Question

mention The Gandhian Thoughts which are the part of our constituiton .​

Answer 1

Answer:

The Gandhian Constitution of Free India was published in 1946. Unlike what the title suggests, M.K. Gandhi did not write the document. Shriman Narayan Agarwal, a Gandhian economist, drafted it based on Gandhi’s ideas. Gandhi wrote a foreword to the document in which he said that the constitution was “based on his [Agarwal’s] study of my writings” and is not “inconsistent with what I would like to stand for.’

In his introductory remarks, Agarwal said that any constitution that is drawn up for India must ideally be based on an indigenous constitutional tradition – a tradition which he believed existed in ancient times. A study of India’s ‘past constitutional developments’, Agarwal argued, reveals experimentation ‘with monarchy, autocracy, democracy, republicanism and even anarchy’. Agarwal felt it was inappropriate and even an ‘insult’ to ‘merely manufacture for her [India] a mixture of Western constitutions’.

The Gandhian Constitution was a 60-page document divided into 22 chapters that included ‘Basic Principles’, ‘Fundamental Rights and Duties’, ‘Provincial Government’, ‘Central Government’, and the ‘Judiciary’. It was mostly descriptive and explanatory, though some parts are written in a legalistic style in the form of draft clauses.

The document contained a number of noteworthy features. It strongly advocated for a decentralised political and administrative setup with village panchayats as the core units. These units aggregate to form upper levels of government. Village panchayats were given extensive powers that included judicial functions as well. Fundamental duties were conjoined with fundamental rights; the document explicitly states that rights are contingent on the performance of duties. Ironically, the Gandhian Constitution contained a provision for a ‘right to bear arms’.