Why so many amendments

By 26 January 2024, in 74 years, the Constitution had been amended 106 times. That seems a lot for a hard procedure, but the content of amendments matters more than the number.

• Amendments came at a steady rate in every decade except the first. Ten came in just three years, 1974-76, when one party had a huge majority; another ten in 2001-03, a time of coalition governments and sharp rivalry. So amendments do not depend only on the size of a ruling majority.

Three groups of amendments:

• Technical or administrative: clarifications and small changes, such as raising High Court judges' retirement age from 60 to 62 (15th), raising judges' salaries (54th), and extending SC/ST seat reservation in legislatures by ten years at a time (six such amendments). The amendment to Article 74(1), making the Council of Ministers' advice binding on the President, only confirmed existing practice.
• Different interpretations: when the courts and the government read the Constitution differently, Parliament sometimes amended it to make its reading the official one. This happened often in 1970-75, over Fundamental Rights versus Directive Principles, the right to property, and Parliament's power to amend.
• Political consensus: many post-1984 amendments reflected agreement among parties: the anti-defection amendments (52nd and 91st), the 61st (voting age lowered from 21 to 18), the 73rd and 74th (local government), and the 77th, 81st and 82nd on reservations.

Controversial amendments. The 38th, 39th and 42nd, made during the internal Emergency declared in June 1975, were the most disputed.

• The 42nd was very wide: it changed the Preamble, the Seventh Schedule and 53 articles, extended the Lok Sabha's term from five to six years, added Fundamental Duties, limited judicial review, and tried to override the Kesavananda ruling. Many opposition MPs were in jail when it passed.
• After the 1977 elections brought a new government, the 43rd and 44th amendments cancelled most of these changes and restored the constitutional balance.

Example (new): an amendment adding a new language to the Eighth Schedule's list of languages, passed with every party agreeing, is a consensus amendment; one that changes the length of Parliament's term while elections are suspended would be controversial.