Sir, the Constitution of a country always is a very important and precious document, because it gives us an idea of how the great people of a country fashion their institutions, how they want to live, what are the political arrangements under which they exercise their judgment and what are the hopes and aspirations which they entertain for the future. Sir, when we are considering the present Constitution, our minds involuntarily go back to the olden times and contemplates the stages through which India has passed and recalls those periods, the recent periods in the history of our political subjection, when we were told that we were hardly a nation, that we were divided among ourselves in mutually hostile groups, that democratic institutions were congenitally not suited to Indian conditions, etc. We were told in patronising and high sounding phrases that the goal of this country will be the increasing association of Indians in the governance of the country with a view to the gradual realisation of responsible self-government. There was a time when in any concessions in the form of liberty which were granted to us, words such as ‘Our subjects or whatever race, creed or colour will be impartially admitted to office and service’, or ‘No native of India will in future be debarred from employment by reason of birth, descent or colour’, or ‘We shall respect the right and the dignity and honour of the native princes as our own’ were used. These phrases, in short, summed up the conception that was before those who were in charge of our destiny, meant for the future of the country. From such a conception of things we know with what gesture of impatience of country turned away and took, in historical words, the Independence Pledge which other countries have also taken whenever freedom was denied to them. We pledged that: “We believe that it is the inalienable right of the people of India to get liberty and freedom.” With these words we entered upon a new career and worked for the independence of this country. And today we find that in this Constitution are embodied those historical words which were again raised in some other corner of the world and have since then been making a circle round the world and will continue to circulate till it becomes a reality. These words are the call of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity which today find a place in our Constitution.
