Chapter – 15

Framing the Constitution

In this post, we have given the detailed notes of Class 12 History Chapter 15 (Framing the Constitution) in English. These notes are useful for the students who are going to appear in class 12 board exams.

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Indian Constitution

• Indian constitution is the largest written constitution in the world
• Its construction was started in 1946 and its work was completed by the end of 1949.
• It took almost 2 years 11 months and 18 days to make the Indian Constitution.
• About 64 lakhs were spent to make it.
• The Indian Constitution describes the Indian system of governance, the relations between the state and the centre and the functions of the main organs of the state.
• The making of the Indian Constitution was one of the most important tasks of nation building.
• Indian Constitution was framed by big leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar

Challenges before the Constituent Assembly of India

• In front of the Constituent Assembly of India was the responsibility of making the Constitution of India.
• He faced many challenges during the making of this constitution.
  • Development of Minorities
  • Unity with Diversity in the Country
  • Distribution of powers between the central and state governments
  • Equal distribution of powers among the organizations and institutions located in the Indian system of governance

Formation of the Constituent Assembly

• The Constituent Assembly of India was constituted by a resolution given by the Cabinet Mission
• Under this, a total of 389 members were elected in the Constituent Assembly, out of which 296 members were elected from British India and 93 members were elected from the princely states.
• The distribution of seats in each province and princely states in the country was done according to the proportion of the population there.
• The Congress performed well in the elections and was in majority in almost all the areas.
• The Muslim League boycotted the Constituent Assembly and continued its demand for a separate country, Pakistan.
• About 82% of the members in the Constituent Assembly of India belonged to the Congress party.

Discussions

• Every subject was seriously discussed in the Constituent Assembly of India
• Although the Congress had a majority in the Constituent Assembly, but leaders of different ideologies were present inside the Congress, due to which every subject was seriously debated.
  • There were many leaders in Congress who were inspired by socialism.
  • Some leaders were influenced by communal parties
  • On the contrary some leaders were completely secular
• In this way, there were people who believed in different ideologies within the Congress, due to which there were serious discussions on every subject in the Constituent Assembly.
• The general public of the country also had a deep influence in all these discussions because every discussion taking place in the Constituent Assembly was published in the newspapers and they were criticized and supported in the press, thus the general public also had an effect on the decisions of the Constituent Assembly. used to be

Chief Leader of the Constituent Assembly

• Although there were many leaders in the Constituent Assembly, but there were some main leaders who played an important role in the formation of the Constitution.
• Rajendra Prasad –
  • Speaker of the Constituent Assembly
• Vallabh Bhai Patel
• Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar –
  • Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly
• K M Munshi
• Alladi Krishnaswamy
• S N Mukherjee
• B N Rao
• Jawaharlal Nehru etc.

Constituent Assembly meeting

First meeting

• The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly was held on 9 December 1946.
• The Muslim League boycotted this meeting because they wanted a separate country for themselves, Pakistan.
• During this meeting, Dr. Sa 0chidanand Sinha was elected as the Provisional President of the Constituent Assembly.

Second meeting

• The second meeting of the Constituent Assembly was held on December 11, 1946, during this meeting, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected as the permanent President of the Constituent Assembly.

Third meeting (13 December 1946)

• The third meeting of the Constituent Assembly was held on 13 December 1946, in the third meeting of the Constituent Assembly itself, the objective resolution of the Constituent Assembly was presented by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Objective Proposal

• Objective resolution of the constitution was presented by Jawaharlal Nehru in the third meeting of the Constituent Assembly
• Under this proposal, all those things were described on the basis of which the Indian Constitution was to be made.
• Under this resolution, it was announced to make India an independent and sovereign country.
• Jawaharlal Nehru said that justice, equality and freedom will be provided to all citizens in the country by the Constitution of India.
• Along with this, the Constitution of India will also take care of the development of the minority and backward classes of the country.
• This constitution will be made on the basis of the needs and demands of the people located in the country.
• That is, the Indian Constitution will be made according to the demands and wishes of the people of the country rather than the demands and wishes of the members of the Constituent Assembly.

Opposition to the Constituent Assembly

• The Constituent Assembly was opposed by Somnath Lahiri, a Communist member of the Constituent Assembly.
• During the period when the Constituent Assembly was formed, the British did not leave India and an interim government of Jawaharlal Nehru was running in the country.
• That government was of Jawaharlal Nehru but used to do all its work under the supervision of the Viceroy and the British government sitting in London.
• Somnath Lahiri ji said that this Constituent Assembly formed by the British is influenced by the British.
• That’s why we should get complete freedom except this Constituent Assembly so that we can make our constitution according to our own
• In response to this, Nehru said that even though this Constituent Assembly has been created by the British framework and all the members present in the Constituent Assembly want a different type of Constituent Assembly.
• Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of all the members of the Constituent Assembly that under this Constituent Assembly, we should make a constitution that is capable of fulfilling the aspirations and demands of the common people of the country.
• Even though this Constituent Assembly has been formed according to the outline of the British Government, but the strength of this Constituent Assembly comes from all the people involved in the freedom struggle and the citizens of India.

Separate Electorate

• On 27 August 1947, Madras’s B. Poker Bahadur gave a speech in favour of separate constituency
• In this speech, he said that we need a political system where minorities can live equally in the society like other people and they can be fully represented in politics, their voice is heard and their views are given attention.
• That is why he demanded separate constituencies so that all minorities in the country could get their share in politics, but this was opposed by many members of the Constituent Assembly.
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel said that separate electorate is a subject which forced one community to fight with another community in the country, that is why the country was divided and riots took place on such a large scale in the country if peace is to be established in the country. So it would be better to leave this topic here.

Adivasis and Their Rights

• Chief tribal leader Jaipal Singh ji said that tribals are not minorities on the basis of numbers but they need protection.
  • They have been deprived of resources from the very beginning
  • The society has neglected them considering them as primitive and backward.
• Due to which he is forced to live a backward life, in such a situation it is very important to include him in the mainstream and provide rights.

Dalit

• There was a long debate on the subject of Dalits in the Constituent Assembly
• During the national movements, separate constituencies for Dalit castes were demanded by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, which was opposed by Mahatma Gandhi and said that by doing so, the Dalit community would be completely cut off from the rest of the society.
• Jay Angappa said that Harijans are not a minority but they have always been kept away from resources and political power by other sections of the society, due to which they have always been a victim of suffering, neither they were given opportunities for education nor partnership in governance. Went
• Hearing all these arguments, it was suggested in the Constituent Assembly that
  • untouchability will be abolished
  • Hindu temples to be opened to all castes
  • People from lower castes will be given reservation in legislature and government jobs.

State Powers

• Parliamentary system of government was adopted in India, due to which there was a heated debate in the Constituent Assembly that
• What powers should be given to the central and state government
• Many leaders of the Constituent Assembly and Jawaharlal Nehru were in favour of a powerful centre
• He wanted that the central government should be given more powers than the state government.
• In view of this, three lists were made in the constitution.

Central List: –

• In this, all the subjects coming under the central government have been described.

State List: –

• In this, all the subjects coming under the state government have been described.

Concurrent List: –

• In this list such subjects were described which came under the jurisdiction of both the centre and the states.
• Many leaders opposed the strengthening of the centre, in which prominent leader K. Santanam was
• He said that delegating more powers to the Centre will increase its responsibility due to which it will not be able to work effectively.
• These leaders made every effort so that at least the subjects were kept in the central and concurrent list.

National language

• People speaking many languages ​​lived in independent India, they all had different culture and beliefs.
• In such a situation it was very difficult to build a big nation because all these people were related to different beliefs and different cultures and due to different languages ​​could not even understand each other properly.
• In the Constituent Assembly, there was a heated debate on which language should be made the national language of the country.
• In the beginning, Gandhiji believed that it would be appropriate to make such a language as the national language which can be easily understood by every person of the country.
• In view of this, Gandhiji wanted to make Hindustani language, a combination of Hindi and Urdu, as the national language of the country because this language was spoken and understood by a large section of the Indian population.
• But as the system progressed, due to the increasing communal conflict in the country, Hindi and Urdu became distant from each other, on the one hand, where efforts were made to connect Hindi with Sanskrit, on the other hand Persian words were added to Urdu, due to which Hindustani changed the nature of language

Hindi language support

• RV Dhulekar, a member of Congress elected from the United Provinces, strongly supported making Hindi the national language.
• The issue of national language remained a problem for the Constituent Assembly for almost the next three years.
• Many times, there was uproar in the Constituent Assembly regarding this issue.
• After this the language committee of the Constituent Assembly presented its report.
  • Under this, the committee said that to make Hindi the national language, we have to move forward slowly.
  • He suggested that for the first 15 years all government work should be done in English language.
  • All the provinces should be given the right to choose any one regional language for their work.
  • In this way the issue of national language was resolved.

Indian Constitution

• The Constitution of India was completed on November 26, 1949
• It took about 2 years 11 months and 18 days to make it and about 64 lakhs were spent.
• It came into force on 26 January 1950.
• In this way, after a long discussion and many problems, the Constitution of India was prepared.

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