What to Read in The Hindu Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

 

Editorial 1: At 75, constitutional justice and personal liberty

Context

In the midst of marking 75 years of the Constitution of India, India needs to take a sober look at the right to personal liberty being a core constituent of an idea of justice.

 

Introduction

As we mark 75 years of the Constitution of India, I urge everyone to remember the ways in which the core values of the Constitution flounder in a deep ethical and moral crisis, trapped as we are in reductionist, mechanical readings of the constitutional value of personal liberty and human dignity. In the midst of the celebration, we need to step back and take a sober look at the right to personal liberty, which is a core constituent of an idea of justice.

 

Reinstating dissent as constitutional ethic

• Reinstatement of Justice S. Fazl Ali’s Dissenting opinion: The Supreme Court of India unanimously reinstated Justice S. Fazl Ali’s dissenting opinion in the case of A.K. Gopalan vs State of Madras in the Puttaswamy vs Union of India (2017) case.
  1. The dissent focused on upholding Gopalan's right to political dissent.
• Judicial declaration of constitutional wrong: The preventive detention of communist leader A.K. Gopalan by the government and the majority ruling of the Supreme Court in 1950 were effectively declared as a judicial wrong.
  1. This was a significant moment in the context of constitutional ethics and personal liberty.
• Constitutional ethics and personal liberty: The majority judgments that truncated liberty were seen as flawed from the perspective of constitutional ethics.
  1. The technicalities of interpreting a fundamental right were inseparable from the centrality of personal liberty in the Constitution.

 

The Significance of Article 21

• Right to Life and Personal Liberty: Article 21 is designed to ensure the dignity of the individual, a cherished human value that promotes the full development and evolution of a human being.
  1. Justice R.F. Nariman highlighted this in the Puttaswamy judgment (paragraph 42).
• Constitution as ‘Workable’, ‘Flexible’, and ‘Strong’: The Constitution needs to be rendered ‘workable’, ‘flexible’, and ‘strong’ to address contemporary challenges, as envisioned by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
• Preamble’s role in unity: The Preamble provides guidance on how to hold the country together, especially in times of political discourse that may reduce and degrade politics to fragmented narratives like the ‘tukde tukde’ discourse.

 

Contemporary Issues of Preventive Detention and Arbitrary Arrests

• Rituals of humiliation: Preventive detention, arbitrary arrests, and denial of fair trials through impunity in anti-terror laws enact ‘rituals of humiliation,’ causing severe wrongs for conscientious resisters.
• Juxtaposition of past and present: In 1950, A.K. Gopalan challenged the early constitutional contradictions and was detained.
  1. In 2025, contemporary dissenters such as Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, and others challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) are living under harsh conditions, including incarceration, demolitions, dispossession, and a partisan prison system.

 

Escalation of Preventive Detention and Custody

• Proliferation of Preventive Detention: By 2017, preventive detention and prolonged custody without bail became widespread under the aegis of constitutional courts.
  1. There was a rise in arrests and prolonged detention of dissenters, supported by numerous laws (both stateand central) that allowed detention and custody with minimal regulations.
• Punishment by process: Over time, the process of detention itself has become the punishment, as decisions on personal libertyremain delayed and opaque.
• Impact on dissenters: Young dissenters who challenged the CAA 2019 are now caught in the web of anti-terror laws, facing indefinite detention with opaque procedures.
• Criminalisation of Dissent: Dissent is criminalised, even as it is reinstated in some judgments.
  1. This paradox calls for reflection, especially in the 75th year of the Constitution.

 

A.K. Gopalan and today’s resisters

• Memoir Account: In the cause of the people: In his memoir, In the Cause of the People: Reminiscences (1973), A.K. Gopalan provides a detailed account of his imprisonment and the numerous trials he faced.
  1. He filed petitions to secure liberty from both British and Indian courts, but was unsuccessful.
• Celebrating independence day in jail: On August 15, 1947, he led a small procession in jail and hoisted the national flag to celebrate Independence Day.
  1. This act led to his arrest on a treason charge under Section 124A, accusing him of stirring enmity against the emperor.
• Repeated arrests and court struggles: Despite filing affidavits and writ petitions, Gopalan was unable to secure his release. He was arrested, then re-arrested upon release, and imprisoned again for four years from 1947 to 1951.
  1. In one instance, the court ordered his release, and the police were specifically told not to touch him, but they did not comply with this injunction.

 

Contemporary Parallels with Anti-CAA Resisters

• Current imprisonment of Anti-CAA protestors: Much like Gopalan’s experience, anti-CAA resisters have spent approximately four years in custody.
  1. The major difference is that courts today have not shown the same urgency in granting release to these resisters as Gopalan experienced during his time.
• Preventive Detention Act, 1950: The Preventive Detention Act, 1950 represents a law from post-independence India, yet it is a part of the ‘rule of law’ regime that continues to be criticized for restricting personal liberties.
• The Gopalan Judgment as ‘Indian-Made Foreign Judgment’: K.G. Kannabiran reflected on the Gopalan judgment, calling it India’s own ‘foreign judgment’, as it upheld a colonial law made by the British.
  1. Despite being free from colonial rule, Indian-made colonial laws have persisted in modern India.
• Puttaswamy Judgment and Constitutional Values: The critical question now is whether the Puttaswamy judgment’s focus on dissent and dignity will continue to guide the courts.
  1. Will constitutional values such as personal liberty be upheld as the ultimate expression of justice under the Indian Constitution?

 

Conclusion: No room for retrospective regret

The case of the 16 arrests made in the Bhima Koregaon case (writers, intellectuals, cultural activists, poets, performers, teachers), the 19 arrests made in the Delhi riots case of anti-CAA protesters (most of them community leaders and student leaders and activists, of whom 17 are Muslim), and the anticipation of violence, arrest and domicide as a ‘clear and present danger’ confronted especially by Muslims who dare to challenge unlawful state action, must make us pause. They call for a slew of interventions by constitutional courts in the exercise of ‘creative constitutionalism’ (to use Professor Upendra Baxi’s phrase) in the cause of the right to personal liberty as justice. This is needed so that India does not end up waiting ‘another seven decades and four generations’ to discover that we were again on the wrong side of the Constitution. Or that we understood and worked the Constitution in its seventh decade in ways that negated its ethical spirit, instead of upholding and furthering the idea of justice embedded within.

Editorial 2: Foundational values, the journey of the Indian state

Context

Rather than reinventing the wheel of the Constitution, there has to be a strong defence of India’s democratic principles.

 

Introduction

On the 75th anniversary of the coming into effect of the Constitution of India, it is imperative to evaluate the journey of the Indian state from the perspective of its foundational values before we plan the course ahead. After nearly three years of debate and deliberation, the Constituent Assembly of the newly independent India adopted its founding document, the Constitution of India. Two months thereafter, the Republic officially came into force with the Constitution being given effect to. When Dr. B.R. Ambedkar delivered the closing address to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949, he characterised the complex challenges ahead. He anxiously wondered whether Indians would place “the country above their creed”. Today, we realise that the words from the closing address carry meaningful lessons for the next 75 years and propel us to guard the Constitution.

 

The federal republic

• Tussles between state governments and governors: Many constitutional issues have been debated recently, especially regarding India’s federal structure.
  1. Tussles between State governments and some State Governors have reached the Supreme Court of India.
• Simultaneous elections: Simultaneous elections have become a significant issue, with pitched battles within and outside Parliament.
• Neglect of regional languages: The neglect of ‘regional languages’ like Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi is being argued from the perspective of multilingual equality and State autonomy.
• Fiscal Federalism: Fiscal federalism remains a major sticking point for States under the dual regime of the Finance Commission and the Goods and Services Tax Act.
• Delimitation Exercise: The next delimitation exercise is expected to result in a showdown between the Union and States that have controlled their population.

 

Absence of ‘Federal’ in the Constitution

• Strange Absence of the Term ‘Federal’: Despite its importance in constitutional debates, the word ‘federal’ is nowhere to be found in the text of the Indian Constitution.
• Criticism of the Constitution’s Federal Nature: Early criticisms of the Constitution suggested that it was anti-federal and favored the Union.
• Dr. Ambedkar’s clarification: In 1949, Dr. Ambedkar explained that the Centre and the States are co-equal in matters of legislative and executive authority.
  1. The overriding powers of the Union are only for use in an emergency, not for regular governance.
• Judicial confirmation of Federalism: Constitutional courts have affirmed that federalism is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
  1. The S.R. Bommai vs Union of India (1994) and Government of NCT of Delhi vs Union of India (2024) judgments have upheld this principle.

 

An unequal democracy

• Contemporary question: Another question of contemporary interest is on whether and how India has matured over the 75 years, into a social democracy that is guided by the constitutional values of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
• Criticism of the government: The argument put forth by many critics of the government is that it has become a police state.
  1. The offence of sedition along with stringent special statutes such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act supplement this position.
• Equality and democracy: Similarly, whether the country has been able to achieve a degree of equality among various cohorts, and whether it is truly democratic are questions that merit introspection.

 

Dr. Ambedkar’s Perspective

• Removing social and economic inequality: With tremendous foresight, Dr. Ambedkar explained that the country must strive to remove social and economic inequality before they become a threat to democracy itself.
  1. He went on to underline the importance of fraternity for the fledgling republic.
• The idea of an Indian Nation: Terming the idea of an Indian nation as a delusion, Dr. Ambedkar asked how people divided into several thousands of castes can be a nation.
• Fraternal feelings through social and political movements: Seventy-five years hence, can we fairly claim to have fostered fraternal feelings through social and political movements?
• Caste and success in society: Have we succeeded to some degree in neutralising the significance of caste in determining merit and successin society?
• Not a Failure of the Constitution: The answers must be in the negative.
  1. But, that does not necessarily imply that the Constitution has failed. It is an indication of how much farther the country must travel.

 

The need for constitutional guardians

• Accusation of colonial evolution: Of late, there has been some noise about revamping the Constitution, with the accusation that it has evolved from a European colonial perspective.
• The ‘Indic’ Constitution Proposal: It has become a common trope among the social right to suggest the replacement of the present-day Constitution with an ‘Indic’ constitutional document drawing from Hindu dharmic concepts.
  1. There can be no greater insult to the combined intellect of the Constituent Assembly than this.
  2. There can be no greater disservice than this to the three years of the Constituent Assembly and the 75 years of nation-building that have made India what it is today.
• Dr. Ambedkar’s call to preserve the constitution: Rather than reinventing the wheel of the Constitution, the country must respond to Dr. Ambedkar’s calls to defend our democratic principles and preserve the Constitution.
• The role of the people: For it is not the document that makes the nation, but the people who are called to govern.

 

Conclusion

What is required today is clear-headed guidance on the future of our constitutional philosophy. In Plato’s Republic, he argues the case for a class of guardians who are philosopher-kings. India today needs guardians who can place the country above their creed more than ever: they need to be guardians in the form of judges, bureaucrats, politicians, activists, journalists and citizens. Only then can we truly aspire to fulfil the promise of the Constitution.