Making of the Indian constitution

The constitution for india was prepared by constituent assembly.

The idea of constituent assembly for india was given by M.N Roy,in 1934. He was pioneer of communist movement in India.

In 1935 Indian National Congress (Inc)for the first time officially demand a constituent assembly, to frame the constitution of India.

In 1938 Jawaharlal Nehru on behalf of Inc declared that constitution for free India must be framed without out side interface by a constituent assembly. And members of constituent assembly should be elected on basis of adult franchise.

This demand of constituent assembly was accepted in August offer of 1940.

In 1942 sir Stafford Cripps,a member of cabinet came to India with a draft proposal of British government on the framing of an independent constitution for india and to be adopted after the world war second.

The proposal was rejected by the Muslim league, which wanted india to be divided into two autonomous states with two separate constituent assemblies.

In 24 March 1946,a cabinet mission (consisting of three members namely Sir Stafford Cripps,Lord pethic lawrance and A.V Alexander) arrived in India. It published its plan on 16 May 1946 which satisfied Muslim league.

The constituent assembly was established in November 1946, under the scheme formulated by cabinet mission plan.

FEATURES OF CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

The total strength of constituent assembly was 389,of these 296 seats were allotted to British India,93 to princely states.

Out of 296 seats 292 were allotted to 11 governor provinces namely Assam, Bihar, Bengal,Central provinces, Madras, North West Frontier province,sindh, Orissa, punjab Uttar Pradesh and 4 were allotted to four chief commissioner provinces,these include Delhi, Ajmer-merwara, Coorg and British Baluchistan.

Seats were allotted on basis of population I,e 1: million

The seats were actually divided between three principal communities I,e Muslims, Sikhs and general (all other religions),in proportion to their population.

The representative of each community were elected by members of that community in the provential legislative assembly.these members themselves were elected on limited franchise (as voting rights were given on basis of property,tax, revenue etc)

Voting was to be by method of single transferable vote.

Members to princely states were to be nominated by head of princely state.

Thus constituent assembly had partially nominated and partially elected members. constituent assembly was compromised of members from all sections and all important personalities, except M. K Gandhi

WORKING OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

Constituent assembly had its first meeting on December 9 1946 . Muslim league boycotted this. It was therefore attended by 211 members.

Dr.Sachchidananda sinha,the oldest member was elected as temporary president of the assembly(following french practice). Later Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected as the President of assembly. H.c Mukherjee was elected as vice President.

On 13 December 1946 Jawaharlal Nehru moved objective resolution in assambly. It laid down the fundamental and philosophy of the constitutional structure.this resolution was adopted by assembly on 22 January 1947. It is now called as preamble.

The constituent assembly performed two functions

1) making of constitution

2)it acted as the parliament

These two functions were performed on separately on seprate days,when it met as constituent assembly it was chaired by Dr.  Rajendra Prasad and when it acted as parliament of free India (dominion legislature) it was chaired by G. V Mavlankar. The constituent assembly met for first time as dominion legislature on 17 November 1947. The two functions continued till 26 November 1949, when task of making of constitution was over.

Some other functions performed by constituent assembly were.

It adopted the national flag on 22 July 1947.

It ratified the India's memberships of the commonwealth in May 1949.

Adopted national anthem and elected Dr. Rajendra Prasad as first President of India on 24 January 1950.

Committees of constituent assembly.

There were eight major and thirteen minor committees who made constitution.out of thirteen minor three were headed by non- assambly members these where.

1) Ad-hoc committee on the supreme court, headed by s. Varadachari.

2) Expert committee on financial provisions of the union construction, headed by Nalini Ranjan sarkar.

3) Linguistic province commission, headed by S. k Dar.

The most important committee was drafting committee. It was set up on 29 August 1947. It consisted of seven members

B. R Ambedkar (chairman),N. Gopalasawamy Ayyangar, Alladi Krishnasawamy Ayyar, Dr.k M Munshi ,Syed Mohammad Saadullah ,N Madahava Rau(replaced B L Mitter),TT Krishnamachari (replaced DP Khaitan who died in 1948) 

The drafting committee published their first draft in February 1948,gave people eight months to discuss and recommend any changes. second draft was published in October 1948.

The final draft was introduced in constituent assembly by Dr B R Ambedkar on 4 November 1948 and assembly had given five days to discuss (first reading). Clause by clause consideration (second reading) started on 15 November 1948 and ended on 17 October 1949. During this 2473 clauses were discussed and 7653 amendment were proposed. 

On third reading of draft on 14 November 1949,Dr B R Ambedkar moved a motion"the constitution as settled by the assembly be passed". This motion was passed on 26 November 1949 and was signed by present members (284 out of 299) and president. The constitution at that time consisted of preamble,395 articles and 8 schedules.

For his excellent wor,Dr. B R Ambedkar is regarded as father of constitution and modern Manu.