For anyone in STM who wants the constitution to say something different.
You do not need a GitHub account, a text editor, or any technical knowledge at all. If you can read the constitution and type, you can propose a change to it.
Governance — who votes, when, and what happens after you send it in — is in AMENDMENT-PROCESS.md. This page is only about writing the thing.
- Open constitution.stmorg.in/propose/.
- Change the words you want changed. The page shows you the constitution as it stands, with every provision editable in place.
- Download your proposal when you are done. Two files come down: your proposal, and a readable copy of how it would look as an Act.
- Email both to the Internal Compliance Committee at
pranay@stmorg.in.
That is the entire process on your side. Everything below is detail you can read when you need it, not before.
The page gives you a copy of the constitution in your own browser. Nothing you type there changes the real one — you could delete every article on the screen and the constitution would be untouched.
When you press Generate, the page works out what you changed and writes it down precisely: which provisions you touched, and exactly what each one would say afterwards. That written-down form is your proposal. If all three bodies named in Article 16(3) approve it, that same file becomes the Act and is applied to the constitution by a tool, not by a person retyping it.
That matters more than it sounds. The three Amendment Acts of 2024 were written as prose and typed into the constitution by hand. That left provisions half-applied, one application nobody recorded, and fourteen open questions in RECONCILIATION.md. Your proposal cannot do that, because the words you typed are the words that get applied.
Editing text. Every provision on the page is a box holding what it says now. Change it to what you want it to say. Write the whole provision, including the parts you are not changing — that is what the box already contains, so as long as you edit rather than retype, this takes care of itself.
Changing a heading. The heading of each provision is editable too. If you change it, your proposal states that heading; if you leave it, the existing one stays as it is.
Adding an article or a clause. Use the buttons. The number is assigned for you — the next free one, or a number that was deliberately reserved. There is nowhere to type a number, because a number is how the constitution is cited: in Acts, in minutes, in links people have already sent each other. Choosing one yourself would break somebody's citation.
Removing an article or a clause. There is a button, and it asks you to confirm, showing you exactly what would disappear. What you remove keeps its number. It is marked as removed rather than deleted, so every citation ever made to it still resolves, and nothing after it shifts up — an article, a clause, the same rule at both levels. You must say why: a provision should not leave a constitution with nobody having given a reason, and the words you write are printed in the Act.
Renumbering and reordering. There is no control for these, anywhere. An ordinary amendment never moves a number.
At the bottom of the page you will find "You are proposing N changes" and, under it, each change with what the provision says now and what it would say afterwards.
Read that. It is the same before-and-after the ICC will read, and the same one the three meetings will vote on. Not your explanation, not what you meant, not what you said in a meeting last week — that. If it does not say what you intended, fix it now, while fixing it costs nothing.
You will also be asked for two things:
- Who you are — your name, role and membership number. Your name is recorded in the proposal permanently, from the moment you draft it. The membership number is recorded too, and the ICC checks it against the register when your proposal arrives; nothing on the page can verify it.
- Your explanation, in plain words. Write it for someone who has not read the constitution today. It is printed at the end of the Act as the Statement of Objects and Reasons — it explains, and it can never be cited as authority for anything. If the rule matters, it belongs in the provision you edited, not here.
The page shows a long reference number for your proposal, and it changes whenever your proposal changes.
That number is what the three bodies vote on. Each presiding officer reads it into the minutes. If the proposal is edited after a vote — even a typo, even a change to a different provision entirely — the number changes, every approval already given is void, and those bodies have to meet again.
So: get it right before it goes out. Once the ICC circulates your proposal to the bodies, the text is frozen.
Your work is saved in your browser as you type, so a closed tab does not lose it. It is saved only there — the file you download is your real copy. On a shared or public computer, use "Clear the copy saved in this browser" when you are finished: what is saved carries your name and membership number.
To carry on later, open the page again and use "Continue a proposal you started".
Something worth knowing about that. The page never re-opens your old text as you left it. It loads today's constitution and re-makes your changes against it, one at a time, and tells you what it found:
- Carried over — nobody touched that provision, so your change still applies as written.
- No longer needed — the provision already reads the way you proposed. Somebody else's Act made that change while your proposal was waiting, so yours is dropped.
- Needs re-making — the provision was rewritten while you waited. You will see the current words beside your version, and you make the change again against what is actually there.
Nothing is carried over silently. This is why you never have to check whether your proposal is out of date: a proposal based on the current constitution is the only thing the page can produce.
- The ICC checks its drafting and gives it a number — "Bill 1 of 2026".
- It goes to all three bodies Article 16(3) names: the board, the intermediate board, and the units. All three. Every time. The 2024 Acts recorded only the ICC's assent, and closing that gap permanently is why this process exists.
- Each body votes. The threshold is two thirds of those present and voting — abstentions are not counted on either side.
- Article 16(3) says the three bodies approve "collectively", and that word genuinely bears two readings: one pooled vote of everyone together, or two thirds inside each body separately. Until the board settles it by resolution, the stricter reading governs — two thirds in each body. Both tallies are recorded either way.
- Approved, it is enacted and applied, and the constitution's version goes up.
You may withdraw your own proposal at any time before it is approved.
If your proposal comes back to you for redrafting, that is ordinary and it can happen as many times as it takes. Open it again on the page, change what needs changing, and send it back.
You do not have to. A proposal written in an email to the ICC is perfectly valid — they will draft it into a bill with you, and your name goes on it as the mover.
And if you are technical and would prefer to write the file yourself, that path is fully supported and produces exactly the same thing: AUTHORING-BY-HAND.md. The page is convenience, not gatekeeping — it exists so that nobody can accidentally propose a half-described change, not because the file format is forbidden.
The Internal Compliance Coordinator, at pranay@stmorg.in — the contact of record
in the constitution — if you do not know who holds that office this year.
Nobody minds being asked. A proposal that is unclear costs a meeting; a question costs a minute.