WHAT IS CONTITUTION?

A constitution is primarily a set of rules and principles specifying how a country should
be governed, how power is distributed and controlled, and what rights citizens
possess. It is usually written down and contained within a single document; the UK is
unusual in having an uncodified constitution with many sources .

ORIGIN AND CONCEPT OF CONSTITUTION-

The concept of constitution originated with Magna carta in british monarchy way back
in 1215 A .D. Magna carta liberatum is a charter agreed to by king john of England. It
promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal
imprisonment, access to swift justice and limitation on feudal payments to crown to
be implemented through a council of 25 barons.This was the first time that some
short of basic minimum guarantee in the form of rights were agreed to on the part of
crown. And it's also interesting to note that such created rights were more of the
character of negative rights enforceable even against the crown.

But the credit of a full fledged constitution of a Country goes to the Constitution of U.
S.

The United state constitution established america's national government and

fundamental laws and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. It was signed on
september 17 , 1787,by delegates to the constitutional convention in philadelphia
presided over by George Washington.

WHY DO WE NEED A CONSTITUION?

WHAT I THINK IS- a constitution is not needed by the country but rather by its
population.

1-For a country like India with greater population, different people have different opinions
and with people changing, the way of living might change if there are no proper rules to
govern.

2-Constitution was also necessary to protect the rights that citizens of India must enjoy.

3-It was also necessary to make sure that No Indian citizen will suffer discrimination, injustice
based on his caste, creed, and religion.

4-It was also necessary to make sure that No person either Indian or other will disrespect the
nation, it's principles.

5-Constitution was also needed to assert a government which will work selflessly for the
people.
6-Constitution further also protects the liberty, freedom of citizens which they must enjoy as
Indians

7-Constitution also gives rights and duties to the citizens of the country and government
ensures that rights are being enjoyed.

Indian constitution – the history behind its making-

At the end of the 19th century, the country demanded to be involved in government, and
put an end to torture and oppression. Thanks to the role played by India in supporting
Britain in World War I, the Supreme legislative body of United Kingdom, the British
Parliament introduced the Government of India Act, 1919 which received a royal
approval on December 23 the same year.

The act leads to diarchy – a dual form of governance in some large provinces. A few
areas of governance like health, education, agriculture and supervision of local
government were handed over to a set of Indian ministers who reported to the provincial
council. However, military, defence, foreign affairs, and communications were under the
direct control of the Viceroy.

It was promised that the act would be reviewed after 10 years by a special commission
and thus infamous Simon Commission arrived in India in 1928.

The Simon Commission looked at the constitutional reforms and reviewed the
Government of India Act, 1919. The Simon Report was published in two volumes in
1930, which was called 'not final' following a constitutional deadlock. To free the
constitution of this deadlock, three sessions of a Round Table Conference were held in
1930, 1931 and 1932 respectively. The conference was also attended by
representatives of several Indian communities.

The British made their own reporting drafts on 'white papers', based on the outputs of
these round table sessions. A committee that had 20 representatives from British India
and seven Indians worked on the white papers from April 1933 to December 1934 and
submitted its report to the British Parliament by the end of that year.

A bill was passed in February 1935, which received royal approval on July 24, 1935. It
officially came into enforcement on April 1, 1935, and was named Government of India
Act, 1935.

IDEA OF CONSTITUTION-

1-The idea of constitution was first given by MN ROY in 1934 and for that we need a
constituent assembly a group of people to make the constitution.

2-In 1935 the INC demanded it officialy for the constitution

3- Brtishers for the first time accepted this offer in 1940 known as AUGUST OFFER and
in 1942 CRIPPS MISSION agreed to make Indian constitution but after the end of
WORLD WAR 2(1939-1945) but this plan was rejected by MUSLIM LEGAUE.

4-CABINET MISSION PLAN in 1946 recommended the constitution and the idea of
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT which was accepted. There were three members in cabinet
mission plan PATHIC LAWERENCE, SIR STIFFORD CRIPPS and AV ALEXANDER.

CONSTITUENT ASSEMBELY

But for the making of constitution needed a CONSTITUENT ASSEMBELY and in 1946
it was the first time people discussed about CONSTITUENT ASSEMBELY

Members of Constituent Assembly were indirectly elected. During British Era, India had
provincial assemblies like the current legislative assemblies of states. The members of
the Constituent assembly were indirectly elected by the members of the provincial
assemblies by method of single transferable vote system of proportional
representations.

Initially, its total membership was kept 389. After partition, the Constituent Assembly of
India had 299 representatives. These included 229 members from provinces and 70
from princely states. There were total nine women members also. The membership plan
was roughly as per suggestions of the Cabinet Mission plan. The basis of divisions of
seats was “population” roughly in 1:10 Lakh ratio.

The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly took place on December 9, 1946 at
New Delhi with Dr Sachidanand being elected as the interim President of the
Assembly. However, on December 11, 1946, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected as the
President and H.C. Mukherjee as the Vice-President of the Constituent Assembly.

FUNCTIONS OF CONSTITUENT ASSEMBELY

1- Framing the constitution

2- Enacting laws and involved in the decision making process
3- It adopted the national flag on July 22,1947
4- It accepted and approved India’s membership of British Commonwealth in
May 1949
5- It elected DR. RAJENDRA PRASAD as the first president of India
6- It adopted NATIONAL ANTHEM on January 24,1950
7- It adopted the NATIONAL SONG on Jan 24,1950

Objective Resolution
The Objective Resolution was moved on December 13, 1946 by Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru, which provided the philosophy and guiding principles for framing the
Constitution and later took the form of Preamble of the Constitution of India. This
Resolution was unanimously adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 January 1947.

The Resolution stated that the Constituent Assembly would firstly proclaim India as an
Independent Sovereign Republic which includes all the territories, retaining as
autonomous units and possess residuary powers; all the people of India shall be
guaranteed justice, equality of status, freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith,
worship, vocation, association and subject to law and public morality; adequate
safeguards shall be provided for minorities, backward, depressed classes; the integrity
of the territories of the Republic and its sovereign rights on land, sea and air and thus
India would contribute to the promotion of world peace and the welfare of mankind.

Committees of the Constituent Assembly

1. The Constituent Assembly appointed several committees for framing the

constitution. Some of the important committees were:
2. Union powers committee of members chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru.
3. The committee on Fundamental Rights and minorities of 54 members chaired
by Sardar Patel.
4. The committee on Union constitution of 15 members with Jawaharlal Nehru-as
Chairman.
5. The provincial constitution committee of 25 members chaired by K.R. Munshi.
6. These committees submitted their reports between April & August 1947.
7. This draft contained 240 clauses and 13 schedules in order to consider the
Draft constitution; a Drafting Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. B.R.
Ambedkar was set up.
8. While the formal centers of the work of drafting the constitution were no doubt
the Constituent Assembly and Drafting Committee, the Congress leaders held
the important powers of decision-making.
9. In a way the Congress Working Committee was the real architect of the
constitution in that most of the important decisions were arrived at on the basis
of what the Congress leaders suggested.
10. Granvile Austin points out those four men – Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel,
Rajendra Prasad and Abul Kalam Azad – constituted a virtual oligarchy in the
Assembly and dominated the proceedings by virtue of the prestige and power
they enjoyed both in the Congress and in the Government.
Among these eight major committees, the most significant was the Drafting Committee. On 29th
August 1947, the Constituent Assembly set up a Drafting Committee under the chairmanship of Dr.
B.R. Ambedkar to prepare a Draft Constitution for India.

DRAFTING COMMITTEE

The Drafting Committee was one of the eight major committees appointed by the Constituent
Assembly ( Proposed by M.N.Roy ) headed by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar.

It was set up on August 29, 1947 to prepare a draft of the new Constitution for India. It's
members included-:

1. Dr.B.R.Ambedkar
2. N.Gopalaswamy Ayyangar
3. A. Krishnaswamy Ayyar
4. Dr.K.M. Munshi
5. Syed Mohammad Saadullah
6. N.Madhava Rau( Replaced B.L.Mitter )
7. T.T.Krishnamachari ( Replaced D.P.Khaitan )

The committee published it's first draft in February 1948 and after about 8 months of
discussions and proposed amendments it published a second draft in October 1948.

It sat for a total of 141 days only.

Dr.B.R.Ambedkar introduced the final draft in the Assembly on November 4, 1948 ( first reading
which ended on November 9 ), second reading started on November 15, 1948 and ended on
October 17, 1949 ( during this stage about 7653 amendments were proposed and 2473 were
discussed in the Assembly ).

The third reading started on November 14, 1949 and Dr.Ambedkar moved a motion which was
declared passed on November 26, 1949 and we had a new Constitution for independent India.+

Why was Dr. B. R. Ambedkar chosen to write the Indian Constitution?

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was brilliant student who got his degree in economics from
Columbia university, USA (a prestigious uni.). It wasnt more so like he was chosen but
very few people were as educated amd talented as he was.

He was a poor and opressed man who rise above all the shackles of social obstacle
and became a successful man. So there was really few people who have any
knowledge of what is constitution and how it works.

He did the best thing by making castiesm a social issue. Successive govt. However
ruined it by making casteism as political isssue. The thing about political issues are that
they never got resolved.
He was more than just a “dalit”, His identity goes way beyond that. Calling him just a
dalit who added reservation policy is outright insult to him and frankly just making him a
political tool.

He had far more bigger contribution in india but today polititians reduced his identity
only to a dalit who had role in reservation. He should not have been dalit icon but an
icon for all india. Making him just an political figure for only particular community is not
justice done to his work.

So to be able to write an constitution you need to be highly educated, an intellect , a

person with political influence and intelligent. He was all of these things. He was not
asked to write but he literally formed the constitution as being part of comitee. Last thing
was he only dalit, He rose above all social obstacle without any reservation by study
hard and work hard. He was no longer among opressed by his own hard . Now that
should have been icon of every indian about how to work hard and succeed in life.

Criticism of the Constituent Assembly

The grounds on which the Constituent Assembly was criticized were as follows:

1. Not a Popular body: Critics argued that the members of the Constituent Assembly
were not directly elected by the people of India. The Preamble says that the Constitution
has been adopted by the people of India, whereas it was adopted by only few
individuals who were not even elected by the people

2. Not a Sovereign body: The critics stated that the Constituent Assembly was not a
sovereign body as it was not created by the people of India. It was created by the
proposals of the British rulers by executive action before India’s independence and its
composition was determined by them.

3. Time consuming: The critics maintained that the time taken to prepare the
Constitution was too much in comparison to other nations. The framers of the US
Constitution took only four months to prepare the constitution

4. Dominated by Congress: The critics continued to argue that the Congress in the
Constituent Assembly was quite dominating and imposed its thinking on the people of
the country through the constitution drafted bny them
5. Dominated by one community: According to some critics, the Constituent
Assembly lacked religious heterogeneity and was dominated by the Hindus.

6. Dominated by Lawyers: Critics also argued that the Constitution became bulky and
cumbersome due to dominance of lawyers in the Constituent Assembly.
They have made the language of the Constitution difficult for a layman to understand.
The other sections of the society couldn't voice their concerns and were unable to
participate in the decision making process during the time of drafting of the Constitution.

Therefore, the Constituent Assembly became the Provisional Parliament of India and
significantly contributed to the drafting of the historic Constitution of India and later
helped to construct the Indian political system.