The Making of the Constitution Test - 4

The Constituent Assembly that came into being in 1946 was dominated by the Congress. The Socialists were initially unwilling to join, for they believed the Constituent Assembly to be a British creation, and hence not being truly autonomous.

Hindustani is a blend of Hindi and Urdu. It was a popular language of a large section of the people of India. It was a composite language. It had developed over the years and had assimilated the words of other languages. However, after independence, the idea of having national language was dropped in order to respect the feelings of linguistic communities. Hindi is an official language of India.

On 24 January 1950, 284 members of the Constituent Assembly  signed  the  Indian Constitution  at the  Constitution  Hall, now known as the Central Hall of Parliament, in  New  Delhi.

Apart from the Muslim League, which boycotted the Constituent Assembly, demanding a separate constitution for the new country of Pakistan, the Socialists were also initially unwilling to join the Constituent Assembly. This was because they viewed it as a British creation, due to which, they felt, it could not function independently.

During the period of British rule, Ambedkar was a political opponent of the Indian National Congress. But, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, he was asked, at India 's independence, to join the Union Cabinet as Law Minister.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, an economist, and a lawyer, joined the Union Cabinet as the Law Minister and served as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee. The Government of India honored Dr.Ambedkar by awarding India 's highest civilian award, the  ‘Bharat Ratna ’, in the year 1990, posthumously to the architect of the Indian Constitution, which came into force from 26th January 1950.

The Indian Constitution, which was completed in December 1949, was adopted officially on  26th January 1950. Consequently, India  became a republic country on that day.

On 27th August 1947, B. Pocker Bahadur from Madras made pleaded for continuing separate electorates. In his view, only separate electorates would ensure that minorities, especially Muslims, had a meaningful voice in the governance of India. However, this provoked anger and dismay amongst most nationalists, with many of their arguments opposing the demand. Most of them saw separate electorates as a deliberate measure to divide Indians.

Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was the President of the Congress, the single largest party enjoying the majority in the assembly at the time of Indian independence. Hence, he was elected as the first Prime Minister of independent  India, while Dr Rajendra Prasad became the first President of the Indian Union.

The Constituent Assembly drafted the Indian Constitution. The main members of the Constitution Assembly were Harendra Kumar Mukherjee, B.R Ambedkar, Krishnaswamy Iyer, K M Munshi, Ganesh Mavlankar, Sarojini Naidu, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and many more. The members of the Constituent Assembly met for the first time in New Delhi on 9th December, 1946, in the Constitution Hall, which is now known as the Central Hall of Parliament House.