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In the final decade of colonial rule, India’s princely states — partly sovereign regions governed by monarchs under the British Crown’s paramountcy — faced a profound constitutional reckoning. Spurred by the movement for independence and parallel demands for self-governance within their own territories, some of these states set out to draft constitutions that addressed the changing […]
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You may have noticed from our earlier desk briefs, blog posts and pretty much all the writing on ConstitutionofIndia.net, that we are obsessed with Historical Constitutions. We are constantly engaging with documents written prior to 1946 that put forward a constitutional imagination for India. Our section on the Historical Constitutions presents carefully selected, edited and […]
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On 28 April 1947, the Constituent Assembly of India reconvened after a 2-month break. This sitting began with eighteen new members presenting their credentials to the Assembly President. In the early stages of constitution-making, fresh faces continued to stream into the Assembly. The new members who joined on this day marked something significant: the participation […]
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Very few Indians had the distinction of being constitution framers twice over. In fact, there were only four: Sheikh Abdullah, Moti Ram Baigra, Mirza Afzal Beg and Maulana Mohammad Masoodi. On 22 January 1950, they joined their fellow Assembly colleagues to sign the Constitution of India 1950. But unlike their fellow Constituent Assembly members, constitution-making […]