Now coming to the Constitution, on the 6th of December 1946 before entering this House, this memorable hall which has been renovated particularly for framing of this Constitution which will be remembered in the history of India, some of us, friends were informally discussing what will be the type of Constitution and how much time would it take. One of the well-known Members of this House, who has subsequently resigned, stated to me, Sir, that the Britishers are not going to leave India and this Constitution will be a second Nehru Report. Another honourable Friend Seth Govind Das told me that it will take six months: I said it will take the least two years. (Shri Mahavir Tyagi You were right). From experience we have seen that today is exactly three years, or rather to be more accurate 15 days less than three years, when we have completed this Constitution. On the 1st of February 1948 after our deliberations from the 9th December 1946 to 1947 a draft Constitution was presented to us. It included 313 articles in the Constitution. Today we have now presented to this House 395 articles, that is to say 82 new articles were inserted. Then there were nearly 220 old articles which were simply scrapped off and in the case of nearly 120 articles the phraseology is materially changed. Accepting the preamble without a change or single comma or punctuation, several articles have been changed and I am very glad–and the House is also glad that we have by experience thought it desirable that it was not in a hurry that we should prepare a Constitution. We are therefore right in taking this long time and preparing a Constitution forwhich we shall all be proud. There have been criticisms outside this hall that we have taken a long time and wasted some money. I give no countenance to that. It was also stated that some of us were sending amendments for the purpose of sending amendments and making speeches. We did not countenance or listen to their arguments. We were fighting our battles in this Constitution Hall, to put our views and we have fought our battle very well, and I am glad that the Drafting Committee have taken our battles in the right spirit. We have done our duty. Proceedings in the matter of record are there for future generations to see and the historians will have to judge whether we have wasted the time or we have done our duty to the people of this country and framed a Constitution, for which all of us are proud and I am very proud too.
