Testing the Claim That the Constitution Is 'Simply a Copy' of the 1935 Act
Sana, a Class XII student in Bhagalpur, begins an essay with the sentence: "The Indian Constitution is simply a copy of the Government of India Act, 1935." She offers three supports: the federal list of subjects, the office of the governor, and the emergency provisions, which she says are "the same". Her teacher gives her three passages to test the claim: Nehru's Objectives Resolution of 13 December 1946, which begins from the sovereignty of the people; Article 32, which guarantees the right to move the Supreme Court for enforcement of fundamental rights; and Ambedkar's remark in the Constituent Assembly that the Constitution can be "federal in normal times and unitary in emergencies". The teacher asks Sana to sort the borrowed elements from the new ones, and to say whether the word "simply" survives the test.
1. List what is genuinely borrowed and from where, and what is new.
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Borrowed from the 1935 Act. The federal scheme itself - a division of powers into Union, State and Concurrent lists (the Act's three lists become the Seventh Schedule); the office of the governor as the centre's representative in the state; the emergency provisions that allow the centre to take over a state; the All India Services; and a great deal of administrative detail such as the structure of the higher courts and the public service commissions. Ambedkar said the Constitution had been framed after 'ransacking all the known Constitutions of the world', and the 1935 Act was the largest single source because it was the machinery already running in India.
Borrowed from elsewhere. Parliamentary government and the rule of law (Britain); fundamental rights and judicial review (the United States); directive principles of state policy (Ireland); a strong centre with residual powers (Canada); liberty, equality and fraternity in the Preamble (France).
New. Universal adult franchise from the first general election; enforceable fundamental rights, including Article 32; the directive principles as a distinct category; an independent Election Commission; and - decisively - the source of authority: a Constituent Assembly elected under the Cabinet Mission scheme, not a foreign parliament.
2. Does the word "simply" survive? Explain using the source of authority of the 1935 Act versus the Constitution.
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The word does not survive, for one decisive reason: authority. The Government of India Act, 1935, was a statute of the British Parliament; it could be amended or repealed by that Parliament, and Indian opinion had no final voice in making it. The Constitution of India was framed by a Constituent Assembly that met from 9 December 1946, adopted the Objectives Resolution on 22 January 1947, and declared the people of India to be the source of authority. That is a change of kind, not of degree.
Second, content. A constitution that borrows an administrative frame but adds universal adult franchise, enforceable fundamental rights and directive principles is not a copy; the additions change the character of the machine. A copy of the 1935 Act would have retained a limited franchise and would not have made rights justiciable against the state.
Third, method. Framing on the 1935 Act's structure was a deliberate choice to keep what worked; the Assembly debated and altered every provision across three years and produced 395 articles. The claim 'simply a copy' ignores that process. A better verb is 'adapted', and 'adapted' is a stronger claim than 'copied' because it can be defended.
3. Rewrite Sana's opening sentence into a defensible claim.
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Rewritten sentence. 'The Indian Constitution reused the administrative framework of the Government of India Act, 1935 - its federal lists, its governors and its emergency powers - but placed that framework under a sovereign Constituent Assembly and added universal adult franchise, enforceable fundamental rights and directive principles, so it is an adaptation of the 1935 Act rather than a copy of it.'
Why it is defensible. It keeps the concession: the borrowing is real and large, and denying it would be as inaccurate as overstating it. It names the specific elements borrowed, which shows the candidate knows the Act. It states the reason the whole is different - the source of authority - and it draws a conclusion that follows from both points.
For a shorter answer: 'The 1935 Act supplied much of the Constitution's administrative machinery; the Constitution's authority and its rights came from elsewhere.' Either version gives the examiner something to mark: a specific list, a source of authority, and a conclusion that follows from the evidence rather than from a slogan.