In 1938 , Jawaharlal Nehru on behalf of Indian national congress declared that “ the constitution of free India must be framed without outside interference by the constituent assembly elected on the basics of adult franchise.
The demand was finally accepted in 1940, however the year was 1942 when Sir Stafford Crips came to India with a draft proposal of the British government on the framing of independent constitution to be adopted after world war 2, although the Crips proposal was rejected by Muslim league which wanted India to be divided in two separate states with two separate constitution assembly's. But finally a cabinet mission was sent to India which dismissed the demand of two states and put forward the scheme of a constituent assembly.
Working of the Constituent Assembly
Making of the constitution was never an easy task because India is a huge and extremely populated country with people from different religions, regions, and sections of society. There were handful of educated people whilst rest of the masses were uneducated. To formulate the constitution, the committee had to go over 60 already existing constitutions in the world.
To make the task easier and achievable, the committee was further broken down into 13 sub committees, the sub-committees and their heads were as follows
1. Drafting Committee – B. R. Ambedkar
2. Union Power Committee – Jawaharlal Nehru
3. Union Constitution Committee – Jawaharlal Nehru
4. Provincial Constitution Committee – Vallabhbhai Patel
5. Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities and Tribal and Excluded Areas–Vallabhbhai Patel. This committee had the following subcommittees:
(a) Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee – J. B. Kripalani
(b) Minorities Sub-Committee – Harendra Coomar Mukherjee
(c) North-East Frontier Tribal Areas and Assam Excluded & Partially Excluded Areas Sub-Committee – Gopinath Bordoloi
(d) Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (Other than those in Assam) Sub- Committee – A V Thakkar
6. Rules of Procedure Committee – Rajendra Prasad
7. States Committee (Committee for negotiating with states) - Jawaharlal Nehru
8. Steering Committee – Rajendra Prasad
9. National Flag and HOC Committee – Rajendra Prasad
10. Committee for the function of the Constitution Assembly - G V Mavlankar
11. House Committee - B Pattabhi Sitaramayya
12. Language Committee - Moturi Satyanarayana
13. Order of Business Committee - K M Munshi
Other statistics involved in the making of the constitution
Total cost- 64 lakhs
Sessions- 11 (114days)
Time – 2yrs, 11 months, 18 days
The 1st meeting of the constituent assembly took place on 9th Dec , 1946 and the last meeting took place on 24th Jan , 1950. It took 2years, 11 months for us to get our constitution which is worlds biggest and most detailed constitution even today after 70years of independence.
Written By - Shivam Jha
Edited By - Tushna Choksey
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