CRITICISM OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

The critics have criticized the Constituent Assembly on various grounds.

These are as follows:

  1.  Not a Representative Body: The critics have argued that the Constituent Assembly was not a representative body as its members were not directly elected by the people of India on the basis of universal adult franchise.

  2. Not a Sovereign Body: The critics maintained that the Constituent Assembly was not a sovereign body as it was created by the proposals of the British Government. Further, they said that the Assembly held its sessions with the permission of the British Government.

  3. Time Consuming: According to the critics, the Constituent Assembly took an unduly long time to make the Constitution. They stated that the framers of the American Constitution took only four months to complete their work. In this context, Naziruddin Ahmed, a member of the Constituent Assembly, coined a new name for the Drafting Committee to show his contempt for it. He called it a “Drifting Committee”.

  4. Dominated by Congress: The critics charged that the Constituent Assembly was dominated by the Congress party. Granville Austin, a British Constitutional expert, remarked: ‘The Constituent Assembly was a one-party body in an essentially one-party country. The Assembly was the Congress and the Congress was India’.

  5. Lawyer–Politician Domination: It is also maintained by the critics that the Constituent Assembly was dominated by lawyers and politicians. They pointed out that other sections of the society were not sufficiently represented. This, to them, is the main reason for the bulkiness and complicated language of the Constitution.

  6. Dominated by Hindus: According to some critics, the Constituent Assembly was a Hindu dominated body. Lord Viscount Simon called it ‘a body of Hindus’. Similarly, Winston Churchill commented that the Constituent Assembly represented ‘only one major community in India’.


IMPORTANT FACTS

  1. Elephant was adopted as the symbol (seal) of the Constituent Assembly.

  2. Sir B.N. Rau was appointed as the constitutional advisor (Legal advisor) to the Constituent Assembly.

  3. H.V.R. Iyengar was the Secretary to the Constituent Assembly.

  4. S.N. Mukerjee was the chief draftsman of the constitution in the Constituent Assembly.

  5. Prem Behari Narain Raizada was the calligrapher of the Indian Constitution. The original constitution was handwritten by him in a flowing italic style.

  6. The original version was beautified and decorated by artists from Shantiniketan including Nand Lal Bose and Beohar Rammanohar Sinha. 

  7. Beohar Rammanohar Sinha illuminated, beautified and ornamented the original Preamble calligraphed by Prem Behari Narain Raizada.

  8. The calligraphy of the Hindi version of the original constitution was done by Vasant Krishan Vaidya and elegantly decorated and illuminated by Nand Lal Bose.