Our Constitution-An Introduction to India's Constitution and Constitutional Law

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This book is the result of a life-time of study and practical experience of the working of our Constitution. It analyses the Constitution as it has grown and worked, and the constitutional law as it has developed through judicial interpretations. At once comprehensive and concise, it fulfils a long-felt need for a handy but authoritative study of our Constitution. Every part, chapter and article of the Constitution has been covered by the commentary. The concluding chapter suggests the need for a review of the working of the Constitution and an evaluation of the National Commission Report on the subject. Factual, objective and analytical, this thoroughly revised edition is highly readable. It should prove useful not only to students and scholars of political science and constitutional law but also to lawyers, teachers and others keen to understand the Constitution and the political system under which we live.

Dr. Subhash C. Kashyap is an advocate and a well-known expert in constitutional law, parliamentary affairs and political management. Former Secretary-General of Lok Sabha (1984-1990), he headed an international organisation (CIDP, IPU) at Geneva until 1983. He worked as Director of the Institute of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies, Honorary Constitutional Advisor to the Government of India on Panchayati Raj laws and institutions, Member of the Board of Research Studies in Law at the University of Delhi, Honorary Editor Politics India etc. Recipient of several awards, he was a member of the India International Centre's committee of experts on the Constitution and Honorary Director of the Project on Constitutional Reforms. Also, he was awarded the coveted Nehru Fellowship for 1996-98. Currently, Dr. Kashyap is an Honorary Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, President Citizenship Development Society and Rashtriya Jagriti Sansthan and Editor of South Asia Politics. Author of nearly 700 research papers and articles and over 60 books including the 6-Volume History of Parliament, 2- Volume Constitutional Law of India, and the 2-Volume treatise on Parliamentary Procedure. Dr. Kashyap was a Member of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution and Chairman of its Drafting and Editorial Committee.

A celebrated author was once asked about the time taken by him in writing one of his well-known treatises. He replied that as for the actual writing it took him only one and a half years but in order to be able to write it during that period he needed the background, study and experience of a whole lifetime. Something similar, in all humility, can be said about the present work.

I have been a student of the Constitution of India and constitutional law for the last six decades i.e. right from its commencement in 1950. Also, after my working on the five volumes of The Framing of India's Constitution (IIPA), I always wanted to write a modest book on the Constitution of India as it had grown and worked and as it had been interpreted since 26 January 1950. But, all these many years, while I wrote extensively and published many titles in the field of politics, law, government and parliament, the Constitution project somehow got pushed to a lower priority. Only very recently, in 2008, I was at last able to complete the project and publish my 2-Volume, 4000-page treatise on the Constitutional Law of India.

The credit for the completion and publication of this handy introduction to the Constitution and Constitutional Law of India goes entirely to the National Book Trust, India. I had to work really hard to ensure that the work did not become bulky, that it did not assume scholarly pretensions, that it remained factual and objective and readable by the interested general public. For this purpose, I also avoided making extensive source referencing, giving footnotes etc. But I have done my best to ensure that nothing of relevance or importance is left out. So far as case law is concerned, I have generally confined myself to selected Supreme Court judgements. Also, while as a student of India's political system and constitutional law, I hold some strong views on certain constitutional controversies, I have tried to scrupulously avoid stressing them in the present work and reserved them for other works of a somewhat different nature.

Already, there are several voluminous and multi- volume works and some popular guide-books on our Constitution. But there has been a long-felt need for a concise but comprehensive and authoritative study. It is hoped that the present book meets this need. Not only students of political science and constitutional law but also lawyers and citizens wanting to understand the Constitution and know something about the politico-constitutional system under which we live find it useful.