Framing the Constitution

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT History Class XII (Themes in Indian History Part III), Chapter 12.

Writing a country's rules while the country is burning

Imagine drafting the rules for a new nation while riots are going on outside your window. In the winter of 1946 to 1947 and the months that followed, the members of the Constituent Assembly did exactly this. The Assembly began its sittings on 9 December 1946, in the shadow of the Quit India movement of 1942, the naval ratings' rising of 1946, the Great Calcutta Killings of August 1946, and then the violence of Partition. Princely states, whose position became uncertain when the British left, also had to be brought into the picture.

The Constitution that came out of three years of debate came into effect on 26 January 1950. The Assembly held 11 sessions over 165 days to write it. This chapter reads the debates, using the printed record known as the Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD), which runs to eleven bulky volumes, to see how a divided country tried to agree on its rules.

The big idea: five great questions

Who made the Constitution?

The members of the Constituent Assembly were not elected on universal franchise. Provincial elections were held in the winter of 1945 to 1946, and the Provincial Legislatures then chose the representatives. The Congress swept the general seats and the Muslim League won most of the reserved Muslim seats, but the League boycotted the Assembly, and the socialists stayed out at first. In the end, 82 per cent of the members of the Assembly were Congress members, though the Congress itself did not speak in one voice.

The Assembly had 300 members. Six played leading roles, and two civil servants gave them vital help.

Ambedkar had been a political opponent of the Congress. On Gandhi's advice he was asked to join the Union Cabinet as Law Minister, and he guided the Draft Constitution through the Assembly. The Assembly also had fifteen women members, among them Sarojini Naidu, Hansa Mehta, Begum Aizaz Rasul, Sucheta Kripalani, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, G. Durgabai and Ammu Swaminathan.

Much of the work was done in committees.

The public took part too. Linguistic minorities wanted their mother tongues protected, religious minorities wanted safeguards, and Dalits demanded an end to caste oppression and reservation in government bodies. Their views reached the Assembly through petitions, memoranda and the press.

Two views. For the exam: the Assembly was chosen by the provincial legislatures, not by universal franchise, and 82 per cent of its members were Congress members. Another reading: the historian Granville Austin, whose study of the Assembly is widely used, described it as in effect one party in a country with one dominant party, but added that the Congress contained many viewpoints and that the debates were open and the members took them seriously. Critics at the time, among them the Communist member Somnath Lahiri, argued that the Assembly was working under the constraints of the British plan. Both readings appear in the chapter.

The Objectives Resolution

On 13 December 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution, which set out the aims of the Constitution. It proclaimed India an "Independent Sovereign Republic", promised justice, equality and freedom, and assured adequate safeguards for minorities, backward and tribal areas, and the Depressed and Other Backward Classes. The Assembly adopted it on 22 January 1947.

Nehru explained that the word "democratic" was not used because the word "republic" was thought to contain its meaning. He placed the Assembly in the long history of revolutions, including the American, French and Russian, but said that India would not simply copy them.

Pause and predict: A member says that the Assembly cannot be free because the British still hold the real power. How would Nehru answer?

Check your answer: He replied that governments are the expression of the will of the people, and that the Assembly drew its authority from the people and not from the British plan. Lahiri's remark, that the Assembly was working under the shadow of British guns, is what he answered.

Why this matters. The earlier Acts of 1909, 1919 and 1935 had gradually increased Indian participation in government. Under the Act of 1935 the executive in the provinces was almost wholly responsible to the legislature, but the electorate was only 10 to 15 per cent of adults. The Constitution broke from this by giving the vote to all adults.

Defining rights: the debate on separate electorates

On 27 August 1947, B. Pocker Bahadur of Madras argued for the continuation of separate electorates, so that minorities could choose their own representatives and have a meaningful voice. Others disagreed strongly.

By 1949 most Muslim members of the Assembly came to the view that separate electorates were against the interests of the minorities themselves.

Pause and predict: Why might a demand for separate electorates sound very different before and after Partition?

Check your answer: After the violence of Partition, many members saw separate electorates as having fed the divisions that led to it, and minorities were more anxious about being seen as separate from the nation. That change of mood is why even leaders who earlier wanted separate electorates dropped the demand.

Who is a minority? Other speakers asked who really needed protection.

After Partition, Ambedkar too dropped his earlier demand for separate electorates for the Depressed Castes. The Assembly finally recommended that untouchability be abolished, that Hindu temples be thrown open to all castes, and that seats in the legislatures and jobs in government be reserved for the lowest castes.

The powers of the state: Centre and states

The Draft Constitution had three lists: Union, State and Concurrent. Many more items were placed under exclusive Union control than in other federations. Article 356 gave the Centre the power to take over a state administration on the recommendation of the Governor. Taxes were divided too: customs duties and company tax went to the Centre, income tax and excise duties were shared, estate duties were assigned to the states, and the states could levy land and property taxes, sales tax and the profitable tax on bottled liquor.

Before Partition, the Congress had agreed to give considerable autonomy to the provinces in order to reassure the Muslim League. After Partition, the mood changed and the Constitution showed a clear tilt towards the Union.

Two views. For the exam: the Assembly leaned towards a strong Centre after Partition, in order to control violence and keep the country united. Another reading: members such as Santhanam warned that this would weaken the states and in the end the Centre as well. Later scholars of federalism, K. C. Wheare among them, described the resulting arrangement as quasi federal, with strong federal features and a pull towards the Centre.

The language of the nation

By the 1930s the Congress had accepted Hindustani, a blend of Hindi and Urdu, as the national language. Gandhi felt that a composite language common to Hindus and Muslims, and to north and south, could unite the country. But from the late nineteenth century, Hindi had been becoming more Sanskritised and Urdu more Persianised, and as communal tension grew, languages began to be tied to religious identities.

In the Assembly, R. V. Dhulekar of the United Provinces strongly argued that Hindi should be the language of constitution making and said that members who did not know Hindi had no place in the Assembly. In September 1949 the Language Committee reported a compromise.

G. Durgabai of Madras reported strong opposition in the south. T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar warned that pressing Hindi aggressively would leave bitter feelings, and Shankarrao Deo of Bombay, who supported Hindustani, urged care so as not to raise suspicions. Note the word chosen: Hindi was the official language, not the national language.

Pause and predict: Why did the compromise keep English for fifteen years rather than switching to Hindi at once?

Check your answer: Because speakers of other languages, especially in the south, feared that an abrupt change would put them at a disadvantage. A gradual transition gave them time and reduced the sense of imposition.

What most members agreed on

Two features of the Constitution had broad agreement.

Indian secularism is described as not an absolute separation of the state from religion, but a kind of judicious distance between the two.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: the Constituent Assembly worked from December 1946 and the Constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950. In reality: the Assembly did not start from nothing. Its members had the Government of India Act of 1935 and the experience of provincial legislatures before them, and many provisions were adapted from it. That explains why continuity and change sit side by side in the Constitution. The debates still matter to scholars because, as the chapter shows, the meaning of rights and federal powers was argued out phrase by phrase.

Key people and terms

Timeline

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Before this: Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement explains the Cabinet Mission, Direct Action Day and Partition that form the background of the Assembly.
• Class XI link: Constitution: Why and How gives the political science view of how the Assembly worked.
• Class XII link: Challenges of Nation Building shows how the new state dealt with Partition, princely states and linguistic reorganisation after 1950.