70th Independence Day: How Hindu members drafted a resilient Constitution

About 300 people were in Assembly, but BR Ambedkar is called architect of our Constitution

The Samveda is derived almost entirely from the Rigveda, with much common text. So also our Constitution. About four-fifths of that voluminous document is taken from the Government of India Act of 1935, much of it word for word. But it is the new stuff that is actually in it, and also the material that was deliberately left out, that makes it a text that was good enough to have survived the decades in such good shape.

All around us, constitutions have failed (Pakistan is currently, if I am not mistaken, on its fourth edition), while ours has carried us through. To whom should we owe our gratitude? 

About 300 women and men were in India’s Constituent Assembly, but B R Ambedkar is called the principal architect of our Constitution. Why? In the words of T T Krishnamachari: “The House is perhaps aware that of the seven members nominated by you (Rajendra Prasad), one had resigned from the House and was replaced. One 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 on 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.”

To those that may be confused by the writings of such people as Arun Shourie, who has written a text that seeks to reduce Ambedkar’s contribution, the lines above should suffice as an explanation for why Ambedkar was important.

The other individual to have worked a lot on the text was the bureaucrat B N Rau, who was legal advisor to the Assembly and wrote its first draft, having travelled across the world to consult constitution experts. However, it is Ambedkar’s spirit that we can sense in the words, especially in Articles 14, 15, 16 and 17, of the fundamental rights that are specific to India and its society. No other constitution specifies such things as access to wells, tanks and bathing ghats.

Along with Ambedkar, who was the drafting committee’s chairman, the other members were K M Munshi, Sayyad Mohd Sadulla, Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar, D P Khaitan, N Gopalaswami Ayyangar and B L Mitter. All of them, so far as I know, were lawyers. 

The government publishes a set of the Constituent Assembly debates in fine green binding that reveal the contributions and interventions made by the individuals in the 13 committees and sub-committees. These are, because they are debates, good reading even for those of us who are not constitutional scholars. 

To me the most important fact of the debates, important that is from our standpoint in 2017, is this: the Constituent Assembly was the Congress party debating itself. The conservatism of its Hindu members shows clearly in the debates on cattle slaughter. And yet the majoritarian nature of Hindu society, which exists, and which we are seeing the awakenings of today, is suppressed in the Constitution. Had the Assembly contained a large minority, to say nothing of a full majority as we have in today’s Lok Sabha, of individuals aligned to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, we would not have this Constitution. Forget what the prime minister and others have said about regarding the Constitution as they might a religious text. That is ritual; the reality is that we have a Congress constitution instead of a BJP one. 

What stopped the majoritarian impulse, particularly when we were in the throes of Partition and our politics and public debates would inevitably have taken on a menacing anti-Muslim tone? Jawaharlal Nehru and Ambedkar and the ghost of Gandhi, but also all the good women and men who were toiling away in those committees.

K M Munshi and B N Rau

They kept the instinct in check, and it would have been a quite remarkable feat to have done this in that period. This produced a constitution that survived seven decades, even if its essence is under attack today as the latent majoritarianism asserts itself.

The interesting question is: what could have been our future had they succumbed? It is not as the framers of our Constitution lacked the same strong sentiment that many of us feel today. Take Munshi, a Gujarati novelist who was a modernist (he took the side of Nehru against Gandhi and Tagore in the debate on whether English or mother tongue should be the medium of education), but also a conservative. His conservatism shows in his novels on Somnath and the glory of Gujarat’s pre-Muslim Rajput rulers. All Gujaratis of my age and the ones who came before us are coloured by the strong prejudices of Munshi. He parted with the Congress because he disagreed with Gandhi’s instruction to avoid akhadas (because they were inherently violent), and yet he was not plumping for Hindu rashtra.

The Assembly’s work was done by 1949. The same year, Pakistan, also going through a period of majoritarianism and also working on its constitution, passed its Objectives Resolution. Jinnah, the secular-minded leader had delivered a speech to the Pakistan Assembly telling them that religion had no part in the business of the state. However, this was insufficient to hold back the strong sentiment against Hindus and other minorities. 

1. “Sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone and the authority which He has delegated to the state of Pakistan, through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust.

2. This Constituent Assembly representing the people of Pakistan resolves to frame a constitution for the sovereign independent state of Pakistan.

3. The state shall exercise its powers and authority through the chosen representatives of the people.

4. The principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam, shall be fully observed.

5. The Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Quran and Sunnah.

6. Adequate provision shall be made for the minorities to freely profess and practise their religions and develop their cultures.”

There were a few Hindus in the Assembly at that point (because of East Pakistan, that is, Bangladesh) and one of them, Birat Chandra Mandal, made this observation: “I hear that ulemas are insisting on this principle of Islam. Are there not pundits in India who could not insist on political thinkers of India to adopt such a constitution?… the founder of this dominion most unequivocally said that Pakistan will be a secular state. That great leader of ours never said that the principles of the constitution will be based on Islam. So I want to tell you Sir, that we are going to commit a serious blunder, a very serious blunder, and we are going to do something which is unprecedented in the history of the world.” 

He was, of course, absolutely right in his assessment. 

In the 1980s, General Zia-ul-Haq knocked off the word “freely” from the last line about the minorities being able to freely profess and practise their faiths, however the damage had begun to come much earlier. Under Ayub Khan in the 1960s came a law that restricted the president’s office to a Muslim. Under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s came a law that did the same thing for the office of prime minister. Under Nawaz Sharif in the 1990s came a law, the 15th amendment, that turned Pakistan into a Sharia state. That amendment failed, but nothing stops another adventurer from trying the same thing because the Objectives Resolution heralds the direction with clarity. The apostatisation of the Ahmadi community of Pakistan, who today cannot call themselves Muslim (or refer to their mosque as mosque or their call to prayer as azaan) happened under a democratic parliament responding to the first principles of the constitution.

Mandal said something later that I found interesting. He said Jinnah had created the Hindu state. In his words: “During the last 800 years, there has been no Hindu dominion on the face of the globe. There was a Christian dominion, there was a Muslim dominion, but there was no Hindu dominion… It was our Quaid-e-Azam who created a Hindu dominion along with a Muslim dominion."

This was on March 9, 1949. Six months later, India finished a modern constitution with no reference to religion. Mandal was wrong in assuming that India’s Hindus would legislate a Hindu rashtra. That would have been a dangerous thing.

The most important fact of the debates, important that is from our standpoint in 2017, is this: the Constituent Assembly was the Congress party debating itself

It is why those who bang on in India about “secularism” have it absolutely right. 

There should be no monkey business with something that has served us so well from the beginning. The rise of the RSS politically under a great leader from Gujarat and the collapse of the Congress and those parties that still stand by secularism has today brought us to a crossing, where we may well choose to change our path and go down the one Pakistan went down.

Seven years from now, in 2025, we will mark the centenary of the founding of the RSS. I was speaking to the student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, a remarkable talent, unassuming and focused on the issues rather than himself which is astonishing for someone his age. He thinks that the BJP is working towards establishing a Hindu rashtra by 2025 and its actions and its focus areas today are with that in mind. I hope Kanhaiya is wrong, but we shall see.

After the close of the American constitution convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was exiting when someone from the crowd asked him what sort of government its founders had given America.  

Franklin answered: “A republic, if you can keep it.” 

After Independence, going through our roughest phase, we were given a republic by those great women and men. Let us hope we can keep it.