Making of Indian Constitution: Formation, Committees, and Criticisms

The Indian Constitution was formed by the Constituent Assembly, guided by the Objectives Resolution, and faced criticism for its composition and process.

### The Making of the Indian Constitution: A Comprehensive Overview
* 🇮🇳 The demand for a Constituent Assembly in India began as early as 1922, with Mahatma Gandhi advocating for **Indian self-determination**.
* 🏛 The Constituent Assembly was established in November 1946, with a total strength of **389 members**, partly elected and partly nominated, representing **different communities and provinces**.
* 📜 The Objectives Resolution, moved by Jawaharlal Nehru in December 1946 and adopted in January 1947, outlined the **key principles and objectives for the new Indian Constitution**.
* 🗓 The timeline of the Constitution-making process included key milestones such as the adoption of the national flag in **July 1947**, the introduction of the final draft by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in **November 1948**, and the adoption of the Constitution on **November 26, 1949**.
* 📝 The Drafting Committee, chaired by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, played a crucial role in preparing the Constitution, with the **first draft completed in February 1948** and the **final draft in November 1948**.
* 🐘 The symbol of the Constituent Assembly was an elephant, with **B.N. Rao serving as the Constitutional Advisor**, **H.V.R. Iyengar as the Secretary**, and **S.N. Mukherjee as the Chief Draftsman**.
* 🏛 The Constituent Assembly faced criticism for not being **directly elected by universal adult franchise**, being **time-consuming**, and allegedly **dominated by the Congress party**.
* 👥 Despite criticisms, the Indian Constitution has stood the test of time, guiding the nation for over 70 years as the **supreme, fundamental, and sacred law of the land**.

the making of the Indian Constitution. Now, in this lesson, we will deal with four to five things like demand for constituent assembly, composition of constituent assembly, committees of the constituent assembly. We will also deal with the objectives resolution and what it was. Also, we will take a look into the timeline of the making of the constitution. We will also learn about the most important committee in the constituent assembly, that is the drafting committee. Then we will look into some important facts for prelims and otherwise. And finally, we will look into the criticism of the constituent assembly. Now before going ahead, let me tell you the Indian Constitution is the written constitution, unlike the constitution of England, which is unwritten. Unwritten constitution evolves over a long period of time, and there is no specific body constituted for that purpose. Whereas in case of written constitution, there is specific body constituted for the purpose of making the constitution. Written constitution is codified and compiled in a structured manner. Now let us discuss demand for constituent assembly. Now, as early as in 1922, Mahatma Gandhi put forward the idea

that india's political destiny should be determined by the Indian themselves and not by any other foreign body. In 1934, Emman Roy, the hardcore communist, put forward the idea of constituent assembly. Official demand for constituent assembly was put forward by Indian National Congress in 1935. In 1938, Jawaharlal Nehru declared that constitution of free India must be framed without outside interference by constituent assembly elected on the basis of universal adult franchise. In 1940, in the August offer, the British government accepted the demand of the constituent assembly in principle. Now, this generous act by the British government was only a carrot because they wanted Indian help in the World War II and they wanted to pacify the Congress leaders. Now, in 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps came to India with a proposal of framing an independent constitution, but this proposal was rejected by the Muslim League on the basis of two-nation theory as they wanted two separate constituent assembly, one for India and other for Pakistan. So, in short, the Cripps mission failed.

again in 1946, the Cabinet Mission came and it rejected the idea of two constituent assemblies but put forward the idea or scheme for the constituent assembly, which more or less satisfied the Muslims. And on the basis of Cabinet Mission, constituent assembly was constituted in November 1946. Now let us discuss the composition of the constituent assembly. Now the total strength of the constituent assembly was 389, and this constituent assembly was a partly elected and partly nominated body. At that time, there were two kinds of states: the first were British Indian provinces governed by British officials, and the others were princely states. The 93 members were nominated by the heads of the princely states, and the other 296 were from the governor provinces and from chief commissioner provinces. Seat allocation was in proportion to the population, where one seat approximately represented 10 lakhs of people, that is one million people. The British provinces were divided among three principal communities, that is Muslims, Sikhs, and general. Now the rest of the population beside Muslims and Sikhs were general representatives of each.

community elected by the members of that community only. Now what does this mean? That means in Muslim constituency, the representative will be a Muslim, and only Muslim members from that community or constituency can vote in the election. Now the method of election was proportional representation by means of single transferable vote. Now elected members from these elections will go forward and seat in the Constituent Assembly. They will take part in the discussions and deliberations, and they will ultimately form the Constitution of India. Now the Constituent Assembly was divided into committees. These committees submitted their report on which discussions and deliberations took place. In the Constituent Assembly, there were committees like Union Powers Committee headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Union Constitution Committee headed by Jawaharlal Nehru again, Provincial Constitution Committee headed by Sardar Patel, Drafting Committee - one of the most important committees of the Constituent Assembly headed by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities, Tribal, and Excluded Areas headed by Sardar Patil. This committee had five subcommittees.

fundamental rights subcommittee, minority subcommittee, northeast tribal areas and other excluded areas subcommittee, and north-west frontier tribal area subcommittee. Also, there was Rules of Procedure Committee headed by Dr. Rajendra Prasad, States Committee for Negotiating with States headed by J.B. Kripalani, and Steering Committee headed by Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Now, as said earlier, all these committees submitted their reports which were discussed in Constituent Assembly. Now, the Constitution is supreme, fundamental, sacred law of the nation. It reflects the nation's ethos, vision of its leaders, the leaders who participated in the Indian National Movement. The philosophy underlying the Indian Constitution was embodied in the Objectives Resolution. Now, the Objectives Resolution was moved by Jawaharlal Nehru on 13 December 1946. It was adopted on January 22, 1947. Now, let us discuss some features mentioned in Objectives Resolution. Now, this Objectives Resolution acted as a guideline for the members of the Constituent Assembly. It indicated that we should make a Constitution which will ensure economic stability.

political security and foster unity of the nation. We have to write the constitution, which is written in nature, and it will proclaim India as a sovereign democratic republic nation. We have to write a constitution which will ensure federal form of government with the distribution of powers between the central and states. It will guarantee and secure justice, equality, freedom, belief, faith, worship, and vocation to citizens of India. It will safeguard minorities, backward and tribal areas, depressed class, and other backward classes. It will maintain territorial integrity and sovereignty over land, sea, and air. We have to write the constitution which will help India to attain rightful and honored place in the world, which will promote world peace and welfare of mankind. Now unlike other lessons, this lesson is full of facts, so this is just heads up. Now let us move to the timeline of the making of the constitution. On December 9, 1946, the first meeting of constituent assembly took place. It was bicoded by Muslim League, and Dr. Sachitan Sinner was temporary president being the oldest member of the

constituent assembly. Later, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was appointed as the president, and H.C. Mukherjee and Krishnamachari were appointed as vice president. On December 13, 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru moved the objectives resolution. This resolution was adopted on January 22, 1947. On July 22, 1947, constituent assembly adopted the national flag. On November 4, 1948, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar introduced the final draft of the constitution. In May 1949, constituent assembly ratified India's membership of the Commonwealth. On November 26, 1949, constituent assembly adopted the constitution. On January 24, 1950, constituent assembly adopted the national song and national anthem, and two days later, on January 26, 1950, the constitution as a whole came into force. You have to remember this at first, constituent assembly was not a sovereign body as it was created by the Cabinet Mission Plan. This means it was the creation of the British Parliament. Later, the Independence Act brought some

changes. Now we will discuss what were those changes. The first constituent assembly became a sovereign body, and it can even change laws made by the British parliament. Also, constituent assembly became a legislative body, and it performed two functions. On a given day, it acted as a constitution-making body, and on another day, it acted as a parliament as a legislative body. Muslim League members hailing from the areas included in the Pakistan withdrew from the constituent assembly after the Independence Act. The Pakistan Dominion came into being, and the Muslim League members withdrew from the constituent assembly. Now let us discuss about the drafting committee. It was one of the most important committees of the constituent assembly. It was formed on August 29. The chairman of the drafting committee was Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. The committee had notable jurists as its members like Munshi, Ayyangar, Ayyar, Sadhatullah, etc. The drafting committee produced the first draft in February 1948. After that, it was thrown open to debate, and then the second draft was produced in November 1948.

constituent assembly again met. You have to remember that the drafting process was done in recess, that is, between July 1947 to September 1948. That was the racist time. This was the time where constituent assembly meetings were not taking place. Drafting committee took less than six months to prepare the draft. In all, it sat for 141 days. On 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India came into effect and it is known as that of commencement. Some provisions came into effect on November 26, 1949, and other provisions came into effect on 26 January 1950. Now, the 26 January 1950 was chosen as a date for the commencement because of the Lahore resolution of December 1929. On this day, it was proclaimed that 26 Jan will be the day when India will attain Purna Swaraj. Now let us discuss some other leisure facts. The symbol of the constituent assembly was elephant. B.N. Rao was constitutional advisor, that is, legal advisor of the

constituent assembly. H.V.R. Ayangar was secretary to the constituent assembly. S.N. Mukherjee was chief draftsman. The calligraphy of the constitution was made by Prem Bihari Narayan Raizada. The original constitution was decorated by Nandalal Bose and Beyohar Ram Manohar Sinha. They both belong to Santiniketan. Now the Hindi calligraphy was done by Vasanth Krishnan Vaidya. Now finally let us discuss the criticism faced by the constituent assembly. Now, Constitution Assembly was criticized on various grounds and this criticism is mentioned in your seasoned book M. Lakshmikanth. We will deal with those criticism in short. The first criticism was it was not a representative body as it was not directly elected by universal adult franchisee. That is not all the adult members of India voted for the election of the members of the constituent assembly. It was not a sovereign body as we discussed earlier. It was a creation of British parliament. It was created by the proposal of the British.

government that is cabinet mission plan. Third criticism is that it was time-consuming exercise. According to some criticism, the Constituent Assembly took a long time to create the Constitution of India. But here, American Constitution only took 4 months to came into being, whereas Canadian Constitution came into being after 2 years and 6 months of deliberations. Also, there is criticism that it was dominated by Congress. Granville Austin, the American constitutional expert, remarked that the Constituent Assembly was one-party body in an essentially one-party country. The Assembly was the Congress and the Congress was India. Also, there is criticism that there was lower politician domination and other sections of the society were not duly represented like businessmen, teachers, etc., and that is the main reason for the bulkiness and complicated language of the Constitution of India. Also, there is one criticism that the Constituent Assembly was dominated by the Hindus. According to some critics, the Constituent Assembly was a Hindu-dominated body. Lord Viscount Simon called it body of Hindus. Similarly, Winston Churchill

commented that the constituent assembly represented only one major community in India, but these are baseless allegations. As there were representatives from minority community as well. Finally, remember, this Mahatma Gandhi was not part of the constituent assembly. So, in this lesson, we learned the making of the Indian constitution. How the constitution of India came into being. How objectives resolution directed the constituent assembly to make the constitution of India, which has become the supreme fundamental sacred law of the nation. And which has directed India for last 70 years. So, this is all from this video. I hope you like this video. If you want me to continue such videos, kindly let me know in the comment section below. Thank you.

Making of the Indian Constitution Explained with Notes

INDiASHASTRA

The demand for the constituent assembly was driven by the idea of determining India's political destiny by its own people, with the British government eventually accepting the demand in 1940.

The constituent assembly had a total of 389 members, with 296 from the governor and chief commissioner provinces, and 93 nominated by the heads of the princely states.

The seat allocation in the assembly was based on the population, with representation for Muslims, Sikhs, and the general population.

The Indian Constitution was formed through a Constituent Assembly, with members elected through proportional representation.

The Assembly was divided into committees, each headed by key figures, to discuss and deliberate on the reports submitted.

The Objectives Resolution, guiding the Assembly members, aimed to create a sovereign, democratic, and republic nation, ensuring economic stability, political security, and the rights of the citizens, minorities, and backward classes.

The Key Events of the Indian Constituent Assembly

The Indian Constituent Assembly was not initially sovereign, being created by the British Parliament, but became sovereign after the Independence Act, with the power to change British laws.

It functioned as both a constitution-making body and a legislative body, with Muslim League members withdrawing after the creation of the Pakistan Dominion.

Ambedkar, played a crucial role in producing the final draft of the constitution, which was adopted on November 26, 1949.

The Drafting and Commencement of the Indian Constitution

The drafting process of the Indian Constitution took place between July 1947 and September 1948, with the Constitution coming into effect on 26 January 1950.

The date of 26 January was chosen due to the Lahore resolution of December 1929, proclaiming it as the day for India to attain Purna Swaraj.

The Constituent Assembly faced criticism for not being directly elected by universal adult franchise and for being a creation of the British Parliament.

Criticisms of the Indian Constituent Assembly

The Indian Constituent Assembly faced criticism for being time-consuming in creating the Constitution, dominated by the Congress party, and not fully representing all sections of society.

The assembly was also accused of being Hindu-dominated, despite having minority community representatives.

The process of creating the Indian Constitution was influenced by the objectives resolution and has served as the fundamental law of the nation for the past 70 years.