Sixteen Stormy Days : The Story of the First Amendment to the Constitution of India

Winner of the Ramnath Goenka Award 2020 On 26th January 1950 India became a republic, shedding its last links with its colonial past and inaugurating a new era of liberty and freedom. With fundamental rights and civil liberties guaranteed by the state, the new constitution was universally acclaimed as the 'world's greatest experiment in liberal government'. This idealistic birth of a new republic meant a clean break with a repressive past. And yet, barely twelve months later, the very makers of the constitution were denouncing their own creation. Passed in June 1951, the First Amendment to the Constitution was a pivotal moment in Indian constitutional history. Sixteen Stormy Days explores the contentious legacy of this First Amendment which drastically curbed freedom of speech, restricted freedom against discrimination and circumscribed the right to property. It follows the sixteen days of debate that led up to it, the people that created it, the great battle waged against it and the immense consequences it has had for Indian democracy. It is a cautionary tale about an almost forgotten but hugely consequential piece of history that holds the key to understanding the position of civil liberties and individual freedoms in India today. It challenges conventional wisdom on iconic figures such as Jawaharlal Nehru, B.R. Ambedkar, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel and Shyama Prasad Mookerji, and lays bare the vast gulf between the liberal promise of India's Constitution and the authoritarian impulses of her first government. Sixteen Stormy Days tells the story of the first amendment of the Constitution of India, passed in June 1951 in the face of tremendous opposition within and without the Parliament, and the subject of some of Independent India's fiercest parliamentary debates. It was a pivotal moment in Indian constitutional and political history. The first amendment broke new ground to curb the freedom of speech-public order, the interests of the security of the state and relations with foreign states; enabled caste-based reservations in education by restricting freedom against discrimination; circumscribed the right to property; validated zamindari abolition; and, finally, created a special schedule where laws could be placed to make them immune to judicial challenge even if they violated fundamental rights.How did fundamental rights-the heart and soul of the Constitution-so ceremoniously and pointedly given in 1950, become the lacunae in the same Constitution and the cause of grave difficulties by 1951? What led to the leading framers of the Constitution turning on their own creation within fifteen months, and to the Government of India and the Congress party taking the extraordinary step of radically amending the Constitution they had piloted in 1950? Who got up to defend the newly granted fundamental rights when the moment came, and how did this climactic battle unfold? And, finally, what were the consequences? Were there lacunae in the Constitution, as Jawaharlal Nehru believed, or was man (and the government) 'vile', as B.R. Ambedkar had asserted before the constituent assembly?These are the questions this book seeks to explore, and within them lies the story it seeks to tell. Tripurdaman Singh was a student of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, and earned an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies and a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Indian Council of Historical Research and director of the Agra District Cooperative Bank. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society, a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a visiting scholar at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London. He is the author of Imperial Sovereignty and Local Politics.