Framing the Constitution

RAPID REVISION
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❖ The Indian Constitution
❖ Came into effect - 26 January 1950
❖ Framed between - December 1946 and November 1949 (eleven
sessions, sittings spread over 165 day)

❖ The years immediately preceding the making of the Constitution –

▪ Quit India struggle of 1942
▪ Bid by Subhas Chandra Bose
▪ Rising of the ratings of the Royal Indian Navy
▪ Mass protests
▪ Divided
▪ Princely states
❖ The Constituent Assembly –
▪ 1945-46 provincial elections
▪ The Congress - 82 per cent

❖ Public influence –
▪ Arguments were reported in newspapers
▪ Public was asked to send in their views

❖ The Constituent Assembly –

▪ 300 members
▪ Jawaharlal Nehru –
▪ Objectives Resolution
▪ Resolution proposing that the National Flag of India be a
“horizontal tricolour of saffron, white and dark green in equal
proportion”, with a wheel in navy blue at the centre
▪ Vallabh Bhai Patel –
▪ Worked mostly behind the scenes
▪ Drafting of several reports
▪ Working to reconcile opposing points of view
❖ Rajendra Prasad –
▪ President of the Assembly
▪ Had to steer the discussion along constructive lines
▪ Making sure all members had a chance to speak

❖ B.R. Ambedkar –
▪ Lawyer and economist
▪ Chairman of the Drafting Committee
▪ Guiding the Draft Constitution

❖ Two other lawyers –

▪ K.M. Munshi (Gujarat)
▪ Alladi Krishnaswamy Aiyar (Madras)
▪ Crucial inputs in the drafting of the Constitution

❖ Two civil servants –

▪ B. N. Rau (Constitutional Advisor to the Government of India)
▪ Prepared a series of background papers based on a close study
of the political systems obtaining in other countries
▪ S. N. Mukherjee (Chief Draughtsman)
▪ Complex proposals in clear legal language
COMMENT
❖ 13 December 1946 - Jawaharlal Nehru introduced the “Objectives
Resolution”
▪ Outlined the defining ideals of the Constitution
▪ Proclaimed India to be an “Independent Sovereign Republic”
▪ Guaranteed its citizens justice, equality and freedom
▪ Assured that “adequate safeguards shall be provided for minorities,
backward and tribal areas, and Depressed and Other Backward
Classes … ”

▪ “We are not going just to copy”

▪ “fit in with the temper of our people and be acceptable to them”
❖ Somnath Lahiri (Communist member)
▪ Saw the dark hand of British imperialism
▪ Constituent Assembly was British-made
▪ “Working the British plans as the British should like it to be worked
out”

❖ Nehru –
▪ Admitted that most nationalist leaders wanted a different Constituent
Assembly
▪ “But you must not ignore the source from which this Assembly
derives its strength”
▪ Governments do not come into being by State Papers. Governments
are, in fact the expression of the will of the people. We have met here
today because of the strength of the people behind us and we shall go
as far as the people – not of any party or group but the people as a
whole – shall wish us to go. We should, therefore, always keep in
mind the passions that lie in the hearts of the masses of the Indian
people and try to fulfil them.
 Separate electorates
❖ B. Pocker Bahadur (Madras)
▪ 27 August 1947
▪ Minorities exist in all lands, they could not be wished away, they
could not be “erased out of existence”
▪ Political framework in which minorities could live in harmony
▪ Only separate electorates would ensure that Muslims had a
meaningful voice

❖ ” R.V. Dhulekar
▪ “The English played their game under the cover of safeguards,”
▪ “With the help of it they allured you (the minorities) to a long lull.
Give it up now … Now there is no one to misguide you.”

❖ Sardar Patel
▪ “Poison that has entered the body politic of our country”
▪ “Do you want peace in this land? If so do away with it (separate
electorates)”
❖ Govind Ballabh Pant
▪ Agreed with Bahadur that the success of a democracy was to be
judged by the confidence it generated
▪ Agreed too that every citizen in a free state should be treated in a
manner that satisfied “not only his material wants but also his
spiritual sense of self-respect”

▪ Not only harmful for the nation but also for the minorities
▪ Yet Pant opposed the idea of separate electorates.
▪ It was a suicidal demand
▪ That would permanently isolate the minorities, make them
vulnerable, and deprive them of any effective say within the
government.

▪ “There is the unwholesome and to some extent degrading habit of

thinking always in terms of communities and never in terms of
citizens”
▪ “Let us remember that it is the citizen that must count. It is the citizen
that forms the base as well as the summit of the social pyramid”
❖ Begum Aizaas Rasul
▪ Separate electorates were selfdestructive

❖ By 1949, most Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly were

agreed that separate electorates were against the interests of the
minorities
❖ N.G. Ranga (socialist)
▪ Urged that the term minorities be interpreted in economic terms
▪ The real minorities for Ranga were the poor and the downtrodden
▪ In his opinion it was meaningless for the poor people in the villages
to know that they now had the fundamental right to live, and to have
full employment, or that they could have their meetings, their
conferences, their associations and various other civil liberties.
▪ “They need props. They need a ladder”

▪ Whom are we supposed to represent? The ordinary masses of our

country. And yet most of us do not belong to the masses themselves.
We are of them, we wish to stand for them, but the masses themselves
are not able to come up to the Constituent Assembly. It may take
some time; in the meanwhile, we are here as their trustees, as their
champions, and we are trying our best to speak for them.
❖ Jaipal Singh
▪ Spoke eloquently on the need to protect the tribes
▪ “Our point is that you have got to mix with us. We are willing to mix
with you … ”
▪ He felt that reservation of seats in the legislature was essential

❖ J. Nagappa (Madras)
▪ “We have been suffering, but we are prepared to suffer no more”
▪ “We have realised our responsibilities. We know how to assert
ourselves.”
▪ Numerically the Depressed Castes were not a minority (20 - 25 per
cent)
▪ Their suffering was due to their systematic marginalization
▪ They had no access to education, no share in the administration.

❖ K.J. Khanderkar (Central Provinces)

▪ We were suppressed for thousands of years. ... suppressed... to such
an extent that neither our minds nor our bodies and now even our
hearts work, nor are we able to march forward. This is the position.
❖ Ambedkar no longer argued for separate electorates.
❖ The Constituent Assembly recommended that untouchability be
abolished, Hindu temples be thrown open to all castes, and seats in
legislatures and jobs in government offices be reserved for the lowest
castes.
❖ The measures were welcomed by the democratic public.
 CENTRE VS STATE
❖ Jawaharlal Nehru
▪ Letter to the President of the Constituent Assembly, “Now that
partition is a settled fact, … it would be injurious to the interests of
the country to provide for a weak central authority which would be
incapable of ensuring peace, of coordinating vital matters of common
concern and of speaking effectively for the whole country in the
international sphere”

❖ The Draft Constitution provided for three lists of subjects: Union, State,
and Concurrent.
❖ System of fiscal federalism
▪ Centre - customs duties and Company taxes
▪ Shared them states - income tax and excise duties
▪ States - estate duties, land and property taxes, sales tax, and the tax
on bottled liquor
❖ K. Santhanam (Madras)
▪ A reallocation of powers was necessary
▪ “There is almost an obsession that by adding all kinds of powers to
the Centre we can make it strong”
▪ If the Centre was overburdened with responsibilities, it could not
function effectively.
▪ Santhanam felt that the proposed allocation of powers would cripple
the states
▪ The fiscal provisions would impoverish the provinces
▪ “I do not want any constitution in which the Unit has to come to the
Centre and say ‘I cannot educate my people. I cannot give sanitation,
give me a dole for the improvement of roads, of industries.’ Let us
rather wipe out the federal system and let us have Unitary system.”
▪ The provinces would rise in “revolt against the Centre”.

❖ A member from Orissa - “the Centre is likely to break”

❖ Ambedkar
▪ “A strong and united Centre (hear, hear) much stronger than the
Centre we had created under the Government of India Act of 1935”
❖ Gopalaswami Ayyangar
▪ “The Centre should be made as strong as possible”
❖ Balakrishna Sharma (United Provinces)
▪ Only a strong centre could plan for the well-being of the country,
mobilise the available economic resources, establish a proper
administration, and defend the country against foreign aggression.
 The Language of the Nation
❖ 1930s - the Congress had accepted that Hindustani ought to be the
national language
❖ Mahatma Gandhi
▪ Hindustani – a blend of Hindi and Urdu
▪ Composite language
❖ End of the nineteenth century
▪ Hindustani had been gradually changing
❖ R. V. Dhulekar (Congressman, United Provinces)
▪ “People who are present in this House to fashion a constitution for
India and do not know Hindustani are not worthy to be members of
this Assembly. They better leave.”
❖ 13 September 1949
▪ Language Committee of the Constituent Assembly
▪ Hindi in the Devanagari script would be the official language
▪ For the first fifteen years, English would continue to be used for
all official purposes
▪ Each province was to be allowed to choose one of the regional
languages for official work
❖ Dhulekar
▪ He wanted Hindi to be the National Language
▪ Sir, nobody can be more happy than myself that Hindi has become
the official language of the country … Some say that it is a
concession to Hindi language. I say “no”. It is a consummation of a
historic process.
❖ Shrimati G. Durgabai (Madras)
▪ Mr President, the question of national language for India which was
an almost agreed proposition until recently has suddenly become a
highly controversial issue. Whether rightly or wrongly, the people of
non-Hindi -speaking areas have been made to feel that this fight, or
this attitude on behalf of the Hindi -speaking areas, is a fight for
effectively preventing the natural influence of other powerful
languages of India on the composite culture of this nation.
▪ “The opponents feel perhaps justly that this propaganda for Hindi
cuts at the very root of the provincial languages ...”
▪ “Now what is the result of it all?” asked Durgabai. “I am shocked to
see this agitation against the enthusiasm with which we took to Hindi
in the early years of the century.”
❖ Shri Shankarrao Deo (Congressman)
▪ “If you want my wholehearted support (for Hindi) you must not do
now anything which may raise my suspicions and which will
strengthen my fears.”
❖ T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar (Madras)
▪ The fears of the people, even if they were unjustified, had to be
allayed, or else “there will be bitter feelings left behind”
▪ “When we want to live together and form a united nation”
▪ “There should be mutual adjustment and no question of forcing
things on people ...”
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