We the people of India: What went into the making of the lengthiest Constitution of the world?
Saswata Guha
Associate II | PwC AC Kolkata | Operate | PMOaaS | Project Portfolio Management Generalist
The Constitution making process was organised around the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly. The members of the Constituent Assembly were elected on a limited franchise.?The Constitution of India was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26th of November, 1949 and came into force on 26th January, 1950. The Indian Constitution was a product of deliberations of the Constituent Assembly for over three years.?
The Constituent Assembly was formed in 1946 as a part of The Cabinet Mission plan which met for a total number of 165 days between 1946 and 1950 for making of The Constitution. 46 days were spent on preliminary discussion in the Assembly and 101 days were spent on the clause by clause discussion of the Draft Constitution. Approximately 36 lakh words were spoken during Assembly debates.?Two-thirds of all deliberations were during the clause by clause discussion in the second reading.
During the debates, 14% of the clause by clause discussion was on Fundamental Rights. From November 1948 to October 1949, the Assembly met for clause by clause discussion on the draft Constitution.?They met for 101 days during this period. Fundamental Rights were included in Part III of the draft Constitution.?These were discussed for 16 days.?
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Directive Principles of State Policy were included in Part IV.?These were discussed for six days.?4% of the clause by clause discussion was dedicated to Directive Principles.
Provisions related to Citizenship were included in Part II. It was discussed for three days.?2% of the discussion was dedicated to this part.
The Assembly's final session convened on 24th of January, 1950. Each member signed two copies of the constitution, one in?Hindi?and the other in English.The original constitution is hand-written, with each page decorated by artists from?Shantiniketan?including?Beohar Rammanohar Sinha?and?Nandalal Bose. It's?calligrapher?was?Prem Behari Narain Raizada. The Constitution of India was published in?Dehradun?and?photolithographed?by the?Survey of India. Production of the original constitution took nearly five years. Two days later, on 26th of January 1950, it became the law of?the land. The estimated cost of the Constituent Assembly was??6.3?crore The Constitution of India has had?more than 100 amendments?since it was enacted in 1950.