The Communist Ghadar Party of India, in its Manifesto released on the occasion of the 15th Lok Sabha elections, has proposed that the first act of a workers' and peasants' government would be to convene a Constituent Assembly, elected on the basis of universal adult franchise, to draft a new Constitution to replace the existing 1950 Constitution. 

Why must Indian people give themselves a new Constitution?  The Constitution is the fundamental law of the land.  The fact that, 58 years after the current Constitution was promulgated in January 1950, the masses of Indian people continue to live in dire poverty, deprived of any security of livelihood and even security of life, is a damning indictment of this fundamental law.

There are some who argue that there is nothing wrong with the 1950 Constitution, that what needs to be done is only to implement it faithfully.  But a Constitution is not a piece of paper, or just some high-sounding words.  It forms the foundation of a very definite system, of a socio-economic and political order.  The issue that needs to be addressed is: what is the socio-economic and political order that is defended by this Constitution?

The present Constitution claims in its preamble that "We, the people of India, have given to ourselves this Constitution". This is a big lie.  The Indian people fought heroically to throw out the oppressive and exploitative order established by the British colonialists.  But those who sat down to draft a Constitution for India were not representatives of the toiling people who had sacrificed the most for freedom, but of the big capitalists and big landowners, who had no intention of getting rid of exploitation.  Just like the British rulers who preceded them, they wanted to perpetuate a state machine and legal system that could be used to suppress the struggles of the workers and peasants and other toiling people in their own interests. Just like the colonialists, they legalised the "right" of the big bourgeoisie to savagely plunder all the land and resources of the different nations and peoples constituting India and deprive them of sovereignty. Thus the present constitution of India defends and legalises capitalist "right" to exploit and plunder with the state machinery – the armed forces, police, bureaucratic machinery, as well as judiciary organised and charged with the responsibility of defending this "right" at any cost.

The Constituent Assembly that drafted the Constitution was not even elected by the people of India on the basis of universal adult franchise. It was elected by members of the legislative assemblies established under colonial rule, who had themselves been elected through a limited franchise.  Only educated men of property voted in those elections and all who stood as candidates in those elections had to pledge allegiance to the colonial rule. To date, there is no provision in the Constitution for the people of India to reject or approve this Constitution or even to suggest amendments to it. It is a fundamental law that has been imposed on the people, without ever asking their consent. 

Let us see what this Constitution has meant in practice for the working class and people.

The 1950 Constitution does not protect, but denies, the rights of the toiling majority of people — including the right to work and to livelihood, to education, health care, housing, drinking water – in short, all the essential preconditions of a dignified human existence in today’s world. On the other hand, it sanctifies repression against all who fight for these and other rights.

The 1950 Constitution denies people the right to conscience.  People can be and are silenced, simply because of their beliefs.  The various draconian preventive detention laws that increase in number year after year, such as UAPA, AFSPA, NSA, TADA, POTA, ESMA, and so on, are all sanctioned by and derive their legitimacy from the Constitution.  Unabashed state terrorism, including state organised communal massacres, is carried out under this Constitution, and the people of India are deprived of all powers to punish those guilty of genocidal crimes against them.

Discrimination against citizens on the basis of their caste, religion, gender, educational status, and so on, is built into this Constitution.  Women, for instance, are governed by different civil codes on the basis of religion.

India consists of hundreds of nations and peoples which have lived together for centuries, and have together contributed to the rich Indian civilisation. However, the 1950 Constitution denies the existence and national rights of the constituent peoples of India. It recognises only some of the languages of the peoples of India, and discriminates against others. If a people assert their national rights, as have the peoples of the North East and Kashmir, they are declared to be extremists and secessionists, and state terror is unleashed against them. The Indian Union has thus become a prison house of nations that is the biggest obstacle to all its constituent peoples living harmoniously together.

Any program to ensure a dignified human existence for all the Indian people will require a new Constitution to be drafted by the rightful masters of India — workers, peasants, women, youth of the different nationalities and peoples constituting our country. For an end to discrimination, as well as for justice and security to dalits, women, minorities, oppressed nationalities, what is needed is a new Constitution.

The communists and masses of workers and peasants must clearly understand that constitutions are written by a victorious people. The workers and peasants and all the oppressed must build a revolutionary united front and establish a new political power which will challenge and replace existing political power which is the power of the big bourgeoisie. It is the popular front of the forces fighting for a new India which will establish new political power — workers and peasants power — and organise the people of India to write a constitution which will defend human, democratic and national rights and bar the road to capitalists and imperialists to exploit and suck the blood of our people. It is the workers and peasants' front that will establish a new state structure and mechanisms which will be instruments of the rule of workers and peasants, and not instruments of exploitation and oppression.    

The new Constitution will vest the people with the supreme decision making power. It will bring all elected legislative bodies under their control.  It will redefine electoral laws and rules so that the people can select candidates from among their peers, hold elected representatives to account, and recall them at any time.  It will empower people’s committees in the constituencies with the authority to make sure that every citizen can exercise these rights, and also make proposals for consideration by the legislative bodies.  It will lay the basis for a system where people do not put parties in power, but parties have the duty of working to keep people in power.

The new Constitution will guarantee the rights of every human being, including the right to livelihood, education and health care. It will defend the right to conscience of every member of society.  It will provide for a voluntary union of nations and peoples to replace the present Indian Union, in which each of the constituent peoples will have the right to rule themselves, and to secede from the union if and when they so desire. 

The Communist Ghadar Party of India has placed the agenda of convening a new elected Constituent Assembly which will draft a new constitution before the people of India. This is to raise the discussion amongst all our workers and peasants and other exploited and oppressed people about how they must raise themselves to the position of the rulers of this country in order to bring about revolutionary transformation in their conditions.

The Communist Ghadar Party of India calls upon the workers and peasants, women and youth of our country to hoist the banner of reconstitution of India, as an integral part of the struggle to get rid of the colonial legacy weighing down upon us, and lift society out of the crisis.