A person who set out to make an image of Vinayaka–Ganesh–ultimately got out of it a model of monkey. That is what has happened to the labours of the Drafting Committee. The Drafting Committee hoped-or at least we hoped-that the Committee would consider the various suggestions made in the House and embody them in the new draft. But that was not to be. The Constitution has been founded–at any rate, we the founding fathers here have tried to found the Constitution–on what I would call the “Grand Affirmation” of fundamental rights. We have tried to build on that the edifice of democracy, but I find surmounting that edifice is the arch of the “Great Negation”. First, the grand affirmation, then that edifice, at any rate that facade of democracy and surmounting that edifice or facade is the great negation of Part XI the notorious negation of Part XI; and article 280 is to my mind the key-stone of this arch of autocratic reaction.
