Framing The Constitution | Class 12 History Notes

This chapter looks at the years when the Constitution of India was being written. It introduces the Constituent Assembly and the people in it, explains what kind of constitution a newly free country needed, and describes the vision that the framers wanted an ideal constitution to carry. It also highlights the leading voices in that story, from B. R. Ambedkar to Raghunath Vinayak Dhulekar. For more study notes on this period, see our full set of Class 12 History Notes.

Framing the Indian Constitution

An Introduction

The Constitution of India was drafted by the Constituent Assembly. It was adopted on 26 November 1949 and came into effect on 26 January 1950.

The Assembly worked on the text between December 1946 and December 1949. It met for eleven sessions spread over 165 days.

India became independent on 15 August 1947, but the country was also partitioned at the same time. Alongside the celebrations, many parts of the country saw major protests by workers and labourers. One of the striking features of this mass movement was the degree of Hindu-Muslim solidarity it showed.

India's two most powerful political parties, the Congress and the Muslim League, had repeatedly failed to reach an agreement that could bring religious and social harmony to the country.

The August 1946 Great Calcutta Killings set off a year of near constant rioting across northern and eastern India. When Partition was announced, the violence grew into the mass killings that accompanied the movement of people across the new borders.

On one side there was the fear of sudden death or lost opportunity. On the other there was the forced breaking away of Hindus and Muslims from homes and roots that were often centuries old. Millions of refugees fled to East and West Pakistan, while Hindus and Sikhs crossed into West Bengal and the eastern part of Punjab.

Another important issue was the integration of the princely states, which together controlled about one third of the land area of the subcontinent. These states were self governing, and after Partition some of them wished to keep their independence.

The Making of the Constituent Assembly

The members were chosen on the basis of the provincial elections of 1946. The Assembly included members from the provinces of British India as well as members from the princely states. In all there were about 300 members.

The Muslim League boycotted the early sittings. As a result, around 82 per cent of the members of the Assembly belonged to the Congress party.

The Congress was itself a broad front, and its members held a wide range of views. Some were atheists and secularists. Others, in the words of the Anglo-Indian member Frank Anthony, were technically members of the Congress but spiritually members of the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha. Some were socialists in their economic thinking, while others defended the rights of landlords. The Congress also nominated independent members from different castes and religious groups, and tried to ensure that women were represented.

The debates inside the Assembly were shaped by opinion outside it as well. As the deliberations went on, the arguments were reported in newspapers and the proposals were publicly debated. Criticism and counter criticism in the press in turn shaped the consensus that was finally reached on particular issues.

To build a sense of shared participation, the public was invited to send in suggestions. The All India Varnashrama Swarajya Sangh, based in Calcutta, asked that the Constitution be based on the principles laid down in ancient Hindu works, and pressed in particular for a ban on the slaughter of cattle. Low caste groups demanded an end to ill treatment by upper caste people, and reservation of separate seats, on the basis of their population, in legislatures, government departments and local bodies.

Linguistic minorities asked for freedom of speech and for the redistribution of provinces on a linguistic basis. Religious minorities demanded greater protection. Organisations as varied as the Vizianagaram District Teachers Guild and the Central Jewish Board of Bombay asked for appropriate representation on all public bodies, including legislatures.

Some of the Dominant Voices in the Assembly

The Constituent Assembly had about 300 members, but six of them carried especially important responsibilities. Three came from the senior leadership of the Congress: Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and Rajendra Prasad.

It was Nehru who proposed a horizontal tricolour of saffron, white and dark green in equal proportions, with a navy blue wheel at the centre, and who moved the crucial Objectives Resolution.

Vallabhbhai Patel worked mostly behind the scenes. He helped draft many of the reports and worked to reconcile opposing views. As President of the Assembly, Rajendra Prasad had the task of steering the debate in a constructive direction while making sure that every member had a chance to speak.

A key member of the Assembly was B. R. Ambedkar, a lawyer and economist. Under British rule Ambedkar had been a political opponent of the Congress, but after Independence, on Mahatma Gandhi's suggestion, he was invited to join the Union Cabinet as law minister. He served as Chairman of the Drafting Committee. He was assisted by K. M. Munshi of Gujarat and Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar of Madras, both of whom made substantial contributions to the shaping of the Constitution.

Two civil servants were also important to the work of these leaders. B. N. Rau, the Constitutional Adviser to the government, prepared a series of background papers based on a careful study of the political systems of other countries. S. N. Mukherjee, the Chief Draughtsman, was able to put complex proposals into clear legal language. The process filled eleven large volumes and was both demanding and remarkable.

The members of the Assembly were articulate in defending views that were often sharply opposed. In their speeches they set out very different ideas about what language Indians should use, what political and economic system the country should adopt, and what moral values its citizens should keep or set aside.

The Vision of the Constitution

Jawaharlal Nehru presented the Objectives Resolution to the Constituent Assembly on 13 December 1946. It was a historic resolution that set out the defining ideals of the Constitution of independent India and established the framework within which the constitution making would take place.

It declared India an Independent Sovereign Republic, and promised justice, equality and freedom to all its people, along with adequate safeguards for minorities, backward and tribal areas, and Depressed and Other Backward Classes.

By recalling the American and French Revolutions, Nehru placed the making of India's Constitution within a longer history of the struggle for liberty and freedom. He linked the Indian project to great revolutionary moments of the past to underline how important it was. At the same time, he did not suggest that those events were a blueprint for the present, or that the ideas of those revolutions could simply be copied and applied in India.

He did not fix the exact form that Indian democracy should take, and suggested that this had to be worked out through discussion. He stressed that the ideals and provisions of the Constitution could not simply be borrowed from elsewhere. As he put it, we are not going just to copy. It was necessary to learn from the achievements and failures of the West, but the Western nations too had to learn from experiments elsewhere and to rethink their own ideas of democracy. The aim of the Indian Constitution would be to combine the liberal idea of democracy with the socialist idea of economic justice, and to rework all of these ideas within the Indian context.

The Will of the People

Somnath Lahiri, a Communist member of the Assembly, felt the shadow of British imperialism still hanging over their work. He urged the members, and Indians in general, to break free of imperial authority.

The British were still in India while the Assembly deliberated in the winter of 1946 to 1947. Although Jawaharlal Nehru headed an interim government, it had to work under the guidance of the Viceroy and the British government in London. According to Lahiri, the Assembly had been shaped by the British and was working the British designs as the British would like it to be worked out.

Nehru accepted that nationalist leaders would have preferred a different kind of Constituent Assembly from the one that had been set up. It was true that the British government had helped create the Assembly and had attached conditions to how it worked. Even so, the Assembly was meant to express the wishes of the people who had taken part in the freedom struggle.

Since the nineteenth century, the dream of a democratic, fair and just society had been closely tied to these values. It was a concern for social justice that led nineteenth century reformers to campaign against child marriage and to argue that widows should be allowed to remarry. Swami Vivekananda called for the reform of Hinduism so that it could become a more just religion. In Maharashtra, reformers such as Jyotiba Phule demanded economic and social justice by drawing attention to the condition of the depressed castes.

A national movement against a rule that was seen as oppressive and illegitimate was bound to become a movement for democracy and justice, for the rights of the people and for equality. As the demand for representation grew, the British government was forced to make a series of constitutional changes. Indian participation in provincial administration expanded gradually through the Acts of 1909, 1919 and 1935.

In 1919 the executive was made partly answerable to the provincial legislature, and by 1935 this was almost fully the case. In the elections held under the 1935 Act, the Congress came to power in eight of the eleven provinces in 1937. Indians themselves had not designed any of these earlier arrangements. They had been put in place by the colonial authorities in response to a rising demand for representative government, and even as the electorate grew, the vote remained a privilege of only about 10 to 15 per cent of the adult population in 1935. The legislatures elected under the 1935 Act still remained answerable to a Governor appointed by the British.

Defining Rights

One of the central concerns of the Constituent Assembly was to define what a right meant, and which rights the Constitution should protect. In his opening speech Nehru had invoked the will of the people, saying that the framers of the Constitution had to meet the desires that lurk in the hearts of the masses.

This was not a simple task. In the years before Independence, different groups had expressed their hopes in very different ways and had made very different demands. These competing and sometimes contradictory positions had to be argued out and reconciled before any agreement could be reached.

The Problem with Separate Electorates

On 27 August 1947, B. Pocker Bahadur of Madras made a strong case for keeping separate electorates. Minorities exist in every country, he argued, and they cannot be wished away or erased out of existence. What was needed was a political framework in which minorities could live in peace with others and in which differences between communities could be reduced. In his view, separate electorates were the only way to ensure that Muslims had a genuine say in the government of the country. He believed that non Muslims could not fully understand the needs of Muslims, and that a real representative of Muslims could not be chosen by people who did not belong to that community.

Most nationalists were dismayed by this demand. They saw separate electorates as a deliberate British device to divide the people. Govind Ballabh Pant argued that separate electorates were harmful both to the nation and to the minorities themselves. He agreed that the strength of a democracy can be measured by the confidence it gives to different groups of people. In a free country where everyone is treated with dignity, he said, the majority community has a duty to understand and share the concerns of minorities, including not only their material wants but also their spiritual sense of self respect. Even so, Pant opposed separate electorates. To isolate minorities in this way, he warned, was a suicidal demand that would leave them weak and would deny them a meaningful role in government.

Not all Muslims supported the call for separate electorates. Begum Aizaz Rasul held that separate electorates were self defeating, since they cut minorities off from the majority. By 1949 the great majority of Muslim members of the Assembly had come to accept that separate electorates worked against the interests of minorities, and that Muslims would be better served by taking an active part in a shared democratic process.

More Than a Resolution

N. G. Ranga, a socialist and a former leader of the peasant movement, argued that the word minorities should be understood in economic terms. The real minorities, he said, were the poor and the oppressed. He welcomed the new legal protections offered by the Constitution, but he also pointed to their limits. It made little difference to a poor villager, he said, to be told that they now had the fundamental right to live and to work, or the freedom to hold meetings and form associations, if they had no means to make use of these rights.

Whom the Assembly Represented

The Assembly was meant to speak for the people who made up the bulk of the population. Yet most of its own members did not come from among the masses. They saw themselves as the trustees and spokespersons of the people, holding rights and protections in trust for those they represented.

How the Rights of the Depressed Castes Were Defined

During the national movement Ambedkar had called for separate electorates for the Depressed Castes. Mahatma Gandhi opposed this, arguing that it would permanently cut them off from the rest of society. Some members from the Depressed Castes stressed that protections and safeguards alone could not solve the problem of untouchability.

Their disabilities, they said, were created by the social norms and moral values of caste society. Society used their labour but kept them at a distance, refusing to mix with them, dine with them or let them enter temples. We have suffered, said J. Nagappa of Madras, but we are ready to stop suffering. He pointed out that the Depressed Castes were not a small minority, since they made up about 20 to 25 per cent of the population. Their weakness came not from small numbers but from the fact that they had been denied education and access to power. After the violence of Partition, he too gave up the demand for separate electorates.

In the end the Constituent Assembly recommended that untouchability be abolished, that Hindu temples be opened to all castes, and that seats in legislatures and posts in government be reserved for the lowest castes. Many recognised that this could not by itself solve every problem, and that social discrimination would have to be ended through wider social change. Even so, these measures were widely welcomed by the democratic public.

The Powers of the State

The rights of the central government and of the states were hotly debated in the Assembly. Jawaharlal Nehru argued for a strong Centre. A weak central authority, he said, would be unable to keep the peace, to coordinate matters of common concern, or to speak effectively for the whole country in international forums, and this would harm the interests of the nation.

The Constitution divided subjects into three lists. The Union List was reserved for the Centre, the State List for the states, and the Concurrent List covered subjects for which the Centre and the states shared responsibility. Some subjects were placed under the Centre against the wishes of the provinces. The Union also controlled minerals and key industries. Article 356 gave the Centre the power to take over the administration of a state on the recommendation of the Governor.

The Constitution also set up a detailed system of fiscal federalism. In some cases, such as customs and company taxes, the Centre kept all the revenue. In others, such as income tax and excise duties, it shared the revenue with the states. In still others, such as estate duties, the revenue went entirely to the states. Taxes levied by the states themselves included land and property taxes, sales tax, and the highly profitable tax on liquor.

Redistribution of Power

K. Santhanam of Madras spoke up for the rights of the states. He believed that redistributing power would strengthen both the states and the Centre. It has almost become an obsession, he said, to strengthen the Centre by giving it more and more powers. This, he argued, was a mistake, because a Centre that was overburdened could not function well. The Centre could actually be made stronger by handing some of its work to the states. Santhanam feared that the proposed sharing of power would leave the states crippled, and that the financial arrangements would impoverish the provinces once most taxes, apart from land revenue, were centralised.

The argument for greater provincial power drew a sharp response. From the very start of the Assembly, the need for a strong Centre had been stressed. Ambedkar declared that he wanted a strong and united Centre, much stronger than the Centre created under the Government of India Act of 1935. Reminding members of the recent riots and violence, many argued that the powers of the Centre had to be greatly strengthened in order to stop communal frenzy. Gopalaswami Ayyangar insisted that the Centre should be made stronger, and Balakrishna Sharma of the United Provinces argued that only a strong central government could plan for the country's future, mobilise its economic resources, build a proper administration and defend the country against outside aggression.

Before Partition, the Congress had been willing to give the provinces a good deal of autonomy, partly to reassure the Muslim League that the Centre would not interfere in their provinces. After Partition, most nationalists changed their minds, feeling that the pressure for decentralisation had eased. The violence of the time pushed them further towards a strong Centre, which was seen as necessary both to prevent chaos and to plan for the country's economic development. In the end the Constitution leaned in favour of the powers of the Union over those of the states.

The Language of the Nation

By the 1930s the Congress had accepted Hindustani as the national language. Mahatma Gandhi believed that Indians should communicate in a language that ordinary people could easily understand, and Hindustani, a blend enriched by the meeting of many cultures, was widely spoken across India. Because it had grown over a long period, it was understood by people in many parts of the country. This shared language, Gandhi believed, could unite Hindus and Muslims, and people of the north and the south.

From the late nineteenth century, however, Hindustani had been changing. As communal tension grew, Hindi and Urdu drifted apart. On one side there was a push towards a heavily Sanskritised Hindi, stripped of Persian and Arabic words. On the other, Urdu was becoming more Persianised. Language became tied to the politics of religious identity. Gandhi, though, continued to believe in the mixed and inclusive character of Hindustani.

A Plea for Hindi

R. V. Dhulekar, a Congressman from the United Provinces, argued forcefully that Hindi should be used as the language of the constitution making process itself. On 12 September 1947, almost three years later, his speech on the national language set off another storm.

By then the Language Committee of the Assembly had already reported and proposed a compromise to end the dispute over Hindi as the national language. Its main proposals were:

• Hindi in the Devanagari script would be the official language, but the change would be gradual. For the first fifteen years English would continue as an official language, and each province would be free to choose one of its regional languages for official use within the province.
• By calling Hindi the official language rather than the national language, the Committee hoped to calm hurt feelings.

Dhulekar disliked this cautious approach. He wanted Hindi to be recognised as the national language, not merely an official language, and he criticised those who argued, in the name of Mahatma Gandhi, that Hindustani rather than Hindi should be the national language.

The Fear of Domination

A day after Dhulekar spoke, Shrimati G. Durgabai of Madras voiced her worries about the debate. The question of a national language, she said, had recently become a highly sensitive issue. Non Hindi speakers had been led to feel that the push for Hindi threatened the natural influence of other great Indian languages on the shared culture of the nation.

She told the House that opposition to Hindi in the south was fierce. The opponents feel, perhaps rightly, that this Hindi propaganda cuts at the very root of the provincial languages, she said. And yet she, like many others, had heeded Gandhi's call and had worked to spread Hindi in the south, opening schools and teaching the language despite the opposition. T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar, also of Madras, warned that whatever was done had to be done with care, because pushing Hindi too hard would only harm its cause.

Why It Still Matters Today

The debates of 1946 to 1949 were not just history. Many of the questions the Assembly argued over are still being argued in India right now, and knowing the original debate helps you follow the news.

The Constitution just turned 75. The Assembly adopted the Constitution on 26 November 1949. On 26 November 2024 the government launched a year long celebration to mark 75 years of that moment, under the tagline Hamara Samvidhan, Hamara Swabhimaan, meaning Our Constitution, Our Pride. The inaugural programme was held in the Central Hall of Parliament, the very room where the Assembly once met, and the celebrations ran through to 26 November 2025. It is a reminder that the document those 300 members wrote is still the living rulebook for more than a billion people.

The reservation debate is still live. The Assembly decided to reserve seats in legislatures and jobs in government for the lowest castes, and members such as J. Nagappa argued that safeguards alone could not end untouchability. That conversation continues. On 1 August 2024 a seven judge bench of the Supreme Court, in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, ruled by a six to one majority that state governments may create sub groups within the Scheduled Castes so that the most disadvantaged among them get a fairer share of reserved seats. The court overruled an earlier judgment from 2004. Whether you agree with the ruling or not, it grows directly out of the choices the framers made about protecting the depressed castes.

The language question has not gone away either. The Assembly settled on Hindi as an official language while keeping English and protecting the regional languages, exactly the balance Durgabai and Ramalingam Chettiar pleaded for. Debates about how much Hindi to promote, and how to safeguard languages like Tamil, Bengali and Kannada, still surface in national politics today. The compromise the framers reached is the reason India has no single national language and instead recognises many.

If you want to see how these ideas about rights, power and identity connect to the wider world, explore the civics and history threads on the Learnacy Hub, and browse more study notes in our resources library.

Sources

1. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2076894®=48&lang=2
2. https://culture.gov.in/commemorations/75th-anniversary-adoption-constitution
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Punjab_v._Davinder_Singh
4. https://www.scobserver.in/cases/punjab-davinder-singh-validity-of-sub-classification-within-reserved-categories-case-background/