Bharat took its independence on 15 August 1947 from the British, and the book of rules to govern this nation, known as the Constitution, was enacted on 26 January 1950. The time taken to bring this set of rules into reality was 2 years, 11 months, and 18 days. It is considered to be the longest constitution in the world, with 146,385 words in its English language version.

In 1950, Romesh Thapar, a communist journalist running a magazine called Cross Roads, condemned the killings of 22 communist prisoners and the injury of 107 others in Salem Central Jail by the Chennai Police. The government of Madras responded by banning the circulation of his magazine under the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act.

The then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, became concerned about this as he was very conscious of his image. He wrote to Sardar Patel saying: “We are losing the support of the public, and a feeling is rising against the police such as existed under the British regime.”

Thapar challenged the ban in the Supreme Court, saying: “the ban proves the fact that Congress is afraid of facing the truth.”

During the same time, Organiser Weekly, a nationalist magazine under the editorship of K.R. Malkani, published a series of articles criticizing the policies of Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan for their ineffective handling of the refugee crisis in Bengal and their apathy towards the Hindus of the nation.

Nehru went after both Nehru went after both journalists for “running down his reputation and went ahead with a campaign based on ‘malicious misrepresentation of facts’ and outright fabrications.” The Prime Minister, mocking one of the fundamental rights, i.e., freedom of speech and expression, applied pre-censorship on the editor and publisher of Organiser under the East Punjab Public Safety Act, forcing them to submit all their content for prior approval from the government.

This pre-censorship was also challenged in the apex court along with Thapar’s case simultaneously in Brij Bhushan vs. The State of Delhi. On 26 May 1950, the verdict for both cases was pronounced, quashing the restrictions as void and pointing out that the government had misinterpreted and misused the constitutional provision of Article 19(2) providing reasonable restrictions to the right to freedom.

“During the last fifteen months of the working of the Constitution, certain difficulties have been brought to light by judicial decisions and pronouncements, especially in regard to the chapter on fundamental rights,” said Jawaharlal Nehru on 10 May 1951.

Nehru was heralded as a champion of personal freedom in the Constituent Assembly, but after assuming power, he had “feet of clay” with “authoritarian instincts,” writes Tripurdaman Singh in his book “Sixteen Stormy Days: The Story of the First Amendment to the Constitution of India.”

The Congress government tried to implement major land reforms by imposing a land ceiling on the big zamindars and redistributing surplus land among landless farmers and sharecroppers, which were challenged in various high courts across the nation. It was the Patna and Allahabad High Courts that struck down these reforms.

“It is impossible to hang up urgent social changes because the Constitution comes in the way… We shall have to find a remedy, even though this might involve a change in the Constitution,” wrote Nehru to the Chief Ministers of States in the aftermath of the Patna and Allahabad High Courts’ judgments.

On 18 June 1951, the Nehru-led Congress government, having an overwhelming majority after the interim elections, came up with the first amendment of this formidable document to amend mainly Articles 19, 31, and 15. The amendment of Article 15 regarding empowering states to ‘make any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes’ was also given constitutional validation.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who in the aftermath of the amendment stated that Part III had been vandalized, played a role in drafting the amendment and did not raise much opposition as was expected from him being the chairman of the drafting committee. Nehru had promised reservation for Dalits in public service in return for his consent, states Tripurdaman Singh in his book “Sixteen Stormy Days: The Story of the First Amendment to the Constitution of India.”

The objectives of the amendments included three: restricting the right to freedom of speech and expression by adding words like ‘public order,’ ‘friendly relations with foreign states,’ and ‘incitement to an offense’; introducing special provisions for backward classes by adding Clause 4 in Article 15; and exempting land reforms from constitutional scrutiny by adding Articles 31A and 31B.

The act was criticized by leaders of high stature like Acharya Kriplani, Jayaprakash Narayan, and Syama Prasad Mukherjee. H.V. Kamath, Syamnandan Sahay, and K.K. Bhattacharya were also among the critics of the amendment.

Mukherjee bashed Nehru for diluting the Constitution into a “scrap of paper,” while H.V. Kamath, Naziruddin Ahmed, Syamnandan Sahay, and Shibban Lal Saksena criticized the Nehru government for ‘drifting away from a policy of respect for private property’ and establishing a terrible precedent.

(The author has requested anonymity)