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Constituent Assembly of India
Constituent Assembly of India
DEHRADUN
ASSIGNMENT : 1
“CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY OF
INDIA”
INTRODUCTION:
The Constituent Assembly drafted the Indian Constitution. The main members of the
Constitution Assembly were Harendracoomar Mukherjee, B.R Ambedkar,
KrishnaswamyIyer, K M Munshy Ganesh Mavlankar, Sarojini Naidu, Rajendra Prasad and
many more. The members of the Constituent Assembly met for the first time in the year 1946
on December 9.
ELECTIONOFCONSTITUENTASSEMBLY:
The constituent assembly was elected indirectly by the members of the Provincial legislative
assembly. The Congress secured an overwhelming majority in the general seats while
the Muslim League managed to sweep almost all the seats reserved for Muslims. The
Congress had a majority of 69%. There were also members from smaller parties like
the Scheduled Caste Federation, the Communist Party of India and the Unionist Party.
On August 15, 1947, India became an independent nation, and the Constituent Assembly
became India's Parliament.
ORGANIZATION:
The Constituent Assembly took almost three years (two years, eleven months and seventeen
days to be precise) to complete its historic task of drafting the Constitution for Independent
India. During this period, it held eleven sessions covering a total of 165 days. Of these, 114
days were spent on the consideration of the Draft Constitution.
As to its composition, members were chosen by indirect election by the members of the
Provincial Legislative Assemblies, according to the scheme recommended by the Cabinet
Mission. The arrangement was: (i) 292 members were elected through the Provincial
Legislative Assemblies; (ii) 93 members represented the Indian Princely States; and (iii) 4
members represented the Chief Commissioners' Provinces. The total membership of the
Assembly thus was to be 389. However, as a result of the partition under the Mountbatten
Plan of 3 June, 1947, a separate Constituent Assembly was set up for Pakistan and
representatives of some Provinces ceased to be members of the Assembly. As a result, the
membership of the Assembly was reduced to 299. Dr.SachinandSinha the oldest member was
elected as the temporary president of Assembly. Later, Dr.Rajendra Prasad and H.C.
Mukherjee were elected as president and Vice-president of the assembly respectively. Sir
B.N. Rau was appointed as the constitutional advisor to the assembly.
The historic “objective resolution” was moved by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru which was later
accepted in its modified form as the preamble of the constitution.This Resolution was
unanimously adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 January 1947.
COMMITTEESUNDERTHECONSTITUENTASSEMBLY:
North-East Frontier Tribal Areas and Assam. Excluded & Partially Excluded Areas Sub-
Committee headed by GopinathBardoloi
Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (Other than those in Assam) Sub-Committee headed
by A.V. Thakkar
The most important of the committes was the drafting committee which was entrusted with
the task of making the new constitution. It consisted of seven members. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
the chairman of the drafting committee is recognised as the father of the Indian Constitution.
The first “Draft constitution of India” was published in Feb. 1948.
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1. Madras 49
2. Bombay 21
3. West Bengal 19
4. United Provinces 55
5. East Punjab 12
6. Bihar 36
8. Assam 8
9. Orissa 9
10. Delhi 1
11. Ajmer-Merwara1
12. Coorg1
INDIAN STATES-70
1. Alwar1
2. Baroda 3
3. Bhopal 1
4. Bikaner 1
5. Cochin 1
6. Gwalior 4
7. Indore 1
8. Jaipur 3
9. Jodhpur 2
10. Kolhapur 1
11. Kotah1
12. Mayurbhanj1
13. Mysore 7
14. Patiala 2
15. Rewa2
16. Travancore 6
17. Udaipur 2
Total 299
CONSTITUENTASSEMBLYANDMUSLIM LEAGUE:
The Muslims being in minority never offerd their full support to constituent assembly and
they thought it was dominated by the Hindus. The Muslim league continued to oppose the
constituent assembly at every stage, before, as well as after it was constituted. Having failed
to prevent the election of the constituent assembly the Muslim league concentrated its
energies on refusing to join its deliberations. In the first session of the assembly 76 Muslim
members of the league stayed away. And only 4 congress Muslim members attended the
session. The same condition happened in 2nd and 3rd session in which the league still did not
join. So in short it was the clear cut boycott of Muslim league from constituent assembly.
CONCLUSION:
The work of making of the constitution was ardons and tremendons. The Constitution makers
had before them heaps of difficult problem which required solution. They had to prepare a
Constitution for 400 million people. There were scores of communities speaking different
languages, professing different faiths, practicing different customs, following different
traditions and impleasing different cultures and religion. The questions of backward class was
also a big problem. So the makers had to provide for the integrity of the country in the
foresence of a foreign state within the very compound of India. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru
therefore said, “if we cannot solve this problem, all our paper constitution will become
useless and purposeless.” But the makers prove themselves good and form a constitution
fulfilling all demands, satisfying everyone and most important a mile stone in Indian history.