On 13 September 2025, Vineeth Krishna representing the Centre for Law and Policy Research, Bangalore conducted a workshop on Indian Constitutional History Education for teachers part of the Progressive Educational Techniques Society (PETS) at the Seagull Foundation for the Arts. This was part of a series of workshops that History for Peace had been conducting on the Indian Constitution. 

Krishna’s workshop began with a small quiz. Things that appear ‘basic’ about the Indian Constitution––the number of members in the Constituent Assembly, if there were constitutions written before the Constituent Assembly began the drafting process, when the drafting process began etc.––were evaluated to highlight the significance of the endeavour of Indian Constitution making 1946 onwards. He asked why the number of members kept oscillating in the Assembly, what documents were antecedents to the Constitution and how these were crucial in framing key provisions like Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles, marking the socio-economic character of the Indian Constitution.

Krishna stressed how integral it was that the Indian Constitution-makers embraced the idea of making the Constitutional Assembly Debates (CAD) public, something that was not followed by many other countries. He not only traced a number of ‘Historical Constitutions’––those drafted prior to the convening of the Constituent Assembly––but also showed how reading changes and charting how an idea transforms is crucial to understanding the Constitution as it exists today––a document that emerged through a process of discussion and dialogue, through consensus and accommodation. This also involved exploring why provisions and phrasing was changed and what could have been the historical background for such changes. He also drew attention to how copies of the draft Indian Constitution were circulated for public feedback and that the people of India were part of the process of Constitution making, not mute observers who were given a Constitution by an indirectly elected body.

Krishna introduced the website that was designed by the CLPR: https://www.constitutionofindia.net/ that serves as the largest database of the Indian Constitution and Constitutional History. Participants were encouraged to explore the database to answer questions to a worksheet that interrogates how our Constitution understands freedom of speech. Participants not only traced historical antecedents but also read through the debates wherein freedom of speech was raised. They discussed why ‘sedition’ as a term was absent and what it meant to have a slew of factors restricting speech on grounds of protecting the sovereignty and security of India. 

In this process, participants became acquainted with the website and how to navigate the database in a classroom. At a time when the semantics of terms in the Indian Constitution and their inclusion are subjects of virulent debate, the website is an important tool to fact-check common misconceptions, a task even students can undertake. The process of engaging with the primary sources and being able to navigate different themes also gave participants a renewed sense of familiarity with the Constitution.