NEW DELHI: Food Minister Jagjivan Ram and ruling Congress Party President Dev Kanta Barooah yesterday [July 26] foreshadowed changes in the Indian Constitution. Mr Ram, speaking at a ceremony to a launch a new book called “Our Constitution, for Haves Or Have-nots?” said that … there was great scope for changes in the Constitution as conditions today were different than at the time it was framed. … Mr Ram is considered the second most influential person in the Government after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Mr Barooah … took the position that the Constitution was “only a means to an end”. … Mr Barooah said the nation would not want laws which acted as guardians of vested interests. India stood for “propertyless democracy”. He felt law and justice were limping behind social needs.

It is not immediately clear what kind of constitutional changes were being foreshadowed, but the key points in the Government’s new economic package are redistribution of rural land, provision of homes sites for all and limits on urban property holdings. In the latest political situation, there have been more arrests of prominent people in India.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2025