS OF WORKING OF THE
CONSTITUTION
The observations made by the Commission on the working of the
Constitution from 1950 to 2000 are as follows5 :
What are our achievements and failures over the 50 years
since Independence? How have each of the three organs of the
State–the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary– redeemed
the constitutional pledge of ushering in a social revolution? Has
the dream of the founding fathers for a life of dignity to the vast
millions through the process of socioeconomic transformation
been realized ? What then is the Balance Sheet?
1. Political Accomplishments
1. India’s democratic base has stabilized as a working federal
polity. With the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments, the
base of democratic debate has widened. There is greater
push towards noncentralisation. General Elections have
been held with regularity; and transfers of power consequent
upon the results of elections have been orderly, peaceful
and democratic.
2. The educational qualifications of the Members of Parliament
and State Legislatures have shown marked improvements.
The Parliament and State Legislatures are increasingly more
representative of the composition of society. More and more
members of the hitherto backward classes are moving up in
the political ladder.
2. Economic Infrastructure–Impressive Performance
1. There has been marked expansion and diversification of
production. New technologies and modern management
techniques are increasingly employed. There are marked
advances in Science, Technology, Medicine, Engineering
and Information Technology.
2. Between 1950–2000, the index of agricultural production
increased from 46.2 to 176.8.
3. Between 1960–2000, wheat production went up from 11
million tonnes to 75.6 million tonnes.
4. Between 1960–2000, rice production went up from 35 million
tonnes to 89.5 million tonnes.
5. Impressive expansion of industrial and service sectors has
taken place.
6. Index of industrial production went up from 7.9 in 1950–51 to
154.7 in 1999–2000.
7. Electricity generation has increased from 5.1 billion KWH in
1950–51 to 480.7 billion KWH in 1999–2000.
8. 6 to 8 per cent annual growth of GNP between 1994–2000
(except in 1997–98) was achieved.
9. Revenues from Information Technology industry have grown
from $ 150 million in 1990 to $ 4 billion in 1999.
10. India’s per capita Net National Product (NNP) in 1999–2000
was more than 2.75 times than what it was in 1951.
3. Social Infrastructure– Achievements
1. Between 1950 to 1998, infant mortality rate have halved to
72 births per 1000 births–down from 146.
2. Life expectancy at birth has grown up from 32 years in
1950–51 to 63 years in 2000.
3. A child born in Kerala today can expect to live longer than a
child born in Washington.
4. Life expectancy of women in Kerala is now 75 years.
5. India has put in place an extensive system of Public Health
Services and medical network. In 1951, the country had only
725 primary health centers. By 1995, this has increased to
more than 1,50,000.
6. The number of primary schools has increased significantly
between 1951 and 1995 from 2,10,000 to 5,90,000.
7. Nearly 95 per cent of the villages have a primary school
within a walking distance of one kilometer.
4. Political Failures
to keep out criminal, anti-social and undesirable elements
from participating in and even dominating the political scene
and polluting the electoral and parliamentary processes.
2. Though democratic traditions are stabilizing, however,
democracy cannot be said to be an inclusive representative
democracy. The pluralism and diversity of India is not
reflected in and captured by its democratic institutions;
likewise, participation of women in public affairs and
decision-making processes is nowhere near proportionate to
their numbers.
3. The enormity of the costs of elections and electoral
corruption have been having a grievous deleterious effect on
national progress and has led to the degradation of political
processes to detriment of common good.
4. Political parties, which have a fair share of the criminal
elements, handle enormous funds collected ostensibly for
meeting party and electoral expenditure. Money-power and
criminal elements have contributed to pervasive
degeneration of standards in public life and have
criminalized politics. This is reflected in the quality of
governments and of the governing processes.
5. There are no legal instrumentalities or set of law regulating
the conduct of the political parties, legitimacy of fundraising,
audit and account requirements and inner-party democracy.
6. National political parties are more divided on the definition of
‘common national purpose’ than ever before; the noble
purposes of public life have degenerated than ever before
into opportunistic and self-seeking politics of competitive
personal gain.
7. ‘Fraternity’, the noble ideal of brotherhood of man, enshrined
in the Preamble of the Constitution has remained unrealized.
The people of India are more divided amongst themselves
than at the time of the country’s independence.
8. There is increasing criminalization and exploitation of the
political climate and processes and an increasing criminals-
politicians-bureaucratic nexus.
interests and desire for short-time political gains, are unable
even to agree upon broad common national purposes.
5. Economic Failures
1. The richest top quintile of population has 85 per cent of the
income. The poorest quintile has only 1.5 per cent of the
country’s income. The second, the third and the fourth
quintile from top have respectively 8 per cent, 3.5 per cent
and 2 per cent of the income.
2. 260 million people live below the poverty line.
6. Social Failures
1. India’s maternal mortality rate in 1998 was 407 per 100,000
live births. These levels are more than 100 times the levels
found in the West.
2. Some 53 per cent children (almost 60 million) under five
remain malnour-ished–nearly twice the levels reported in
many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
3. The proportion of low birth weight babies born in India is 33
per cent. It is only 9 per cent in China and South Korea, 6
per cent in Thailand and 8 per cent in Indonesia.
4. India was a signatory to the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978
that assured ‘health for all’ by the year 2000. Only 42 per
cent of the children between 12–23 months are fully
immunized - 37 per cent in rural areas and 61 per cent in
urban areas. The coverage is shockingly low in Bihar - 11
per cent and in Rajasthan - 17 per cent.
5. While per capita daily consumption of cereals has improved
only marginally from 400 gms in 1950 to about 440 gms in
2000, the per capita pulses (protein intake) have over the 50
years decreased.
6. The promise of social revolution has remained unredeemed.
There are 270 million Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes and the measures for their welfare and uplift have not
been implemented with sincerity.
taken to bring them to the level of the “core-mainstream”.
8. Population control measures in the northern States have not
succeeded. Fertility rates in Uttar Pradesh indicate that the
State is almost a century behind Kerala.
7. Administrative Failures
1. Corruption, insensitivity and inefficiency of administration
have resulted in extralegal systems and parallel economies
and even parallel governments. Bureaucratic corruption,
which cause frustration in people in their daily lives, has
pushed more and more people into extralegal systems. The
mal-administration has resulted in a lack of faith in and
disenchantment with institutions of democracy.
2. There is an increasing non-accountability. Corruption has
been pervasive. Public interest has suffered.
3. Constitutional protection for the Services under Article 311
has largely been exploited by dishonest officials to protect
themselves from the consequences of their wrong-doings.
8. Gender Justice and Equality– Failures
1. The regional disparities in life expectancy is indicated by the
fact that a woman born in Kerala can expect to live 18 years
longer than one born in Madhya Pradesh.
2. In most countries life expectancy among women exceeds
that of men by about 5 years. In all but a few countries of the
world, there are typically 1005 women for every 1000 men.
Men outnumber women only in societies where women are
specifically and systematically discriminated. In India, there
are only 933 women for every 1000 men. This is the
phenomenon about ‘missing’ women.
3. Overall representation of women in public services is just 4.9
per cent.
4. Political participation of women indicates that in 1952 there
were only 22 women in Lok Sabha against 499 seats (4.41
per cent). In 1991, this increased to 49 seats as against 544
5. Between 1995–2000, out of 503 judges of the High Court,
only 15 were women.
9. Judicial System–Failures
1. Judicial system has not been able to meet even the modest
expectations of the society. Its delays and costs are
frustrating, its processes slow and uncertain.
2. People are pushed to seek recourse to extra-legal methods
for relief.
3. Trial system both on the civil and criminal side has utterly
broken down.
On an overall assessment, there are more failures than
success stories, making the inference inescapable that the fifty
III. AREAS OF CONCERN: COMMISSION’S
PERCEPTION
The following are the important areas of concern according to the
perception of the Commission6 :
1. There is a fundamental breach of the constitutional faith on
the part of Governments and their method of governance
lies in the neglect of the people who are the ultimate source
of all political authority. Public servants and institutions are
not alive to the basic imperative that they are servants of the
people meant to serve them. The dignity of the individual
enshrined in the Constitution has remained an unredeemed
pledge. There is, thus, a loss of faith in the Governments
and governance. Citizens see their Governments besieged
by uncontrollable events and are losing faith in institutions.
Society is unable to cope up with current events.
2. The foremost area of concern is the present nature of the
Indian State and its inability to anticipate and provide for the
great global forces of change ushered in by the pace of
scientific and technological developments.
3. The next and equally important dimension is the increasing
cost of government and fiscal deficits which are alarming. In
1947, there was a deficit of ₹2 crores in the revenue budget;
in 1997–98, it became ₹88,937 crores; in 2001–02, it is
about ₹1,16,000 crores (4.8 per cent of GDP). India is on its
way to a debt-trap.
4. There is pervasive impurity of the political climate and of
political activity. Criminalisation of politics, politicalcorruption
and the politician-criminal-bureaucratic nexus have reached
unprecedented levels needing strong systemic changes.
5. Issues of national integrity and security have not received
adequate and thoughtful attention. Mechanisms for the
assessment of early warning symptoms of social unrest are
absent. Mechanisms for adequate and immediate state
responses to emergencies and disaster management are
wholly inadequate. Administration, as a system for
anticipating coming events and planning responses in
advance, has failed. It has become un-coordinated and
directionless amalgam of different departments often with
over-lapping and even mutually conflicting jurisdictions,
powers and responsibilities which merely acts as a reaction
to problems. There are no clear-cut standards or basis for
fixing responsibilities.
6. Though India’s overall record and experience as a working
democracy (despite many centrifugal forces) are worthy to
mention and though the bases of democratic debate have
widened with the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments,
the working of the institutions of parliamentary democracy,
however, have thrown-up serious fault-lines, which might, if
unattended, prove destructive of the basic democratic
values.
7. There is pervasive misuse of the electoral process and the
electoral system is unable to prevent the entry of persons
with criminal record into the portal of law-making institutions.
8. The Parliament and the State Legislatures, owing to the
inherent weakness of the electoral system, have failed to
acquire adequate representative character. The 13th Lok
Sabha represents only 27.9 per cent of the total electorate
and the Legislature of U.P. represents only 22.2 per cent of
electorate respectively.
9. The increasing instability of the elected governments is
attributable to opportunistic politics and unprincipled
defections. The economic and administrative costs of
political instability are unaf-fordably high and their impact on
the polity is not clearly comprehended and realized. Though
just four Prime Ministers ruled the country for 40 years out of
the 54 years of independence and one political party alone
was in power for 45 years, however, 1989 onwards the
country saw five General Elections to the Lok Sabha. Costs
of this political instability are simply colossal.
10. The state of the Indian economy is disturbing. The economy
is gradually sinking into a debt-trap. Economic, fiscal and
monetary policies, coupled with administrative inefficiency,
rule and hoodlum out-fits. Black-money, parallel economy
and even parallel governments are the overarching
economic and social realities. Legitimate governments will,
in due course, find it increasingly difficult to confront them. In
course of time these illegal criminal out-fits will dictate terms
to the legitimate governments.