There are a few defining dates in our country’s democratic journey; November 26 is one of them. On this day in 1949, the Constituent Assembly adopted our Constitution after extensive deliberations. Following a suggestion by six-time Lok Sabha MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, in 2015, the government started celebrating this day as “Constitution Day” to promote constitutional values among citizens. That year also marked the 125th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, the architect of our founding document.
Over the years, suggestions by parliamentarians have shaped our Constitution. During the final days of the Constitution-making process, Constituent Assembly members pressed upon its president, Dr Rajendra Prasad, that there should be a handwritten copy of the document signed by all members. The rationale was not lost on Dr Prasad — that a plain, printed document would not be an appropriate symbol of the occasion as the country embarks on its journey as a republic.
Handwriting our Constitution was a mammoth task. It is one of the longest ones in the world. The printed text ran into roughly 300 pages at the time of adoption. Writing it had to be done in two months in Delhi’s biting winter because Constituent Assembly members were to sign it on January 24, 1950, two days before it came into force.
In October 1949, Dr Prasad approached eminent artist Nandalal Bose to decorate the pages of the calligraphed Constitution, saying that “…the illuminated manuscript will be treasured by the nation and by the future generations as a monument not only of our political and intellectual labours but also of the nation’s artistic achievements”. And roughly two weeks before the adoption of the Constitution, the Constituent Assembly secretariat engaged the services of expert calligrapher Prem Behari Narain Raizada to write every Article of the Constitution.
Raizada started writing the text at Constitution House, a barracks complex built during the Second World War to house US troops stationed in Delhi. The secretariat then transported the calligraphed pages in batches from Delhi to Shantiniketan for decoration by Bose and his team. The artist decorated the beginning of each chapter with an illustration — for example, Mohenjodaro seal, conquest of Lanka, Krishna propounding Gita, Dandi March, etc. — and every page with a border.
The completed pages then returned to Delhi. The intensive work, the tight timeline and the back-and-forth meant that when the time came to sign the written copy of the Constitution, it was incomplete. On January 24, 1950, as eager Constituent Assembly members lined up to sign the written copy of the Constitution, only 100 pages had been calligraphed. A decision was made to have the pages at the end calligraphed and take members’ signatures on continuation sheets.
When Dr Prasad decided to have the Constitution handwritten, he also proposed that 1,000 copies of the English and Hindi versions would be printed. Ramnath Goenka, a Constituent Assembly member, had offered to pay for the printing. He stated in a letter, “If you desire that a thousand copies of the Constitution should be printed and given free to the Government of India, it can be easily arranged.” While the offer was not taken up, the financial outlay regarding preparing the written Constitution established the principle of parliamentary independence.
The calligrapher and the artists had material costs; they were also paid an honorarium (Rs 1,500 to the calligrapher and on a per-page/illustration basis to the artists). There was also the cost associated with the printing and binding. These expenditure proposals were in the Parliament Secretariat’s budget and were to be placed before the Standing Finance Committee. Speaker G V Mavalankar believed that placing any matter related to the Parliament Secretariat before a panel for approval “would be a bad precedent and constitutionally wrong”.
The decorative copy of the Constitution has courted controversy. In 1992, the Allahabad High Court relied on the artwork from the decorative copy of the Constitution to hold that these illustrations meant the Constituent Assembly “expressed itself that these are national and nationally recognised phases of our national life …”. The handwritten and illuminated Constitution is simply a visually striking copy of our Constitution. It has no interpretative value. The labour to create it was to mark a milestone in our history, and the ongoing efforts to conserve it are to preserve the memory of that moment.
On November 26, 1949, when the Constitution was being adopted, Dr Prasad said, “… a Constitution like a machine is a lifeless thing. It acquires life because of the men who control it and operate it… There is a fissiparous tendency arising out of various elements in our life. We have communal differences, caste differences, language differences, provincial differences and so forth. It requires men of strong character, men of vision, men who will not sacrifice the interests of the country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas and who will rise over the prejudices which are born of these differences.”
The writer looks at issues through a legislative lens and works at PRS Legislative Research
Over the years, suggestions by parliamentarians have shaped our Constitution
12
8
26.11.2023
There are a few defining dates in our country’s democratic journey; November 26 is one of them. On this day in 1949, the Constituent Assembly adopted our Constitution after extensive deliberations. Following a suggestion by six-time Lok Sabha MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, in 2015, the government started celebrating this day as “Constitution Day” to promote constitutional values among citizens. That year also marked the 125th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, the architect of our founding document.
Over the years, suggestions by parliamentarians have shaped our Constitution. During the final days of the Constitution-making process, Constituent Assembly members pressed upon its president, Dr Rajendra Prasad, that there should be a handwritten copy of the document signed by all members. The rationale was not lost on Dr Prasad — that a plain, printed document would not be an appropriate symbol of the occasion as the country embarks on its journey as a republic.
Handwriting our Constitution was a mammoth task. It is one of the longest ones in the world. The printed text ran into roughly 300 pages at the time of adoption. Writing it had to be done in two months in Delhi’s biting winter because Constituent Assembly members were to sign it on January 24,........
© Indian Express
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Rachel Marsden
Donald Low
Bradley Blankenship
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Abbas Juma
Michael Kwet
