Note :- This is a write up by Ramachandra Guha (The writer of India after Gandhi and Gandhi before India among other things)
There is an article that was written on Rajaji and Gandhi, but Rajaji was a disciple of Gandhi and their thoughts are mostly congruent. However Rajaji and Nehru’s relationship makes it more interesting and gives us insights into the minds of the finest leaders of our previous generations.
Caution:- People usually get sentimental when there is a comparison between leaders and usually are drawn in to sides. However, there is no leader in the world without follies. And as the old saying goes ” Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future”. The caution is not to get sentimental.
Nehru and Rajaji were comrades rather than companions. They were separated by upbringing; one was an aristocrat educated at Harrow and Cambridge, the other a self-made man from small-town South India. They were separated also by a thousand miles of peninsula.
Rajaji was unquestionably the most intelligent of Gandhi’s close disciples, Nehru arguably the most humane, and Patel the most disciplined and practical. The pity is that they could never function together except for a very brief while. The relationship between Nehru and Patel has attracted much attention.
During the freedom movement, Nehru and Rajaji were comrades rather than companions. They were separated by upbringing; one was an aristocrat educated at Harrow and Cambridge, the other a self-made man from small-town South India. They were separated also by a thousand miles of peninsula.
In terms of ideology too there were differences: Nehru was more inclined to militant socialist views, Rajaji more oriented towards accommodation with the adversary. But they were united by a shared ideal—the freedom of India—and a shared devotion to the Mahatma. (It was Rajaji whom Gandhi first designated as his successor, later changing his mind in favour of Nehru.)
They met at Congress meetings, but did not seem to have been especially intimate. Still, the Tamilian had impressed Nehru enough to have him write in his autobiography of how Rajaji’s ‘brilliant intellect, selfless character, and penetrating powers of analysis have been a tremendous asset to our cause’.
It was from 1946 that the two men began to work more closely together. In the next eight years, while Nehru was Prime Minister in New Delhi, Rajaji was, successively, a Minister in the Interim Government, Governor of Bengal, Governor-General of India, Minister in the Central Government, and Chief Minister of Madras State. In all these jobs he had direct and regular dealings with Nehru.
But official business drew them closer at the personal level too. The two men shared a cultivated interest in literature and the arts: it was only to Rajaji, and to no other Congressman, that Nehru could write recommending a recent book on the British character by the anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer or praise the beauty of the folk traditions of India.
After a visit to the north-east, the Prime Minister wrote to his Southern colleague about the ‘most lovely handloom weaving’ he had seen there. He confessed to being ‘astonished at the artistry of these so-called tribal people. I think it will be disastrous from many points of view to allow such an industry to fade away’. ‘Altogether my visit to these north-eastern areas has been most exhilarating’, wrote Nehru to Rajaji: ‘I wish they were better known by our people elsewhere in India. We could profit much by that contact’.
Reading the correspondence between these two men, I was deeply moved by the nobility of their vision for a free India. In different ways they both took heed of the message of the Mahatma’s message, working to reconcile competing points of views and alternative cultural or religious traditions. Particularly memorable was a handwritten letter of Nehru’s dated 30 July 1947, and it read:
My dear Rajaji,
This is to remind you that you have to approach Shanmukham Chetty—this must be done soon.
I have seen Ambedkar and he has agreed…
Yours
Jawaharlal.
This brief note requires some explanation. R. K. Shanmukham Chetty was a businessman in the South widely admired as being one of the best financial minds in India. Ambedkar, the Dalit leader, was a brilliant legal scholar. But both had been lifelong enemies of the Congress. Now, a mere two weeks before the political freedom Rajaji and Nehru had spent years in prison for, they were approaching these old adversaries to join the first Cabinet of free India.
It was a gesture remarkable in its wisdom and in its generosity. In the event, but only after overcoming the hostility of the other Congressmen, Chetty became Finance Minister; Ambedkar, Minister for Law.
In 1950, Nehru hoped to be able to make Rajaji the first President of the Republic, but Patel and the Congress Old Guard thwarted him. Later in the year Rajaji joined the Cabinet, as Minister without Portfolio.
After Patel’s death in December 1950 he was asked to take over the crucial job of Home Minister. Not long afterwards, Rajaji left the Cabinet and returned to Madras. The ostensible reason was tiredness, but he seems also to have felt that he was not being consulted enough.
Anyway, his leaving Delhi was a tragedy, for Jawaharlal Nehru as well as for India. For, as Walter Crocker perceptively remarked in his study of Nehru, after the death of Patel the Prime Minister ‘needed the support of an equal. He needed, too, the criticism of an equal’. Now Rajaji was as close to Gandhi, had sacrificed as much in the freedom movement, and was a man of conspicuous integrity besides. He was indeed ‘the intellectual and moral equal of Nehru’. Had a way been found to retain Rajaji in Delhi, this would have, says Crocker, ‘ended the situation prevailing in which no one could, or would, stand up to the Prime Minister; the situation whereby he was surrounded by men all of whom owed to him their jobs, whether as Cabinet Ministers or as officials’.
In October 1951, after Rajaji had left Nehru’s Cabinet to return to Madras, the Prime Minister sounded him out on the job of Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and, when he refused, asked Lord Mountbatten to try and persuade him.
Mountbatten duly wrote to Rajaji, and in exchange got a blistering reply: ‘My career is truly remarkable in its zigzag…. Cabinet Minister, Governor without power, Governor General when the Constitution was to be wound up, Minister without Portfolio, Home Minister and… now the proposition is Acting High Commissioner in U. K.! Finally I must one day cheerfully accept a senior clerk’s place somewhere and raise that job to its proper and honoured importance’.
The job Rajaji did accept a few months later was that of Chief Minister of Madras. He stayed in that post until April 1954, when his party indicated that they wanted K. Kamaraj to replace him. Now Rajaji entered what neither his astrologer nor his own foresight had anticipated for him, namely, retirement from politics. He settled down in a small house to spend his days, he said, reading and writing.
But, in the end, philosophy and literature proved an inadequate substitute for public affairs. He was moved to comment from time to time on the nuclear arms race between Russia and America, with regard to which he took a line not dissimilar to that of Nehru. Then, when the Second Five Year Plan committed the Government of India to a socialist model of economics, he began commenting on domestic affairs too. Here, however, he came to be increasingly at odds with Nehru.
Consider now an article published by Rajaji in May 1958 under the title ‘Wanted: Independent Thinking’. This examined the ‘present discontent about the Congress’ from the perspective of one who ‘has spent the best part of his life-time serving the organization and who owes many honours and kindnesses to it’.
He worried that ‘as a result of tacit submission on the part of the people of emancipated India, a few good persons at the top, enjoying prestige and power, are acting like guardians of docile children rather than as leaders in a parliamentary democracy’.
‘The long reign of popular favourites, without any significant opposition’, wrote Rajaji, is ‘probably the main cause for the collapse of independent thinking’ in India. But a healthy democracy required ‘an Opposition that thinks differently and does not just want more of the same, a group of vigorously thinking citizens which aims at the general welfare, and not one that in order to get more votes from the so-called have-nots, offers more to them than the party in power has given, an Opposition that appeals to reason…’. Such an Opposition, even if it did not succeed in ousting the ruling party, might yet control and humanize it.
A year later, and touching eighty, Rajaji chose a public meeting in Bangalore to launch an all-out attack on the ‘megalomaniac’ economic and foreign policies of the Prime Minister. This was followed by the formation in Madras of a new political party, the Swatantra Party.
Rajaji also sharply attacked the ‘megalomania that vitiates the present development policies’. What India needed, said he, ‘is not just big projects, but useful and fruitful projects… Big dams are good, but more essential are thousands of small projects which could be and would be executed by the enthusiasm of the local people because they directly and immediately improve their lives’. Speaking more generally, ‘the role of the Government should be that of a catalyst in stimulating economic development while individual initiative and enterprise are given fullest play’.
In September 1952, when Rajaji and Nehru were still friends, the American journalist and pioneering Gandhi biographer Louis Fischer wrote to him of his belief that ‘some straight talk to the power that is [Nehru], would do a lot of good, for I doubt whether time cures certain diseases…. You are the one man who… could appeal to his mind…’
At that time, of course, Rajaji was in the Congress; but now, seven years later, Nehru did not take well to these criticisms from a colleague-turned-adversary. Sometimes he affected a cavalier attitude—when asked at a press conference about his differences with Rajaji, he answered: ‘He likes the Old Testament. I like the New Testament’.
This was spoken in June 1959, but as the months went by the mood turned very sour indeed. In December 1961 Nehru told a group of newsmen that Rajaji ‘stands on a mountain peak by himself. Nobody understands him, nor does he understand anybody. We need not consider him in this connection. All his policies in regard to India, if I may say so, are bad—bad economics, bad sense, and bad temper’. Eighteen months later Nehru claimed that the party Rajaji had started, Swatantra, was ‘a mixture of the rottenest ideas imaginable’.
Sensitive observers mourned and worried about the gulf between the two. In May 1959, his biographer Monica Felton told Rajaji that ‘if I were the mother of you and the Prime Minister, I would bang your two heads together and tell you to stop arguing and to settle down and run things together’.
Walter Crocker thought their differences real, but by no means irreconcilable. Both loved freedom, both were deeply moral beings, and both were passionately committed to social and religious tolerance. Yet they fell out. ‘Here was great drama’, writes Crocker: ‘Two figures of Shakespearean scale in contest. And the drama was tragedy, for the contest was needless. Both men were required by India in the two crucial decades following Independence; and both men shared the blame, though perhaps not in equal measure, that there had been fission, not fusion, between them’.
The assessment of Nehru’s own sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, was not dissimilar to this. As she wrote to Rajaji in June 1964: ‘It seemed such a bad thing that two men like yourself and Bhai who had contributed so much individually and jointly to our beloved India should be apart at a time of national crisis. But the moment passed and now it is too late’.
This was written weeks after the death of Nehru. That event had occasioned a brief obituary published by Rajaji in Swarajya:
Eleven years younger than me, eleven times more important to the nation, eleven hundred times more beloved of the nation, Sri Nehru has suddenly departed from our midst and I remain alive to hear the sad news from Delhi—and bear the shock….
The old guard-room is completely empty now… I have been fighting Sri Nehru all these ten years over what I consider faults in public policies. But I knew all along that he alone could get them corrected. No one else would dare do it, and he is gone, leaving me weaker than before in my fight. But fighting apart, a beloved friend is gone, the most civilized person among us all. Not many among us are civilized yet.
God save our people.
These words might serve as an epitaph to the relationship between these two remarkable men. Or one might choose instead the story of Edwina Mountbatten’s visit to Madras in early 1953. Told about the visit, Rajaji drew up a punishing programme, where Lady Mountbatten would have to visit Corporation slums, meet social workers, open a high school, have tea with Army wives, see the temples at Mahabalipuram and dine at the Raj Bhavan.
When this schedule was sent back to Delhi, it provoked this panic-striken telegram from the Prime Minister: ‘Programme sent by Mary Clubwalla for Edwina’s visit to Madras is rather heavy. She has not been very fit. There is no mention in programme of her visit to you. This is main purpose of her going to Madras’.
This, read intelligently, might even be the most generous compliment ever paid by Nehru to a fellow Indian. If Edwina is to have stimulating conversation in India, he is saying to Rajaji, and if it is to be with someone other than myself, then it must only be with you.
RAJAJI AND THE BOMB
Mahatma Gandhi once remarked that the atom bomb was ‘the greatest sin known to science’. After India exploded a nuclear device in May 1998, and the nation swirled around itself in hysteria, it took a contemporary Gandhian to remember what the master had said.
Thus, the first dissenting article in the national press was written by the veteran architect Laurie Baker, who recalled the three tests an invention of science had to pass in a country such as ours. These were: Is it non-violent? Is it eco-friendly? Is it poverty-reducing? The answers, in the case at hand, were No, No, and No.
India is now a certifiable nuclear power. This would have displeased Gandhi, and also displeased C. Rajagopalachari, the Gandhian who, in his lifetime, mounted the most sustained campaign against nuclear weapons. In 1945, after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he quipped: ‘All this while we knew only of the chemist’s bombs. Now we know of bombs made by physicists.’
A decade later his tone was deadly serious. Rajmohan Gandhi quotes from a letter written by Rajaji to the New York Times at the end of 1954, in which he urged each party in the Cold War not to ‘wait for the other’, but to unilaterally ‘throw all the atomic bombs in the deep Antarctic and begin a new world free from fear’.
In 1959, in a piece directed against nuclear tests, Rajaji wrote in disgust of ‘politicians and technicians who do not believe in co-existence and mutual trust, but are convinced, and have been doing their best to educate the people to believe, that the best defence of national existence is to make it clear that they have terrible weapons of retaliation.
And this is naturally associated with a policy of armament manufacture to achieve that retaliatory strength and purpose’. He was speaking, of course, of America and Russia, then, but he could as well have been speaking of India and Pakistan, now.
Rajaji thought the making of atom bombs was the product of hubris, with man now believing he ‘had the rights and privileges of the sun or even of the Lord God himself.’ It was, he remarked, ‘an unfortunate day when science lifted the curtain of fundamental matter and trespassed into the greenroom of creation’.
Rajaji made a distinction between a ‘free science’ which honestly documented the radiation effects of nuclear tests, and a ‘hired science’ which tried to doctor its results. These tests, he said, were ‘a wholly illegitimate attack on the health of the present and future generations of the uninvolved millions, who have not yet written off their rights in favour of the nuclear pugilists’.
Rajaji’s campaign against nuclear arms culminated in a journey he made to the United Kingdom and the United States in 1962, at the head of a three member delegation travelling under the auspices of the Gandhi Peace Foundation. (The other members were R. R. Diwakar and B. Shiva Rao.)
Rajaji was already eighty-three, and this, believe it or not, was his first trip to the West. In America he met with, among others, Henry Kissinger; Robert Oppenheimer (the man who had led the Los Alamos team that made the atom bomb, but had later thrown his hat into the peace camp); and the Representatives to the United Nations of Soviet Union and the United States. Rajaji also spoke at several universities and at the prestigious Council for Foreign Relations in New York. All through, he pursued his case against the Bomb with (to quote his biographer, Rajmohan Gandhi) ‘the energy of a 40-year-old’.
The highlight of the trip was a meeting with John F. Kennedy, who gave the delegation twenty-five minutes, but was so charmed by Rajaji that in the end they chatted for over an hour. Later, Kennedy told an aide that ‘seldom have I heard a case presented with such precision, clarity and elegance of language’. He added that the interview had ‘a civilizing quality about it’.
The diplomat B. K. Nehru, who was present, later recalled how ‘the secretaries who came in with slips of paper reminding the President of his appointments were shooed away’. Kennedy, it appears, was ‘fascinated’ by Rajaji’.
But Rajaji wasn’t entirely sure that the President was convinced. A week later, the journalist Vincent Shean met him in New York, and sought to gift him a stamp of Mahatma Gandhi just issued by the U. S. Postal Department. ‘You keep it’, said Rajaji to Shean, ‘and use it in a letter to Kennedy asking for the renunciation of the atomic bomb’.
After the delegation’s return to India, B. Shiva Rao wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru of the impact its leader had made. When Rajaji spoke at the Council of Foreign Relations, the leader of the American delegation to the U. N. Disarmament Conference in Geneva told Shiva Rao: ‘Why don’t you send this man to represent India at Geneva?’
Altogether, Rajaji had made ‘a deep impression on all the persons he saw in the U. S. A. and England’. He would, Shiva Rao told the Prime Minister, ‘make an admirable representative for India… in Geneva’. He was ‘extremely able and dignified in his presentation of the case for nuclear disarmament’. Were he indeed to be sent as the Government’s representative to the talks, it would aid India in playing ‘a constructive part in bringing about phased disarmament…’
The suggestion was well meant, and well merited. But by this time Nehru and Rajaji were in rival political parties. True, they agreed on the Bomb, but the older man’s attacks on his economic and social policies the Prime Minister found hard to forgive. ‘Rajaji is undoubtedly a person of high ability’, replied Nehru to Shiva Rao, ‘and we all have respect and affection for him. But I doubt very much if he will at all suit or fit in with the Disarmament Conference at Geneva which consists of senior officials. Also, unfortunately, he disagrees with almost everything in the domestic or international sphere for which some of us stand’. Partisan considerations would not allow India to send its best man to Geneva.
Strikingly, Rajaji was against atomic power as well as atomic weapons. When, in 1954, the Times of India insisted that nuclear energy was vital to a ‘power-starved’ India, Rajaji drew their attention to the ‘terrible character of the risks necessarily attached’ to this industry.
Its process of production ‘totally disregards the rights of those that do not in any way benefit from the enterprises’. Moreover, ‘the general public is almost entirely ignorant of all that the new power source involves. It is not like coal or oil but comparable to a hypothetical case of using the thunderbolt to cook our breakfast’.
This was characteristically acute, as well as prescient, for it took another two or three decades before science, and society, made a proper acquaintance with the risks and costs of nuclear power.
The anti-nuclear movement in India has witnessed the not always comfortable co-existence of Gandhians and Communists. However, after 1998, it has been more-or-less captured by the Left who, on the one hand, do not question the dangers of nuclear energy and, on the other, seem to think that nuclear weapons are somehow safe if placed in the hands of Red regimes.
Rajaji’s work has a more general relevance to questions of scientific ethics and nationalist military rivalry, but it also has a more specific relevance, to the ethics of the anti-nuclear movement. He once expressed his wish to ‘rescue the peace movement from the clutches of the Communist Party’. It is a task that remains unfinished.
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- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
- providing Dominion Status to India, i.e., equal partnership of the British Commonwealth of Nations;
- all Provinces (ruled by the British India government) and Indian States (ruled by Indian princes) should constitute one Indian Union by the British Constitution;
- the Constitution of India should be framed by an elected Constituent Assembly of Indian people but if any province (or Indian State) which was not prepared to accept the Constitution was to be free to retain its constitutional position which had existed at that time.
- Such provinces were to be free to enter separate constitutional arrangements.
- there should a Union of India consisting of British India and the States, which would have jurisdiction over subjects of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Communication;
- all residuary powers would belong to the Provinces and the States;
- the Union would have Executive and Legislature consisting of the representatives from the Provinces and the States but for decision relating to a major communal issue in the legislature a majority of representatives of two major communities would be present, and voting along with the majority of all members present and voting would be required;
- the provinces would be free to form Groups with executives and legislatures;
- and each group would be free to determine the Provincial Subjects which would be taken up by the Group organisation.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.
INTRODUCTION:-
The Constitution of India was adopted on 26 November 1949, which means it was finalised by the Constituent Assembly on that day. But it became operative two months after its adoption, i.e., on 26 January 1950, which is also known as the date of its “commencement”.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]However, some provisions of it, i.e., those relating to citizenship, elections, provisional Parliament, temporary and transitional provisions had become operative on 26 November 1949 itself. The reason for its commencement after two months of its adoption was to signify the January 26 as the original date of achievement of Independence.
It was this day, i.e. 26th January, in 1930 which the Indian National Congress (INC) had first celebrated as the Independence Day of India. It is important to note that the Constitution of India is product of a longdrawn process and deliberations.
EVOLUTION OF THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION 1858-1935
The Constitution of India embodies provisions providing basic democratic rights of human beings including the persons who are not Indian citizens. It also embodies provisions for the availability of institutions for legislation, execution and jurisdiction for the fulfilment these rights.
It presents a vision for social transformation and deepening of democracy in India. The process of evolution of democratic institutions and rights had started much before the Constituent Assembly really made the Constitution of India.
It, however, must be underlined that the features of democratic institutions and values which were introduced during the colonial period were meant to serve the colonial interests in contrast to the purpose of the provisions of the Constitution made by the Constituent Assembly of India.
Although the Indian Constitution was result of the deliberations (from December 9, 1947 to November 26, 1949) of the Constituent Assembly, some of its features had evolved over three quarters of a century through various Acts, i.e., from 1858 to 1935.
The Government of India Act, 1935, and Other Acts
With the transfer of power from the East India Company to the British Crown, the British Parliament got involved in managing affairs of India. For achieving this purpose, from 1858 till 1935, the colonial government introduced certain features of constitution or rules of governance through different Acts. The Government of India Act, 1935 was the most important among these Acts.
First of these other Acts was Government of India Act, 1858. It provided for a combination of centralised and decetralised power structure to govern India. The centralised structure was introduced in the areas which were under the direct control of the Crown. These areas were known as British India provinces or provinces. The decentralized structure was introduced in the areas which were not under the direct control of the Crown. These areas were ruled by the Indian princes, and were known as princely states or states.
Under this system, the princes had freedom to govern in all internal matters of their princely states, but they were subject to the British control. In the centralized structure of power which was introduced in the provinces, all powers to govern India vested in the Secretary of State for India (and through him in the Crown). He acted on behalf of the Crown.
He was assisted by a fifteen-member council of ministers.There did not exist separation of executive, legislative and judicial functions of government; these all were concentrated in the hands of the Secretary of State for India. In British India, the Secretary of State of India was assisted by the Viceroy, who was assisted by an executive council.
At the district level, the viceroy was assisted by a small number of British administrators. The provincial government did not have financial autonomy. In 1870 viceroy Lord Mayo ensured that all parts of provincial administration received due share of revenue to meet their needs.
The scope of political institutions in the provinces was expanded a little further following the introduction of Council of India Act, 1909. This Act introduced for the first time a “representative element” in British India, which included elected non-official members.This Act also introduced separate representation to Muslim community.
The Government of India Act 1919 devolved some authority to the provincial governments, retaining the control of the central government (unitary government) on them.It relaxed the control of the central government in a limited way. It divided the subjects for jurisdiction of administration and sources of revenue between centre and provinces.
Under this arrangement, the provincial government was given control on resources of revenue such as land, irrigation and judicial stamps. The provincial subjects were divided into “transferred’ and “reserved” categories.
The “transferred” subjects were governed by the governor, and “reserved” subjects were governed by the legislature. The governor (executive head) was not accountable to the legislature.
The Government of India Act, 1935 was different from the earlier Government of India Acts. Unlike the earlier Acts, the Government of India Act, 1935 also provided for provincial government enjoying provincial autonomy. It provided “safeguards” for minorities.
Such “safeguards” included provisions for separate representations to Muslims, Sikhs, the Europeans, Indian Christians and Anglo-Indians. This Act also provided for three lists of divisions of power between the federation (central government) and provinces: federal (central), concurrent and provincial.
The Act also provided for establishment of a federal court to adjudicate disputes between federation and provinces. The executive head of the provincial government was Governor, who enjoyed special power. Under the special power the Governor could veto the decisions of the provincial legislature.
He acted on behalf of the Crown, and was not a subordinate of the Governor-General (the changed designation of Viceroy). He enjoyed discretionary powers to exercise his “individual judgments” in certain matters. In such matters, he did not need to work under the advice of ministers: he was to act under the control of the Governor-General, and indeed the Secretary of the State.
He was also not accountable to the legislature but he was required to act on the advice of ministers, who were accountable to the legislature.
Government of India Act, 1935 also had provisions for setting up a central government consisting of representatives from the provinces(areas ruled by the British India government) and the states (the areas covered under princely states).Such government was supposed to be known as federal government because of composition with members both from provinces and the states.
However, the federal government could not be formed because there was no unanimity among the princes to join the federation; consent of all princes was essential for the formation of federation. Thus, only the provincial governments could be formed as per this Act.
And election to the provincial legislature as per the Government of India Act, 1935 was held in 1937. Following the election of 1937, provincial governments headed by the Indian National Congresswere formed in eight provinces. The Indian National Congress government resigned in 1937. Nevertheless, according to M. Govinda Rao and Nirvikar Singh (2005), the Government of India Act, 1935 provided a basis to the Constituent Assembly to make the Constitution.
The Nehru Report(1928): First Indian Initiative to Draft Constitution
As you have read above, attempts to introduce elements of constitution in British India through different Act since 1858 were made by the British rulers. Indians had no role in it.
The first attempt by Indians themselves to prepare a Constitution of India was made in the Nehru Report(1928).Earlier, effort by Indians was made in the name of the swaraj (self-rule) by leaders of Indian national movement during the non-cooperation movement in 1921-22.
The Nehru Report was known as such because it was named after the chairman of its drafting committee, Motilal Nehru. The decision to constitute the drafting committee was taken in the conference of the established All India parties. The principal among these parties included Indian National Congress, Swaraj Party and Muslim League. The Justice Party of Madras and Unionist Party of Punjab did not participate in this meeting.
The Nehru Report demanded universal suffrage for adults and responsible government both in the centre and in the provinces. It, however, supported the Dominion Status, not complete independence for India.
It meant that Indians would have freedom to legislate on certain limited matters under the control of the British India government. For this, the Nehru Report prepared list of central and provincial subjects, and fundamental rights. It also raised demands for universal suffrage for men and women adults.
Indeed, it was in 1934, a few years after the preparation of the Nehru report, that the Indian National Congress officially demanded a constitution of Indian people, without the interference of outsiders.
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY
The Cripps Mission
Initially, the colonial authorities resisted the demand for creation of a Constitution of India. But with the change in the circumstances – the outbreak of the World War II and formation of the new Coalition (Labour-led) government in Britain, the British government was forced to acknowledge the urgency to solve the problem related to Constitution of Indians.
In 1942, the British government sent its cabinet member – Sir Stafford Cripps with the draft declaration on proposals (regarding formation of constitution for Indians) to be implemented at the end of the WW II provided both the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress had agreed to accept them.
The draft proposals of the Cripps Mission recommended the following:
Both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League did not accept the proposals of the Cripps Mission. The Muslim League demanded that India should be divided on the communal lines and some provinces should form an independent state of Pakistan; and, there should be two Constituent Assemblies, one for Pakistan and another for India.
The Cabinet Mission
The British Indian government made several attempts to bridge the differences between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. But it was unsuccessful.
The British government sent another delegation of the Cabinet members, known as the Cabinet Delegation, which came to be known as the Cabinet Mission Plan. It consisted of three cabinet members – Lord Pathic Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and Mr. A.V. Alexander.
The Cabinet Delegation also failed to bring the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League to an agreement. It, however, made its own proposal which was announced simultaneously on 16 May, 1946 in England as well as in India.
The Cabinet delegation made the following recommendations:
Election to the Constituent Assembly
Meanwhile, according to the proposals of the Cabinet Mission, the election to the Constituent Assembly was held in which members of both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League were returned. The members of the Constituent Assembly were elected by the Provincial Legislative Assemblies.
However, differences between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League arose on interpretation of “Group Clauses” of the Cabinet Mission.
The British government intervened at this stage and explained to the leaders in London that the contention of the Muslim League was correct. And on December 6, 1946, the British Government published a statement, which for the first time acknowledged the possibility of two Constituent Assemblies and two States.
As a result, when the Constituent Assembly first met on December 9, 1946, it was boycotted by the Muslim League, and it functioned without the participation of the Muslim League.
NATURE OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY’S REPRESENTATION
It is often argued that the Constituent Assembly of India did not represent the masses of India because its representatives were not elected through the universal adult franchise. Rather they were indirectly elected by the restricted adult franchise confined to the elite sections of society – the educated and tax payers.
According to Granville Austin the reasons for the restricted franchise and indirect election to the Constituent Assembly members were spelled by the Cabinet Mission Plan. These were to avoid the cumbersome and slow progress in the process of Constitution making.
The Cabinet Mission provided for the indirect election to the Constituent Assembly by the elected members of the provincial legislature. The Indian National Congress agreed to this proposal of the Cabinet Mission forsaking the claim of adult franchise to hold election to the Constituent Assembly.
Despite having been elected through the restricted adult franchise, the Constituent Assembly represented different shades of opinions and religious communities of India. Austin observed that though there was a majority of the Indian National Congress in the Constituent Assembly, it had an “unwritten and unquestioned belief” that the Indian National Congress should represent social and ideological diversity.
There was also its “deliberate policy” that the representatives of various minority communities and viewpoints should be represented in the Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly consisted of members with different ideological orientations, and three religious communities -Sikhs, Muslims and General (Hindus and all other communities like the Anglo-Indians, Parsis, etc).
In words of K. Santaram “There was hardly any shade of opinion not represented in the Assembly”. Majority of the Constituent Assembly members belonged to the Indian National Congress. It also included more than a dozen non-Indian National Congress members.
Some of these were A.K. Ayyer, H.N. Kunjru, N.G. Ayyanger, S.P. Mukherjee and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. S.P. Mookerji represented the Hindu Mahasabha.
The Constituent Assembly included representatives from the Princely States as well. It needs to be underscored that Dr. Ambedkar was initially elected to the Constituent Assembly from Bengal as member of the Scheduled Caste Federation. But he lost this seat due to the partition of Bengal and was re-elected by the Bombay Indian National Congress (as a non-Indian National Congress candidate) at the request of the Indian National Congress High Command.
The Constituent Assembly sought to address concerns of every person irrespective of their social and cultural orientations. Before incorporating a provision in the constitution, it held elaborate deliberations. Thus, the members of the Constituent Assembly could overcome the limitations of having been elected by the restricted franchise.
The Constituent Assembly sought to accommodate universal values of democracy. The Constituent Assembly adopted several provisions from different constitutions of world and adapted them to the needs of India. In fact, Austin argues that while incorporating different provisions in the Constitution including those which were borrowed from other countries the Constituent Assembly adopted “two wholly Indian concepts” of resolving differences among its members, i.e., consensus and accommodation.
Most members of the Constituent Assembly participated in its proceedings. But these were twenty individuals who played the most influential role in the Assembly.
Some of them were Rajendra Prasad, Maulan Azad, Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Govind Ballabh Pant, P. Sitaramayya, A.K. Ayyar, N.G. Ayyangar, K.M. Munshi, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Satyanarayan Sinha. Though the Constituent Assembly was the sole forum where deliberations took place, yet the deliberations took place in coordination of three bodies – the Constituent Assembly, the Indian National Congress Party, and the interim government.
Some members of the Constituent Assembly were also members of other bodies at the same time. Austin said that “an oligarchy” of four – Nehru, Patel, Prasad and Azad had enjoyed unquestioned honour and prestige in the Assembly. They dominated the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly.Some of these were simultaneously in the government, Indian National Congress Party and the Constituent Assembly.
Prasad was President of Indian National Congress before becoming the President of the Constituent Assembly. Patel and Nehru were Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister respectively at the same time. They were part of the inner circles of the committees of the Constituent Assembly.
The Constitution Drafting Committee meticulously incorporated in the draft constitution the decisions of the Constituent Assembly. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, chairman of the Drafting Committee played the leading role in drafting of the Constitution.
Acknowledging the pivotal role of Dr. Ambedkar, T.T. Krishnamachari, a member of the Drafting Committee, said in one of his speeches: “The House is perhaps aware that out of the seven members nominated by you, one had resigned from the house and was replaced. One had died and was not replaced. One was away in America and his place was not filled up, and another person was engaged in State Affairs, and there was a void to that extent. One or two people were far away from Delhi and perhaps reasons of health did not permit them to attend. So it happened ultimately that the burden of drafting this constitution fell upon Dr. Ambedkar and I have no doubt that we are grateful to him for having achieved this task in a manner which is undoubtedly commendable.”
Dr. Ambedkar on his part “gave much of credit” to S.N. Mukerjee – B.N. Rau’s and Ambedkar’s assistant, the Drafting Officer of the Assembly, “for the careful wording of the Constitution”.
THE ROLE OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY IN THE MAKING OF INDIAN CONSTITUTION 1946-1949
The inaugural session of the Constituent Assembly was held on 9 December 1946. It was supposed to be attended by all 296 members but only 207 members could attend it because the Muslim League members absented from it.
As stated earlier, they had boycotted the Constituent Assembly. In this meeting, Acharya J.B. Kripalani requested Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha to be the temporary chairman of the House. The members passed a resolution on 10 December 1946 for election of a permanent chairman, and on 11 December 1946, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected as the permanent Chairman of the Constituent Assembly.
The Constituent Assembly divided its work among different committees for its smooth functioning. Some of the important committees were:
(a) Union Power Committee. It was chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru and had nine members;
(b) Committee on Fundamental Rights and Minorities. It had 54 members and Sardar Ballabh bhai Patel was its chairman;
(c) Steering Committee and its 3 members which included Dr. K.M. Munshi (chairman), Gopalaswami Iyangar and Bhagwan Das;
(d) Provincial Constitution Committee. It had 25 members with Sardar Patel as its chairman;
(e) Committee on Union Constitution. It had 15 members with Jawahalal Nehru as its chairman.
After discussing the reports of these committees, the Constituent Assembly appointed a Drafting Committee on 29 August 1947 under the chairmanship of Dr. B.R. Ambedakar. The draft was prepared by Sir B.N. Rau, Advisor to the Constituent Assembly.
A 7-member Committee was constituted to examine the draft. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who was Law Minister as well as chairman of the Drafting Committee piloted the draft in the Assembly. Dr. Ambedkar presented “Draft Constitution of India”. The “Draft Constitution” was published in February, 1948.
It was discussed by the Constituent Assembly clause by in its several sessions and was completed by October 17, 1949. This discussion was known as the second reading. The Constituent Assembly again met on 14 November 1949 to discuss the draft further or to give it a third reading.
It was finalised on 26 November 1949 after receiving the signature of the President of the Constituent Assembly. But it was January 26, 1950 which became the date of commencement of the Constitution.
SALIENT FEATURES OF THE CONSTITUION
The Indian Constitution has some salient features. These features give Indian Constitution a distinct identity. It is based on the features of different constitutions of the world. In the words of Dr. Ambedkar, The Indian constitution was prepared “after ransacking all the known Constitutions of the world”.
The chapter on Fundamental Rights is based on the American Constitution; the Parliamentary System has been adopted from the British Constitution; the Directive Principles of State Policy have been adopted from the constitution of Ireland; the Emergency provisions are based on the Constitution of Weimar (Germany) and Government of India Act, 1935.
The features which have been borrowed from other Constitutions have been modified in the light of the needs of our country. It is the longest written constitution. At the time of its formation, the constitution of India had 395 Articles and 8 Schedules. It ensures both Justiciable and Non-Justiciable Rights: Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of the State Policy.The constituent makers preferred universal adult franchise over the separate electorates.
Universal Adult Suffrage and Abolition of the Separate Electorate
After debating its draft list of Fundamental rights the Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights did not recommend inclusion of all of them in the section III of the Constitution as the Fundamental Rights. Instead, it suggested that these should be incorporated in other places in the Constitution.
One such example is that of the Universal suffrage, and Secrete and periodic elections. The sub Committee agreed unanimously in favour of the Universal suffrage but suggested that it should not be part of the Fundamental Rights.
Accordingly, it was placed in the Article 326 of the Part XV on election.The word “universal”, however, is missing from the Article 326. But the fact that every adult citizen of the country is entitled to vote makes it practically a universal adult franchise.
In fact, before Indians really got the right to universal adult franchise, the prominent leaders of the Indian National movement strove for the abolition of the separate electorate in favour of the joint electorate.
The British had sought to continue separate electorate in India since the Morley-Minto reforms, 1909 till the Communal Award of 1932 in the Constitution.
The Communal Award aimed to accord separate electorate for Muslims, Europeans, Sikhs, Indian Christians and Anglo-Indians. It also provided for seats for the Depressed Classes which were to be filled in elections from special constituencies. In such constituencies only the depressed classes could vote.
In addition, the depressed classes were also entitled to vote in general constituencies. Gandhi opposed the recommendation of the notion of separate electorate for the depressed classes. In opposition to the proposal for separate electorate, he set on fast unto death in September 1932. Gandhi’s fast evoked opposition from Ambedkar. However, both Gandhi and Ambedkar reached compromise in Poona Pact.
According to the Poona Pact, seats were reserved for the depressed classes in the general constituencies. This resulted in the abolition of the separate electorate.The abolition of separate electorate got reflected in the reservation of seats in the legislative bodies Constitution.
CONCLUSION
The making of Indian Constitution largely consisted of two phases – 1858 to 1935 and 1946 to 1949. With the transfer of power from the East India Company to the British Crown, the British government introduced different elements of governance through different Acts.
These also included the elements of representation of Indians in the institutions of governance. The motive of the British to introduce them was to serve their colonial interests rather than to provide democratic rights to them. The provision for communal representation introduced through the Morley-Minto Reforms in 1909 and through the Communal Award in 1932 was opposed by the leaders of the Indian National Movement.
Gandhi’s fast resulted in the Poona Pact abolishing the separate electorate and in giving the reservation to the depressed classes in the provincial legislature. After the Indian National Congress emphasized the need for making of a Constitution of India by their own Constitient Assembly, the changed political situation following the Second World War and change of government in Britain, the British reluctantly realized the urgency for establishment of the Constituent Assembly of India for Indians.
The Constituent Assembly which was set up following the recommendations of the Cabinet Mission Plan was elected through the restricted adult franchise by the provincial assemblies. Despite having elected by the privileged sections of the society, the Constituent Assembly represented different shades of opinions and ideologies.
It also represented different social groups of India. The Constituent Assembly discussed all issues thoroughly before reaching decision on them. The decision and suggestions of different sub-Committees of the Constituent Assembly were finally incorporated in the Constitution of India.
The Constitution of India is a document which provides a vision for social change. The Constitution is an embodiment of principles of liberal democracy and secularism, with some elements of social democracy. It ensures protection of cultural, linguistic and religious rights of individuals and communities.