Features, Sources, Preamble, Parts & Schedules

Why is the Indian Constitution so long, and why does it look so unlike any other? Because its makers did not copy one country. They sat down with the experience of the world in front of them (Britain, America, Ireland, Canada, Australia and others), kept what suited India, and added what India alone needed: a society with deep inequalities, many religions and languages, and a poor population that had just become free. The result is a document that is long, detailed and flexible, and it is the world's lengthiest written Constitution for a sovereign country. Learn its features as a set of answers to India's own problems and you will never confuse them.

Parliamentary sovereignty (Britain) and judicial supremacy (USA) are two opposite ideas. India chose a middle path: Parliament makes laws and amends the Constitution, but the Supreme Court can strike down a law (judicial review) and has held that Parliament cannot destroy the 'basic structure' (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973). Neither institution is all-powerful.

Is India a federation or a unitary State? Try this test. In a true federation (USA) the States are as strong as the Centre and cannot be dissolved by it. In a unitary State (UK) all power sits with the Centre. India sits between the two: it has the outer frame of a federation, but the centre of gravity is in Delhi. The framers did this on purpose. A country that had just been broken by Partition, with more than five hundred princely states to be merged, needed a strong Centre to hold it together, yet a vast and diverse land also needed States with their own governments. That is why scholars call India 'quasi-federal' (K. C. Wheare), and why Ambedkar said the Constitution could be both unitary and federal according to the requirements of time and circumstances.

'Union of States' (Article 1) and not 'Federation of States'. Ambedkar explained the choice in the Assembly: the Indian federation is not the result of an agreement among States, and no State has the right to secede from it. The Union is indestructible, while Parliament can redraw the States. So the Constitution does not use the word 'federal' at all.

The framers of the Constitution studied the constitutions of the world for months, and B. N. Rau travelled to the USA, Canada, Ireland and Britain to meet judges and statesmen. Dr. Ambedkar was proud, not ashamed, of this borrowing: he said that a Constitution drafted this late in history could only gain from what others had learnt. Every borrowed feature was chosen because it solved a problem India faced. Learn the table below as 'country, feature' pairs, and keep one picture in mind: the largest share of our Constitution comes from the Government of India Act, 1935, the second from Britain.

The Preamble is the Constitution's introduction, the single paragraph in which 'We, the people of India' tell the world what kind of country we want and why we wrote the Constitution. It is not a law that a court can enforce, but it is the key to understanding every Article. When two readings of an Article are possible, judges choose the one that fits the Preamble. It grew out of the Objectives Resolution moved by Nehru on 13 December 1946, and it was adopted on 26 November 1949.

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN, SOCIALIST, SECULAR, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation; IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

Three things the Preamble is not: (1) it is not enforceable in a court of law; (2) it is not a source of power for the legislature; (3) it does not limit the powers given in the body of the Constitution. But it is a guide for interpreting the Articles, and it can be amended (it was amended once, in 1976) so long as the basic structure is untouched. In November 2024 the Supreme Court refused to strike down the words 'socialist' and 'secular' added by the 42nd Amendment.

Think of the Constitution as a big building with 25 rooms, called Parts. Each Part gathers Articles on one theme: citizenship, rights, the Union, the States, elections, emergencies, and so on. Many questions only ask 'In which Part is this?' or 'Which Part deals with that?', so a quick map of the Parts is worth its weight in marks. The original Constitution had 22 Parts. Part VII was removed (1956), and four new Parts were added by amendments: IVA, IXA, IXB and XIVA. That makes 22 - 1 + 4 = 25 (as of 2025).

Part I is only four Articles long but it carries a big idea. Article 1 says 'India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States', and Articles 2 to 4 let Parliament, by a simple law, create, enlarge, reduce or rename States. This is why Indian States are called destructible units of an indestructible Union. Berubari (1960) added that ceding Indian territory to another country needs a constitutional amendment under Article 368, not just an Article 3 law.

Schedules are the Constitution's lists and forms. The Articles state the principle and the Schedule holds the detail: the Articles say 'the States are as in the First Schedule', 'oaths are in the form in the Third Schedule', and so on. The Constitution began with 8 Schedules in 1950. Four more were added later (Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth), so there are 12 Schedules today. Every Schedule is a favourite for one-line questions, so learn each one as a pair: number and subject.

Five Schedules need more than a one-line answer: the Seventh (who makes which law), the Fifth and Sixth (tribal areas), the Eighth (languages) and the Ninth (protected laws). Start with the Seventh, the Schedule that makes India a federation in practice. Article 246 says Parliament has the power over the Union List, States over the State List, and both over the Concurrent List. If a subject is not on any list, it is a residuary subject and goes to Parliament (Article 248). This is an idea borrowed from Canada.

The original Seventh Schedule had 97 Union, 66 State and 47 Concurrent entries. The 42nd Amendment (1976) moved five subjects from the State List to the Concurrent List: education, forests, protection of wild animals and birds, weights and measures, and administration of justice. The counts 100, 61 and 52 are the usual textbook figures for today; some books differ by a few entries, so first focus on which subject sits in which list. Education came to the Concurrent List in 1976, and it is a very common question.

The Ninth Schedule began in 1951 (1st Amendment, Article 31B) to shield land reform laws from court challenge. In I.R. Coelho (2007) the Supreme Court held that laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after 24 April 1973 (the date of the Kesavananda Bharati judgment) can be reviewed if they damage the basic structure. So the Ninth Schedule is no longer a total shield.