Relation Between Indian Constitution and Democracy

Abstract

Today the people in India are in a mood which comes rarely in the life of a country. They are looking forward starry eyed, to a new direction, a new era, a life. It is time not merely for a new budget or a new licensing policy or a new price structure. It is the moment for shaping and moulding a new society, for giving a new and clear orientation to the nation. The constitution is not a structure of fossils like a coral reef and is not intended merely to enable politicians to play their unending game of power. When a republic comes to birth, it is the leaders who produce the institutions. Later, it is the institutions which produce the leaders. In India’s case the established structures failed to give desired results. If the system of Parliamentary democracy had been worked in conformity with the objectives for which it has been established and the obligations and codes of conduct it imposes on politicians, political parties and their mutual relations, it would have constituted a most heart warming feature in finding a way out of the morass and confusion in which we are finding ourselves as a nation. In the words of T.S. Eliot, ‘we had the experience, but we missed the meaning’. We the Indians, know it well that our democratic institutions have not been worked in that manner. Our electorate is largely illiterate and not in a position to take an objective or critical view of the promises and performances of different political parties.