India becomes a republic

08/17/17 • 3 min

Most people understand the word constitution. They also know that a country is governed by a constitution. But beyond this, they usually do not go. Most of us do not know why or how our constitution was made, because we think it is a difficult matter. Difficult to understand. Which it is not. In very simple terms, Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now as any country is made of people, we can say the laws are primarily made for them. Constitution gives power. It confers and explains rights, functions, principles, restrictions and obligations on the part of individual, states and everybody who is a citizen of India. The purpose of the Constitution is to maintain harmonious relations between the individuals and the states on one hand and between the different organs of the government on the other. Almost all countries in the world are run based on some constitution. Lets say the constitution ensures that a country does not work according to whims and fancies of someone, but there is a legal framework given to run a society, and more importantly it provides stability. Rulers or governments can change but the laws generally do not change randomly. The Constitution of India was drawn up by a Constituent Assembly initially summoned on December 9, 1946, under the president-ship of Sachidananda Sinha. This obviously, was organized with an undivided India in mind. On August 14, 1947, the Constituent Assembly met as the Sovereign Constituent Assembly for the Dominion of India. After the demise of Sinha, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was entrusted with the job on August 29 1947. Constitutional provisions were adopted from the constitutions of various countries of the world such as Britain, United States, France, Germany, Japan, China, Canada, Australia, South Africa and the Soviet Constitution. Of course, it was not a case of mere copy and paste, as we say nowadays. All of these were debated, studied and adopted with keeping Indian society in mind. A draft constitution was published in February 1948 and public opinion was invited. This makes it clear that constitution is not something that is god-send, or something that is forced upon us. It is a public document, and it is considered as the voice of the people. As we discussed before, Indian leaders demanded complete independence and have been observing 26 January as a sort of ‘independence day’ since 1930, , it was decided to bring the Constitution in operation on 26th January 1950, recognizing the significance of that day. It is interesting to know that the Constitution of India is one of the lengthiest and the most detailed compared to any constitutions in the world. It contains 450 articles. And in these 67 years, it has by and large maintained ts sanctity and it is still in operation. The constitution begins as WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. Each word here is loaded with so many meanings and connotations and it a topic of lengthy discussions. But suffices to say, with adoption of this constitution, India became an official republic and therefore, we celebrate 26th January every year as the republic day.

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What is India @ 70?

We always learn so many things in school. And then when we grow up, we realize half of them are of no use or they are taught without a perspective. Now the same applies to our textbooks in history. We always learned some random dates, some articles of treaties, some names of places and in general a lot to remember. To mug up and write in papers. Most of it was from one or two or 6 or twelve centuries ago. Specifically with India, our history textbooks stopped at 1947, when India got independent. As if nothing of significance has happened after that. Today, India as an independet country celebrates 70 years of existence. So much happened in those seventy years, so much to be proud of, so much to grieve, so much to remember and so much to learn from it. The country has come a long way with respect to everything in those seven decades. So many things of these 70 years affect us today. And yet we never learned all this in the school textbooks. India at 70 by Itihaas does precisely that. Through this season, we learn about marked moments in India's post independence history. Moments in last 70 years. They are not in chronological or rather in any order. These are moments, things, incidences and inventions of all kinds. But they, in some way or the other, make india what it is today. They are of that significance. So today onwards, we meet through this podcast. We understand what all happened in these 70 years, through small episodes, and we understand how India stands at 70.