What was the Gandhiji's visions regarding the constitution of newly independent India...
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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 says 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 says that any constitution that is drawn up for India must ideally be based on an indigenous constitutional tradition – a tradition which he believes existed in ancient times: a study of India’s ‘past constitutional developments’, Agarwal argues, shows 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 is a 60-page document that is divided into 22 chapters that include: ‘Basic Principles’, ‘Fundamental Rights and Duties’, ‘Provincial Government’, ‘Central Government’, and the ‘Judiciary’. It is mostly composed as a piece of descriptive and explanatory prose, though some parts are written in a legalistic style - in the form of draft clauses.
The document contains a number of noteworthy features. It strongly advocates a decentralised political and administrative setup with village panchayats as the core units. These units aggregate to form upper levels of government. Village panchayats are given extensive powers that include judicial functions as well. Fundamental duties are conjoined with fundamental rights; the document explicitly states that rights are contingent on the performance of duties. Ironically, the Gandhian Constitution contains a provision for a ‘right to bear arms’.
Niraja Jayal, in Citizenship and its Discontents, views theGandhian Constitution as one of the efforts of Indians to put forward ‘alternative constitutional imaginings’. It is not clear how the Gandhian Constitution was received when it was published and its impact on the intellectual ambience. However, we do know that inside the Constituent Assembly- that began drafting the Indian Constitution towards the end of 1946, there was significant discussion around Gandhian ideas.
During the constitution-making process, there were members of the Assembly who pushed for Gandhian ideas to be incorporated into the Constitution of India - especially the system of Panchayati Raj. These proposals, however, were opposed by other members notably B.R. Ambedkar. Ultimately, the Constituent Assembly rejected the idea of Panchayati Raj based administration as it would lead to reworking the form and structure of the Draft Constitution. Nonetheless, a provision (Article 40) for Panchayati Raj was placed in the non-justiciable Directive principles of State Policy along with other Gandhian inspired provisions related to alcohol prohibition (Article 47) and cottage industries (Article 43).
After the Constitution was enacted in 1950, the Gandhian Constitution was often cited in scholarly works that dealt with alternative conceptions of democracy, decentralisation and Gandhian thought. G.G. Mirchandani in Subverting the Constitution argues that around 1971 the Gandhian Constitution was revived by the Servants of the People – a social service organisation founded by Lala Lajpat Rai in 1921. The Gandhian Constitution, Mirchandani further suggests, influenced a document that the organisation produced titled ‘Place of Duty in our lives and the constitution of India’. Incidentally, the President of the organisation when this document was produced was Biswanath Das who had been a member of the Constituent Assembly.
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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 says 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 says that any constitution that is drawn up for India must ideally be based on an indigenous constitutional tradition – a tradition which he believes existed in ancient times: a study of India’s ‘past constitutional developments’, Agarwal argues, shows 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 is a 60-page document that is divided into 22 chapters that include: ‘Basic Principles’, ‘Fundamental Rights and Duties’, ‘Provincial Government’, ‘Central Government’, and the ‘Judiciary’. It is mostly composed as a piece of descriptive and explanatory prose, though some parts are written in a legalistic style - in the form of draft clauses.
The document contains a number of noteworthy features. It strongly advocates a decentralised political and administrative setup with village panchayats as the core units. These units aggregate to form upper levels of government. Village panchayats are given extensive powers that include judicial functions as well. Fundamental duties are conjoined with fundamental rights; the document explicitly states that rights are contingent on the performance of duties. Ironically, the Gandhian Constitution contains a provision for a ‘right to bear arms’.
Niraja Jayal, in Citizenship and its Discontents, views theGandhian Constitution as one of the efforts of Indians to put forward ‘alternative constitutional imaginings’. It is not clear how the Gandhian Constitution was received when it was published and its impact on the intellectual ambience. However, we do know that inside the Constituent Assembly- that began drafting the Indian Constitution towards the end of 1946, there was significant discussion around Gandhian ideas.
During the constitution-making process, there were members of the Assembly who pushed for Gandhian ideas to be incorporated into the Constitution of India - especially the system of Panchayati Raj. These proposals, however, were opposed by other members notably B.R. Ambedkar. Ultimately, the Constituent Assembly rejected the idea of Panchayati Raj based administration as it would lead to reworking the form and structure of the Draft Constitution. Nonetheless, a provision (Article 40) for Panchayati Raj was placed in the non-justiciable Directive principles of State Policy along with other Gandhian inspired provisions related to alcohol prohibition (Article 47) and cottage industries (Article 43).
After the Constitution was enacted in 1950, the Gandhian Constitution was often cited in scholarly works that dealt with alternative conceptions of democracy, decentralisation and Gandhian thought. G.G. Mirchandani in Subverting the Constitution argues that around 1971 the Gandhian Constitution was revived by the Servants of the People – a social service organisation founded by Lala Lajpat Rai in 1921. The Gandhian Constitution, Mirchandani further suggests, influenced a document that the organisation produced titled ‘Place of Duty in our lives and the constitution of India’. Incidentally, the President of the organisation when this document was produced was Biswanath Das who had been a member of the Constituent Assembly.
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