The constitution of India is the longest constitution in the world. On 26th November 1949, the constitution of India was adopted, two months later (26th January 1950) it came into force to regulate the country.
But let’s get an understanding of the word “constitution”. The meaning of the word is simply a comprehensive legal document with powerful public laws that override any other.
All laws originate from the constitution of India. There are 447 articles, 22 parts, and 12 schedules as of 2019. The constitution was made by the chief architect B. R. Ambedkar. He is also known as the father of the Indian Constitution. The Indian Constitution is often called a ‘bag of borrowings’ because there was a lot of research put into it and has borrowed provisions from the constitutions of many other countries. However, the final result was much more than a mere copy of other constitutions.
Now that we have the word constitution into picture lets dig deep about the preamble of the constitution. The preamble of any constitution is the most important page and the soul of the entire document.
The preamble of the constitution includes words such as “sovereign, secular, socialist and democratic.” The words secular and socialist were brought to the preamble on the 42 amendments in 1976.
The definition of the words are as follows:
The word sovereign in this context means -A supreme or independent country. Socialist’s definition is- Where there should be nobody judging or discriminating against people by their color, sex, education, etc. Secular means that- People are allowed to practice and preach or even spread their religion without anybody judging them directly or indirectly.
Finally democratic means- people in a country are allowed to vote to elect their leaders.
The constitution was originally handwritten in written in Hindi and English and it took nearly three years to write it down. About 200 amendments were made to the first draft before the final draft was and ready on 26th November 1949. The Constitution has 117, 369 words in the English version and contains 444 articles in 22 parts, 12 schedules, and 115 amendments.