Many years ago, in the aftermath of the creation of the famous basic structure doctrine, the legal scholar Upendra Baxi had written a much celebrated article titled, “The Constitutional Quicksands of Kesavananda Bharati and the 25th Amendment.” In it, he argued that the decision generates many paradoxes and that it was likely to be the Indian Constitution of the Future.

However, he added that that the judgment was likely to create an illiterate bar because of its sheer length. He concluded by adding that the “illiteracy of the literate is more pernicious for development than that of the illiterate.”

Today, with the majority judgment in the Aadhaar case, it seems his words have come to fruition. Let me point out four such instances as illustration.