Criticism of the Constitution as unwieldy
Topic: Preamble and the Philosophy of the Constitution · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 10 "The Philosophy of the Constitution"
Meaning
This is the charge that the Indian Constitution is too long and too detailed. Class 11 NCERT says the charge rests on a wrong assumption: that a constitution must be one short, compact document. Many countries spread their constitutional rules across several documents. Even the US constitution is supplemented by other documents. India simply puts these matters into one text.
Example
The Indian Constitution has provisions on bodies such as the Election Commission and the public service commissions, which recruit people for government jobs. Many other countries handle such bodies through separate laws. So India's Constitution looks longer, but the extra length comes from matters other countries also deal with, just in other places.
Don't confuse with
- "Alien document" criticism: this attacks the Constitution's sources, saying it is Western and borrowed. The unwieldy charge attacks only its length and detail.
- "Unrepresentative" criticism: this attacks who made it, an Assembly elected on a limited franchise. It says nothing about the document's size.