May I submit that this Constituent Assembly and the work it has before it–the framing of a constitution for India, was presaged if not prophesied more than a hundred years ago? I say “Presaged” and not “Prophesied” because a prophecy connotes something favourable to the prophet as well as to the people but presaging signifies a sort of warning. It was presaged more than a hundred years ago when Burke, referring to the imperial control of England over her Indian Empire, applied to it the doctrine of trusteeship. He declared that as soon as the child India comes of age the trusteeship must end.
