Framing the Constitution

The Constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950. NCERT calls it the longest in the world — understandable for a country so large, diverse and, at Independence, so deeply divided. It aimed to heal past and present wounds, bring classes, castes and communities into a shared political experiment, and nurture democracy in ‘a culture of hierarchy and deference’. It was framed between December 1946 and November 1949; drafts were discussed clause by clause over eleven sessions and 165 days of sittings, with committees revising in between. Your Political Science books (keps201) explain what the Constitution is; this chapter tells the history behind it and the debates within it.

• Links in this series: lehs303 (the national movement, the 1935 Act, Gandhi and Ambedkar on separate electorates, the Cabinet Mission, Direct Action Day and Partition); lehs302 and lehs301 (colonial rule whose legacies the debates refer to); keps201 Constitution: Why and How (the Assembly’s composition and the Constitution’s features from a political-science angle); leps201 Challenges of Nation Building (Partition, refugees, princely states, linguistic states after 1950).
• Earlier reading: Class 8 Social and Political Life III, ‘The Indian Constitution’; Class 8 Our Pasts III, ‘India After Independence’.
• UPSC: Prelims repeatedly asks how the Assembly was constituted (1979, 1991, 1993, 2002, 2004, 2013), its committees (2005), the Cabinet Mission and Interim Government (1979, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2015), and the colonial Acts (1909, 1919, 1935) whose experience it drew on (1980–2024). Mains 2015 asked whether the Assembly could have finished in three years without the experience of the 1935 Act.

• Setting: framed December 1946 – November 1949, in force 26 January 1950; 11 sessions, 165 days; amid Partition, riots, refugees, princely states; Quit India, INA and the RIN rising (1946) fresh in memory.
• The Assembly: chosen by provincial legislatures elected in 1945–46 (not universal franchise); League boycotted; 82% Congress; about 300 members; Nehru, Patel, Prasad, Ambedkar (Drafting Committee), Munshi, Alladi; B.N. Rau, S.N. Mukherjee.
• Vision: Objectives Resolution, 13 Dec 1946 — ‘Independent Sovereign Republic’, justice, equality, freedom, safeguards for minorities; ‘we are not going just to copy’; Lahiri: ‘under the shadow of British guns’; colonial Acts 1909, 1919, 1935 — limited franchise (10–15%).
• Rights: separate electorates rejected (Pocker Bahadur vs Patel, Pant, Begum Aizaz Rasul); Ranga’s ‘real minorities’ are the poor; Jaipal Singh for tribes; Nagappa, Velayudhan, Khandekar for Depressed Castes; untouchability abolished, reservations; Hansa Mehta — justice for women.
• Centre and states: three lists, many Union and Concurrent subjects, Art. 356, fiscal federalism; Santhanam warned of provinces’ ‘revolt’; Nehru, Ambedkar, Ayyangar for a strong Centre — strengthened by Partition.
• Language: Gandhi’s Hindustani vs Dhulekar’s Hindi; Durgabai’s fears; compromise — Hindi in Devanagari official language, English for 15 years, provinces choose; consensus on universal adult franchise and secularism as ‘judicious distance’.

Hope and disappointment. India was freed on 15 August 1947 — and divided. Fresh in memory were Quit India (1942), perhaps the most widespread movement against the Raj; Subhas Chandra Bose’s bid for freedom through armed struggle with foreign aid; and the rising of Royal Indian Navy ratings in Bombay and other cities in spring 1946. NCERT notes the Hindu–Muslim unity such popular upsurges showed, in contrast to the failure of the Congress and the League to reach a settlement. The Great Calcutta Killings of August 1946 began a year of almost continuous rioting in northern and eastern India, culminating in the massacres that accompanied the transfer of populations at Partition. Many Muslims in India and Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan faced ‘a cruel choice’ between sudden death or shrinking opportunities and being torn from their roots; millions of refugees moved, and many died on the way.

The princely states. About one-third of the subcontinent’s area had been ruled by nawabs and maharajas owing allegiance to the Crown; when the British left, their status was ambiguous, and some, a contemporary remarked, began ‘to luxuriate in wild dreams of independent power’. (Their integration is studied in leps201.)

The making of the Assembly. Members were not elected by universal franchise: provincial elections were held in the winter of 1945–46, and the provincial legislatures then chose the representatives. The Congress swept the general seats and the League most reserved Muslim seats — but the League boycotted the Assembly, pressing for Pakistan with a separate constitution, and the Socialists at first stayed away, seeing it as a British creation. So 82 per cent of members were also Congressmen. Yet the Congress ‘was not a party with one voice’: some members were socialists, others defended landlordism; some were close to communal parties, others assertively secular. Debates were reported in newspapers and argued over in public, and the public was invited to send views — linguistic minorities wanted their mother tongues protected, religious minorities special safeguards, and dalits an end to caste oppression and reserved seats.

The dominant voices. Of about 300 members, six stood out. Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution and the resolution that the National Flag be a horizontal tricolour of saffron, white and dark green in equal proportion with a navy-blue wheel. Patel worked mostly behind the scenes, drafting reports and reconciling views. Rajendra Prasad presided over the Assembly. B.R. Ambedkar — once a political opponent of the Congress, asked on Gandhi’s advice to join the Union Cabinet as law minister — chaired the Drafting Committee, with K.M. Munshi (Gujarat) and Alladi Krishnaswamy Aiyar (Madras). Two civil servants assisted: B.N. Rau, Constitutional Adviser, who prepared background papers on other countries’ systems, and S.N. Mukherjee, Chief Draughtsman. Ambedkar guided the Draft through the Assembly; the record runs to eleven volumes.

On 13 December 1946 Nehru introduced the Objectives Resolution: India would be an ‘Independent Sovereign Republic’, guaranteeing its citizens justice, equality and freedom, with ‘adequate safeguards’ for minorities, backward and tribal areas, and Depressed and Other Backward Classes.

The will of the people. The Communist member Somnath Lahiri saw ‘the dark hand of British imperialism’ over the Assembly. In the winter of 1946–47 the British were still in India; the Interim Government under Nehru could act only under the Viceroy and London. Lahiri called the Assembly British-made, ‘working the British plans as the British should like it to be worked out’. Nehru admitted most nationalists had wanted a different Assembly and that the British had a ‘hand in its birth’, but insisted that governments are ‘the expression of the will of the people’ and that the Assembly’s strength came from the people behind it.

Roots of the ideals. Democracy, equality and justice had grown with social struggles since the 19th century: reformers opposing child marriage and supporting widow remarriage; Swami Vivekananda seeking a more just Hinduism; Jyotiba Phule highlighting the suffering of the depressed castes; Communists and Socialists organising workers and peasants; and the national movement against an oppressive government. Under pressure the British had passed the Acts of 1909, 1919 and 1935, enlarging Indian participation in provincial government: the executive became partly responsible to the provincial legislature in 1919 and almost entirely in 1935; in the 1937 elections the Congress won 8 of 11 provinces. But NCERT warns against seeing ‘unbroken continuity’: those Acts were enacted by the colonial government, not debated by Indians; even in 1935 the franchise covered only 10–15 per cent of adults; and the legislatures answered to British Governors.

NCERT stresses that there were ‘no collectively shared answers’; answers were evolved ‘through the clash of opinions and the drama of individual encounters’.

For separate electorates. On 27 August 1947 B. Pocker Bahadur of Madras argued that minorities exist in all lands and cannot be ‘erased out of existence’; the need was a political framework in which they lived in harmony, with their voices heard. Only separate electorates would give Muslims a meaningful voice; non-Muslims could not properly understand Muslims’ needs or choose their true representatives.

Against. The demand provoked ‘anger and dismay amongst most nationalists’, who saw separate electorates as a British device to divide. R.V. Dhulekar: the English ‘played their game under the cover of safeguards… Give it up now’. Partition made nationalists fervently opposed; they feared continued civil war. Patel called separate electorates ‘a poison’ that had divided the nation and led to Partition. Govind Ballabh Pant agreed with Bahadur that democracy is judged by the confidence it gives all sections and that the majority must understand minorities’ problems and respect their self-respect — but called separate electorates ‘suicidal’ for minorities, isolating them and denying them an effective voice. Behind this lay the aim of a unified nation-state: communities could have cultural rights, but politically all were to act as equal citizens of one State — ‘it is the citizen that must count’. Not all Muslims supported separate electorates: Begum Aizaz Rasul called them self-destructive; by 1949 most Muslim members agreed they were against minorities’ interests and that Muslims should take an active part in the democratic process.

‘The real minorities are the masses.’ Welcoming the Objectives Resolution, N.G. Ranga, socialist and peasant leader, urged that minorities be understood in economic terms: the real minorities were the poor and downtrodden, unable even to use ordinary civil rights. Legal rights meant little unless conditions were created to enjoy them — ‘they need props. They need a ladder.’

Tribes. Jaipal Singh, an Adibasi and gifted orator, said his people had been ‘disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years’, their history ‘one of continuous exploitation and dispossession’ punctuated by rebellions — yet he took Nehru ‘at his word’ that a new chapter of equal opportunity was beginning. Tribes were not a numerical minority but needed protection: dispossessed of land, forests and pastures, spurned as ‘primitive’. ‘You have got to mix with us. We are willing to mix with you.’ He did not ask for separate electorates but for reserved seats, so that others would be compelled to hear tribal voices.

The Depressed Castes. During the national movement Ambedkar had demanded separate electorates and Gandhi had opposed them (lehs303). In the Assembly, members of the Depressed Castes stressed that protection alone could not solve the problem, which lay in caste society’s norms. J. Nagappa of Madras: ‘We have been suffering, but we are prepared to suffer no more’; they were 20–25 per cent of the population — marginalised, not few — without education or a share in administration. K.J. Khandekar of the Central Provinces: ‘We were suppressed for thousands of years’. After the Partition violence Ambedkar no longer argued for separate electorates. The Assembly recommended that untouchability be abolished, Hindu temples opened to all castes, and seats in legislatures and government jobs reserved for the lowest castes — measures, NCERT notes, that many recognised could not alone change social attitudes.

Nehru wrote to the Assembly’s President that, Partition being settled, a weak central authority would be ‘injurious’ — unable to ensure peace, coordinate common matters or speak for the country abroad. The Draft provided three lists: Union, State and Concurrent. Many more items went to exclusive Union control than in other federations, and more to the Concurrent list than the provinces wanted. The Union also controlled minerals and key industries, and Article 356 let the Centre take over a state’s administration on the Governor’s recommendation. Fiscal federalism was complex: the Centre kept all proceeds of some taxes (customs, Company taxes), shared others (income tax, excise), assigned some wholly to states (estate duties), while states levied land and property taxes, sales tax and the ‘hugely profitable’ tax on bottled liquor.

‘The centre is likely to break.’ K. Santhanam of Madras defended the states: loading the Centre with powers was an ‘obsession’; an overburdened Centre could not function — transferring functions to the states would make the Centre stronger. The fiscal provisions would impoverish the provinces, since most taxes except land revenue went to the Centre: rather than a unit that must beg for doles for education, sanitation and roads, ‘let us rather wipe out the federal system and let us have Unitary system’. He predicted the provinces would ‘rise in revolt against the Centre’. A member from Orissa warned that ‘the centre is likely to break’ from excessive centralisation.

‘What we want today is a strong Government.’ Ambedkar wanted ‘a strong and united Centre… much stronger than the Centre we had created under the Government of India Act of 1935’. Members invoked the riots: only a strong Centre could stop ‘communal frenzy’. Gopalaswami Ayyangar: the Centre ‘should be made as strong as possible’. Balakrishna Sharma of the United Provinces argued that only a strong Centre could plan, mobilise resources, administer properly and defend the country. Before Partition the Congress had agreed to considerable provincial autonomy to reassure the League; after Partition that pressure was gone. A unitary colonial system was already in place, and violence pushed further centralisation, also seen as necessary for economic planning. NCERT’s conclusion: the Constitution showed ‘a distinct bias towards the rights of the Union’.

Gandhi’s Hindustani. By the 1930s the Congress had accepted Hindustani — a blend of Hindi and Urdu, enriched by many sources and widely understood — as the national language. Gandhi thought this composite language could unify Hindus and Muslims, north and south. But from the late 19th century, as communal conflict deepened, Hindi was being Sanskritised and Urdu Persianised, and language became tied to religious identity. Gandhi kept his faith in Hindustani.

A plea for Hindi. In an early session R.V. Dhulekar of the United Provinces insisted on Hindi as the language of constitution-making: members who did not know Hindustani were ‘not worthy’ to be there and ‘better leave’. Nehru restored order, but the issue disrupted proceedings for three years. On 13 September 1949, after the Language Committee had prepared a compromise — Hindi in Devanagari as the official language, a gradual transition, English for the first fifteen years, each province choosing a regional language for its own work — Dhulekar again demanded that Hindi be declared the national language, calling it ‘a consummation of a historic process’ and mocking those who invoked Gandhi for Hindustani. The President of the Assembly told him: ‘I do not think you are advancing your case by speaking like this.’

The fear of domination. The next day G. Durgabai of Madras said an almost agreed proposition had become ‘highly controversial’: people of non-Hindi areas had been made to feel that the push for Hindi aimed to prevent other languages from shaping the composite culture. Southern opposition was strong; she and others had obeyed Gandhi’s call and taught Hindi in the south against resistance — and now Hindustani was being stripped of Urdu and regional words. Shankarrao Deo of Bombay, a Gandhian, warned: ‘if you want my whole-hearted support… you must not do now anything which may raise my suspicions’. T.A. Ramalingam Chettiar of Madras urged caution: fears must be allayed, or ‘bitter feelings’ would remain; a united nation needed ‘mutual adjustment and no question of forcing things on people’.

Universal adult franchise. There was substantial agreement on giving the vote to every adult — ‘an unprecedented act of faith’. Elsewhere the vote had come slowly: in the USA and UK first to men of property, then educated men, then working-class and peasant men after long struggle, and to women after an even longer one.

Secularism. The Preamble made no ‘ringing pronouncement’ of secularism, but its features were spelt out through Fundamental Rights: freedom of religion (Articles 25–28), cultural and educational rights (Articles 29–30) and equality (Articles 14, 16, 17). All religions were guaranteed equal treatment and the right to maintain charitable institutions; the State banned compulsory religious instruction in State-run institutions and religious discrimination in employment. Yet it left legal space for social reform within communities — used to ban untouchability and change personal and family laws. NCERT: not an ‘absolute separation of State from religion, but a kind of judicious distance between the two’.

Reading the debates. NCERT closes with a caution: the debates show the voices that had to be negotiated and the principles invoked, but ideals were often re-worked to fit the context, and members changed their views over three years — some persuaded by others, some by events. Many provisions came by ‘give-and-take’, forging a middle ground between opposed positions.

Q1–4: 100–150 words. Q5–8: short essays of 250–300 words. Try each first.

Numbers

One-liners

• The Assembly was chosen by provincial legislatures, not by universal franchise; 82% Congress.
• Objectives Resolution: independent sovereign republic; justice, equality, freedom; safeguards.
• ‘We are not going just to copy’ — learn from revolutions, fit India’s temper.
• Lahiri: the Assembly worked ‘under the shadow of British guns’.
• Colonial Acts enlarged participation but were not Indian-made; franchise 10–15%.
• Separate electorates rejected — Patel’s ‘poison’, Pant’s ‘suicidal’; reserved seats accepted.
• Ranga: the real minorities are the poor; Jaipal Singh: tribes need protection, not isolation.
• Partition tilted the Constitution towards a strong Centre.
• Hindi became the official — not national — language; English for 15 years.
• Universal adult franchise at once; secularism as ‘judicious distance’.

Traps to avoid

• The Constitution was signed on 24 January 1950, not December 1949 (NCERT’s caption and timeline).
• Members were elected by provincial legislatures, not directly.
• The Interim Government (1946) came before Independence; Nehru was Vice-President of the Executive Council.
• Hindi is the official language, not the national language.
• Separate electorates ≠ reserved seats.
• The Flag Committee was chaired by Rajendra Prasad in standard lists; NCERT’s table says Kripalani.
• The ‘Constitution Review Commission’ in NCERT’s table is the 2000 commission, not an Assembly committee.
• Article 356: Governor’s report ‘or otherwise’.
• 1935 Act: provincial autonomy; dyarchy ended in provinces; separate electorates retained.
• Secularism was not in the original Preamble; it was built into Fundamental Rights.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• The Assembly: how members were chosen (1979, 2002, 2004, 2013); its nature (1993); Cabinet Mission as its source (1991); Union Constitution Committee — Nehru (2005); adoption date (1981); Ambedkar’s first constituency (1996).
• Cabinet Mission and Interim Government: Interim Government after the Cabinet Mission (1979); its leader (1979, 1995); portfolios — Liaquat Finance (1998), Prasad Food and Agriculture (2006); Cabinet Mission features (1996, 1999, 2015); Azad’s support (1999); last chance to avoid Partition (2002); RIN revolt and Simla Conference (2005).
• Colonial Acts: 1909 (1985, 1988); dyarchy and 1919 (1980, 1987, 1989, 2004, 2012, 2016, 2017); 1935 (1989, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2024); chronology (1987); flag’s 24 spokes (2008).
• Answer-key notes: UPSC 1996 (Nehru statements) — answer (d). Statement I is false (J.B. Kripalani was Congress President in 1947), II is false (Rajendra Prasad presided over the Assembly) and III is false (G.B. Pant formed the first Congress ministry in the United Provinces in 1937); the standard answer is (d) none is correct. Debatable but keep: 1985 (1909 as ‘first’ representation — Indians were nominated from 1861 and indirectly elected from 1892); 1993 (key treats the Assembly as not multiparty); 1979 (stem calls Nehru ‘Prime Minister’ of an Interim Government ‘after independence’ — it was before, and he was Vice-President); 1996 (Ambedkar from ‘West Bengal’ — undivided Bengal); 2002 (Cabinet Mission as ‘last opportunity’ is an interpretation).

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1/GS2 2015 (could the Assembly have finished in three years without the 1935 Act’s experience?): yes, it drew on the Act — lists, federal structure, Governors, Federal Court, provincial government since 1937 — but also on the Objectives Resolution, committees, B.N. Rau’s research, the Congress’s dominance and Nehru–Patel–Prasad–Ambedkar leadership; and it broke with the Act’s basis (Indian authorship, universal franchise, sovereignty).
• Frame for any question on constitution-making: context (Partition, riots, princes) → composition (indirect election, Congress dominance, many views) → vision (Objectives Resolution) → contested issues as attributed positions (electorates, minorities, federalism, language) → outcomes by compromise → points of consensus (franchise, secularism).
• Link to lehs303 for Gandhi–Ambedkar and the Cabinet Mission, to keps201 for the Constitution’s features, and to leps201 for integration of states and linguistic reorganisation.

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