The Constitution of India Pocket Edition

A Constitution is the embodiment of a nation’s deepest ideals, justice, liberty, and equality. It captures the aspirations of a people committed to justice and freedom, and only becomes truly meaningful when it is alive in the minds and actions of its citizens. At the beginning of each academic semester, I often tell my students: “Carry two things in your palm - one is the Constitution, the other a dictionary”. This may seem simple, even symbolic, but it carries a profound message. The Constitution provides the framework of our rights and duties, and the dictionary gives us the language to articulate and defend them. In today’s India, where constitutional values are continually tested, the need to internalise and engage with the Constitution is more vital than ever.

This volume has been carefully designed to be compact, readable, and contextually enriched. It contains the full and updated text of the Constitution, accompanied by succinct explanatory notes. The annotations are drafted to offer clarity without oversimplification. They reflect essential judicial interpretations, institutional practices, and conceptual insights aimed at lawyers, helping students, young professionals, aspirants, and curious readers to grasp the living spirit of the Constitution.

The ambition here is not to offer a substitute for detailed legal commentaries, but to create a constitutional companion one that can be carried in the palm, consulted on the go, and reflected upon during moments of civic questioning. I have resisted the temptation to clutter the text with footnotes or dense legal jargon. Instead, the focus has been on precision, clarity, and accessibility.