Many an imperfection has been ascribed to our Constitution by some of my learned friends. They say that it falls short of our ideals and principles. May I invite their attention to the constitutions that had been framed hitherto by democratic countries in the world? Look at the American constitution. Look at the time it took to frame it in its final shape. Had it not to undergo a series of changes and then take its final shape after the Declaration of Independence, eleven years after the Declaration of Independence at the Convention of Philadelphia? Had not the constitution of Canada to go through so many changes, before it was finally settled at the Quebec Convention ? And since then has it not been undergoing changes till today? Look at the Constitution of Australia. Had it not to go through many changes and wait till the Convention at Sydney? It had to be shaped and reshaped, modelled and remodelled in the cauldron of public opinion at Sydney. There was the Constitution of South Africa, a constitution meant only for the White race discriminating against the natives. Even that constitution had to wait till 1943 to take its final shape. If you have a cursory glance at the constitutions of other democratic countries before us, you will find that France started its constitution with the storming of the Bastille and it had to wait for 100 years before it could frame its constitution; meanwhile it swung between dictatorship and republicanism. Is there any other nation in the world today which deliberately elected a Constituent Assembly which sat for three years continuously and framed its constitution? May I invite the attention of my honourable friends to the fact that we have evolved a model constitution based on democracy and that constitution will stand the stress and strain of times like the American constitution till it proves to the world that a continental country like India can have a democratic constitution and work it too to the glory of all the world.
