Opinion With freedom in 1947, the birth of the people’s Constitution
As the tricolour was hoisted on August 15, 1947, Indians collectively owned the Constitution-in-the-making, reimagining freedom as a transformation of their lives and rights
The Indian Constitution has become an anthem and a rallying point for its citizens. This may look and feel new, but in fact, the everyday relevance and invocation of the Constitution has never waned in India from the moment of its making. (Illustration by C R Sasikumar) 
About six months after India gained Independence, and shortly after the draft Constitution was published in February 1948, the social activist and journalist P Kodanda Rao, criticised its length. The draft ran to 209 pages, 315 articles and eight schedules. “The Indian Constitution,” he suggested, “may be so short that it may even be made the National Anthem and even inscribed on the National Flag. Only such a document will grip the imagination and evoke sentimental or emotional response, and not one with three hundred clauses which no one will ever know.” The final Constitution of 1950 was, however, even longer, with 395 articles, and 10 schedules, and it has continued to expand since then. Nonetheless, the Indian Constitution has become an anthem and a rallying point for its citizens.
This may look and feel new, but in fact, the everyday relevance and invocation of the Constitution has never waned in India from the moment of its making. This could not have been achieved by merely promulgating the Constitution in the name of the people. How, then, has the Constitution become from the time of its making, a site of struggle through which citizens assert their rights and claim remedies?
Publics across India, we discovered based on new archival materials, saw the Constitution-making as pregnant with possibilities for changing their lives for the better. Thousands of diverse groups, associations and individuals from across the length and breadth of the country developed a fever of constitutional expectations, articulating demands of the future Constitution, firing off missives to the Constituent Assembly, putting forward a range of constitutional ideas, wants and aspirations for what was to be, in their word, “our Constitution”.
Adivasi Gond students, to take one example, convened a conference in Nagpur three weeks after the Constituent Assembly first met with the object of uniting “aboriginal students”. They sent 16 demands to the Assembly, which included free and compulsory education, special scholarship, guarantees of government employment to incentivise education and representation in the university governance. The public engagement with the Constitution-making generated a churn of innovative rights claims. Informed by their daily life-experiences, the Indian public thought beyond conventional constitutional ideas, addressing, for example, disability, sexual violence, child rights and the right to food.
The public-intense engagement with the Constitution-making was unplanned and came as a surprise to the Constituent Assembly. Indeed, just ahead of the beginning of the constitutional debates, Assembly member K M Munshi suggested that the Assembly proceedings should be held behind closed doors to ensure the experts work efficiently, free from public pressure. The Indian public, however, had a different idea. They insisted on having a say and in participating. The scale of their demands ultimately forced the Constituent Assembly to open the Constitution-making process to the public. The draft Constitution of February 1948, which was now circulated for public comments, became a best seller with several reprints being sold even on railway stations. The public made it their own by producing unauthorised translations of the draft in numerous Indian languages, including Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, and Hindustani. Through this process, the Indian public was working out the Constitution’s potential implications for their lives. They criticised its limits, such as on civil liberties, and attempted to change it. At the same time, they already demanded that the government abide by the draft Constitution.
The Deaf and Dumb Society of India, as one example, pointed out to the Constituent Assembly that granting equal citizenship for all had little value to disabled people unless discrimination built into existing laws were removed, and the disabled were granted reservations in education and government jobs. The Constituent Assembly Secretariat assured them that universal adult franchise in the future Constitution would protect their rights. They responded furiously, stating that adult franchise would mean little to them unless there were constitutional guarantees for education, employment, anti-discrimination and their inclusion in the census.
Despite high levels of illiteracy, poverty, scarcity and the uncertainties wrought by the Partition, the Indian public was not a passive recipient of the Constitution, nor were they absent in its making. The process of making the Constitution animated their imagination. They understood what they were getting. And, most importantly, through collective public struggles, Indians made themselves the real protagonists in the theatre of constitutionalism. For the Indian public, therefore, the Constitution was not a sacred book or a textbook, to be interpreted only by “priests” — be they judges or legislators.
Indians made themselves constitutionalists ahead of the Constitution coming into force in 1950. As the tricolour was hoisted on August 15, 1947, their Constitution was already alive. Indians collectively owned the Constitution-in-the-making, reimagining freedom as a transformation of their lives — social, economic, and political. As they have demonstrated during the time of the constitution making and since, they have mobilised in pursuit of this transformative vision persistently.
De teaches at Yale University. Shani teaches at the University of Haifa. Their forthcoming book Assembling India’s Constitution will be published in 2025 with Cambridge University Press, and Penguin Random House India
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