Constituent Assembly of India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Constituent Assembly of India was elected to write the Constitution of India, and served as its first Parliament as an independent nation.
Contents |
[edit] Election
The Constituent Assembly of India was set up as a result of negotiations between the Indian leaders and members of the British Cabinet Mission. The constituent assembly was elected indirectly by the members of the Provincial legislative assembly. The Congress secured an overwhelming majority in the general seats while the Muslim League managed to sweep almost all the seats reserved for Muslims. The Congress had a majority of 69%. There were also members from smaller parties like the Scheduled Caste Federation, the Communist Party of India and the Unionist Party.
It first met on December 9, 1946 in Delhi, while India was still under British rule. It originally included the provinces that now compose Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the representation of the princely states of India. In June 1947, the delegations from the provinces of Sindh, East Bengal, Baluchistan, West Punjab and the North West Frontier Province formed the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in Karachi.
The final Constituent Assembly had two hundred and seven representatives, including fifteen women. Only 28 members of the Muslim League finally joined the Indian Assembly. Later, 93 members were nominated from the princely states. The Congress thus secured a majority of 82%.
On August 15, 1947, India became an independent nation, and the Constituent Assembly became India's Parliament.
[edit] Organization
Dr.Sachidanand Sinha was the first president of the Constituent Assembly when it met on December 9,1946. Dr. Rajendra Prasad then became the President of the Constituent Assembly, and would later became the first President of India. The Vice Pesident of the Constituent Assembly was Professor Harendra Kumar Mookerjee, former Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University and a prominent Christian from Bengal who also served as the Chairman of the Minorities Committee of the Constituent Assembly. He was appointed Governor of West Bengal after India became a republic.
The Assembly, much like the modern Parliament system, was divided into committees and sub-committees to deal with specific branches of government. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar served as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, responsible for writing the Constitution. The Constituent Assembly represented a wide spectrum of Indian society. The Congress made a special effort to nominate women and other minorities. Despite, its wide diversity, historians indicate that the proceedings were controlled by a handful of prominent leaders, namely, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad and Maulana Azad.
[edit] Constitution and elections
See Also: Constitution of India
The Assembly approved the Constitution on January 26, 1949, making it official. On January 26, 1950, the Constitution took effect — a day now commemorated as Republic Day nationwide.
At this point, the Constituent Assembly became the Provisional Parliament of India, until the first elections under the new Constitution took place in 1952.
[edit] Committees under the Constituent Assembly
Name of the Committee Chairman
- Committee on the Rules of procedure -
Rajendra Prasad
- Steering Committee Rajendra Prasad
- Finance and Staff Committee Rajendra Prasad
- Credential Committee Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar
- House Committee B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya
- Order of Business Committee K.M. Munshi
- Ad hoc Committee on the National Flag Rajendra Prasad
Committee on the Functions of the G.V. Mavalankar Constituent Assembly States Committee Jawaharlal Nehru Advisory Committee on Vallabhbhai Patel Fundamental Rights, Minorities and Tribal and Excluded Areas Minorities Sub-Committee H.C. Mookherjee Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee J.B. Kripalani North-East Frontier Tribal Areas Gopinath Bardoloi and Assam. Excluded & Partially Excluded Areas Sub-Committee Excluded and Partially Excluded A.V. Thakkar Areas (Other than those in Assam) Sub-Committee Union Powers Committee Jawaharlal Nehru Union Constitution Committee Jawaharlal Nehru Drafting Committee B.R. Ambedkar
[edit] Members of the Indian Constituent Assembly
Indian National Congress
- Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister
- Sardar Patel, Home Minister
- Maulana Azad, Minister for Education,
- Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Chairman of the Assembly
- C. Rajagopalachari
- Sarat Chandra Bose
- Satyendra Narayan Sinha
- Rafi Ahmed Kidwai
- Asaf Ali
- Syama Prasad Mookerjee, President, Hindu Mahasabha
- Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Minister for Health
- Hansa Mehta, President, All India Women's Conference
- Prof. N.G. Ranga
- Kailashnath Katju
- T.T. Krishnamachari
- Durgabai Deshmukh
- K.M. Munshi
- Frank Anthony
- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
- Dr. John Mathai
- Pratap Singh Kairon
- Prof. Shibbanlal Saxena
- R. K. Shanmukham Chetty
- Jagjivan Ram, President, All India Depressed Classes League
- Pandit Govind Ballab Pant, Premier, United Provinces
- Minoo Masani
- Renuka Ray
- Purushottam Das Tandon
- Mahavir Tyagi
- Thakur Das Bhargava
- Bhagwan Das
- Feroze Gandhi
- B. Shiva Rao
- Jairamdas Daulatram
- Annie Mascarenas
- Bhograju Pattabhi Sitaramayya
- Kamraj
- Ammu Swaminathan
- Purnima Banerjee
- Vijayalakshmi Pandit
- Sarojini Naidu
- Jaipal Singh Munda
- Jagjivan Ram
- Dakshayani Velayudan
- Reverend Jerome D'Souza
- Reverend JJM Nichols-Roy
- Gopinath Bordoloi
- Malati Choudhury
- Leela Roy
- Biswanath Das, Premier of Orissa
- Acharya Kriplani
- Sucheta Kriplani
- Harendra Coomar Mookerjee
- Gopi Krishna Vijayvargiya
- Pandit Raghunath Vinayak Dhulekar, Member of Parliament, 1952,Jhansi
Muslim League
- Begum Aizaz Rasul, Vice President (later President)Muslim League (India)
- Maulana Hasrat Mohani
- Kazi Syed Karimuddin
- Chaudhary Khaliquzzaman, President, Muslim League (India)
- Naziruddin Ahmad
- Z.H Lari
- Mohammad Saadullah, Premier of Assam
- Aziz Ahmed Khan
- Maulana Daud Bazhnavi
Scheduled Caste Federation
Akalis
- Sardar Hukum Singh
Communist
- Somnath Lahiri
[edit] See also
- History of Independent India, Constitution of India
- Indian Independence Movement
- Constituent Assembly
- Some facts of the Constituent Assembly
- Debates of the Constituent Assembly The debates of the constituent assembly were held in the process of drafting the Indian Constitution.
