Thread by @shrikanth_krish

The United States Constitution is the supreme law of US. What's surprising is its length- 4543 words. Even if one includes the 27 amendments since 1789 we get to 7591!

Contrast : The Indian Constitution, the supreme law of India, has 145,000 words. Over 30 times as long!

Now why is that? The United States is the world's oldest democracy, with an unbroken history of 229 yrs (if one counts from 1789)

Yet it has been amended just 27 times. Its length is not even a small fraction of the Indian document- a mucn younger democracy barely 7 decades old

The Indian Constitution had 395 articles at its commencement, and 448 articles in its present form. It has been amended 101 times

The US document has just 7 articles. And amended 27 times. That number of 27 includes the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments) ratified in 1791

Why is the Indian document so voluble? And the US document so succinct?

What strikes me on a quick perusal of the contents of the two documents is that the Indian document goes above and beyond describing the constitution of each arm of government and stating its powers

The US document in contrast is minimalist, and sticks to describing the structure and powers of the federal government and little else

Take the subject of "Languages"

Ideally a Constitution should stick to describing the structure and powers of govt and not talk of culture,language, and other extraneous things

Yet the Indian document has 11 articles (343-350, 350A/B, 351) dedicated to discussing "Languages"!!

The Indian Constitution's discussion on Languages alone exceeds the length of the US Constitution as a whole!

It would be wrong to argue that US was homogeneous at the time of its independence. It was arguably more heterogeneous in a racial sense than India was in 1947.

Also the heterogeneity of US has increased in every sense in the past 200 years

The difference lies in the fact that while the Indian Constitution makes a very conscious attempt to cater to the heterogeneity, the US document does not feel obliged to do so.

The other major difference lies in the degree of "federalism" in the two countries atleast in a formal sense.

In the US, every state has its own Constitution. Unlike in India, where everything is packed into a single document.

In the US, the state constitutions are much more voluble than the federal constitution.

The Alabama Constitution for instance, is the longest and has 345,000 words. That's much longer than the Indian Constitution!

But one of the reasons the state constitutions can be very long in the US, is because they do go beyond outlining the structure and powers of the government

Eg : Amendment 520 in the Alabama Constitution authorizes one Madison county to provide for exhumation of human graves

So it is natural that these documents are long. Because their scope exceeds describing the nature of govt.

The Indian Constitution does not incorporate such specific state level legislations. So its extraordinary length still needs to be accounted for.

There is a section on "Fundamental Duties" in the Indian Constitution, introduced in 1976. Here's a sample of it.

"To value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture"
"To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform"

(Contd..)

That's as subjective and vague as it gets. No equivalent to this exists in the American document.

The American document does not consider it necessary to tell people what sort of a life they should lead. Unlike the Indian document

The other characteristic of the Indian document is that it does not appear to rest a great deal of confidence in the discretion and moral fibre of future Indian lawmakers

So the "founding fathers" find it necessary to include a whole section called "Directive Principles"

This is basically a section where the elites of 1947 are directing future generations of lawmakers on how they should make laws and execute them.

While these "directives" are not enforceable by the courts, they add a great deal of bulk to the Indian document.

As many as 16 articles (36 to 51) are dedicated to these "Directive Principles"

Some of these principles seem superfluous

Eg : The State should endeavor to minimise inequalities of income. (Art 38)
The State should promote "cottage industries" in rural areas. (Art 43)

While there may be merits to some of these principles, these are attempts to impose the political view of the drafting committee / constituent assembly on future generations of lawmakers.

Rather than let the party system determine the political agenda in the decades to come

The other important point to note is the process of ratifying the Constitution

The US document was ratified through a democratic process where each of the 13 states voted on it through their ratifying committees. The Constitution came into force only after each state ratified it

This meant there was a natural pressure on the Constitutional convention to make the document brief, communicable and as minimalist as possible

Though the ratification was not through direct elections, the ratifying conventions were elected by the people. In the state of NY for instance, the ratification convention was elected by universal male suffrage

No such ratification process happened for the Indian Constitution. So there was no effort really to either keep the document minimalist in style, nor was there any effort made to "market" the document, and to get the people at large on board.

There is NO Indian equivalent of the Federalist papers - which was basically a series of newspaper articles written by 3 of the US Constitution convention members - to convince the New York public and delegates about the merits of the new constitution.

To get the Indian Constitution into force, all that was required was the assent of the Constituent Assembly, which was partly comprised of indirectly elected representatives (elected by provincial assemblies, and partly comprised of nominated members (for the princely states)

So this was not a popularly elected body.

Also the Constituent Assembly was deeply involved in the drafting the Constitution itself! It met over 11 sessions and 166 days between 1947 and 1950 to discuss the Constitution.

So naturally there was a vested interest to approve of it

In contrast in the US, there was a very clear separation between the drafting of the Constitution (done by the Philadelphia convention - a central body with representation from each state), and the state level ratification conventions which voted on it later

This separation meant that the ratifiers did not have their hands dirty in the document. They had no emotional stake in the Constitution draft. They could vote on it independently.

It was upto the Constitution drafters to convnce them of this document.

This is what necessitated the "Federalist Papers" - a remarkable exercise in marketing the newly proposed law of the land.

No such marketing was required in India! Because the ratifiers WERE the drafters too.

THis is a huge difference that accounts for the highly cryptic, vague, and verbose nature of the Indian constitution, as opposed to the minimalist style of the US document

The Indian document represented the views of an indirectly elected / nominated elite. It did not necessarily reflect the pulse of the nation.

THis is not to say it isn't a fine document. But the philosophies underlying the 2 documents are v different.

While the US Constitution was a democratic outcome, the Indian document was the conception of a few hundred very well intentioned minds - who did not have to put in the hard effort to market what they wrote.

So the emphasis was less on marketing. A lot more time went into writing the stuff down.

Naturally you got a v v long document.

When you don't have to market your thoughts and get people on board, you can afford to be more indulgent. That's just as true for Constitutions as it is for blogs and threads like these on the internet today!