Q1.
Just as your textbook has many sections and chapters, the Constitution of India has 25 parts and 12 schedules. Each part has sections within it. It is the world's largest written constitution. When it came into effect, it had 22 Parts and 8 schedules. You don't need to remember these numbers, but can you guess why they have increased since 1950?
Answer
Because the Constitution is a living document. Parts and Schedules have been added as the country's needs changed, through amendments.
1950 — 22 Parts, 8 Schedules
Today — 25 Parts, 12 Schedules
Difference — 3 Parts and 4 Schedules added in more than seventy years
Today — 25 Parts, 12 Schedules
Difference — 3 Parts and 4 Schedules added in more than seventy years
The chapter itself gives two of the reasons:
- New responsibilities were written in for citizens. ‘Part IV-A: Fundamental Duties’ was added in 1976 — a whole new Part.
- New institutions were created. The Panchayati Raj system was not in the original Constitution; it was integrated through the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, bringing local self-government into the document.
In general, numbers grow when:
- a subject becomes important enough to need its own Part (local government, duties of citizens);
- lists have to be extended — Schedules are mostly lists (of States and Union Territories, of languages, of subjects for the Centre and the States), and lists change as new States are formed and new languages are recognised;
- society itself changes, and the framers deliberately left room for that.
Why it happens: the framers knew they could not foresee everything. Rather than freeze the document, they built in a careful procedure for change — debated in Parliament, sometimes in the State legislatures, often with public opinion sought. Growth in Parts and Schedules is therefore a sign that the Constitution is working, not that it was badly written.