But until the adoption of the resolution on Pakistan, in March 1940, by the Muslim League, that political organization had not favoured the idea of a Constituent Assembly as a proper and suitable method for framing a constitution for this country. After the adoption of that resolution, however, the attitude of the Muslim League seems to have undergone a change in favour of the idea of a Constituent Assembly-one for the areas claimed by the League for a separate Muslim State, and the other for the rest of India. Thus it may be stated that the idea of a Constituent Assembly, as the only direct means for the framing of a constitution in this country, came to be entertained and accepted by the two major political parties in 1940, with this difference that while the Congress desired one Constituent Assembly for India, as a whole, the Muslim League wanted two Constituent Assemblies, in accordance with its demand for two separate States in the country. Anyway, whether one or two, the idea of a Constituent Assembly being the proper method for the framing of a constitution had clearly dawned by that time on public consciousness in the country, and it was with reference to that great mental upheaval that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru declared that “it means a nation on the move, fashioning for itself a new Government of its own making, through their elected representatives”.
