Making of the Constitution & historical underpinnings

From Company Rule to a Constituent Power

The Indian Constitution did not emerge from a vacuum in 1950; roughly two-thirds of its text is traceable to British statutory architecture built between 1858 and 1935. The Regulating Act of 1773 created the office of Governor-General of Bengal (Warren Hastings) and a Supreme Court at Calcutta (1774), planting the first seeds of central authority. Pitt's India Act, 1784 introduced dual control via the Board of Control. The Charter Act of 1833 made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India (Lord William Bentinck) and centralised legislative power.

The Crown, Councils and Provincial Autonomy

The Government of India Act, 1858 ended Company rule after the Revolt of 1857, transferring governance to the Crown and creating the Secretary of State for India aided by a 15-member Council. The Indian Councils Act, 1861 restored legislative devolution to provinces and introduced Indians into law-making (Lord Canning nominated three in 1862). The Indian Councils Act, 1892 enlarged councils and introduced an indirect, limited election principle. The Morley-Minto Reforms (Indian Councils Act, 1909) introduced communal/separate electorates for Muslims, a fateful step toward partition.

The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms / Government of India Act, 1919 introduced dyarchy in the provinces (transferred and reserved subjects), bicameralism at the centre and direct elections, and separated central and provincial budgets. The Government of India Act, 1935—the single largest source of the present Constitution—provided for an All-India Federation (never realised), provincial autonomy (operational 1937), a federal court (established 1937), and a three-fold distribution of powers via Federal, Provincial and Concurrent Lists. The Indian Independence Act, 1947 partitioned British India and made the Constituent Assembly a fully sovereign body.

The Demand for a Constituent Assembly

The idea of Indians framing their own constitution was voiced as early as 1922 by Mahatma Gandhi and formalised in M.N. Roy's 1934 demand. The Nehru Report of 1928, drafted by Motilal Nehru, was the first major Indian attempt at a constitutional blueprint and proposed dominion status, fundamental rights and a unitary-leaning federation. The Congress formally demanded a Constituent Assembly elected on adult franchise in 1935 and 1936. The British conceded the principle in the August Offer of 1940 and explicitly in the Cripps Mission of 1942.

The Constituent Assembly was finally constituted under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, which rejected a wholly elected body chosen by adult franchise in favour of indirect election by provincial legislative assemblies through a system of proportional representation by single transferable vote, with seats allotted among the three communities—General, Muslim and Sikh—in proportion to population. This statutory ancestry is the high-yield foundation: UPSC repeatedly asks which Act introduced which feature.

Composition and Working of the Constituent Assembly

The Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946, with Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha as temporary (provisional) President; Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected permanent President on 11 December 1946. Its strength was fixed at 389 (296 from British India, 93 from princely states) under the Cabinet Mission Plan; after partition and the Indian Independence Act, 1947, it reduced to 299. The Muslim League boycotted and pressed for a separate Pakistan assembly.

On 13 December 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution, adopted on 22 January 1947; it laid down the philosophy and guiding principles and later inspired the Preamble. The Assembly worked through committees: the Drafting Committee was set up on 29 August 1947 under Dr. B.R. Ambedkar with seven members. Other key committees included the Union Powers Committee (Nehru), Union Constitution Committee (Nehru), Provincial Constitution Committee (Sardar Patel), and the Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights and Minorities (Patel), whose sub-committee on Fundamental Rights was chaired by J.B. Kripalani.

Adoption, Enactment and Borrowed Features

The Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 (now Constitution Day / Samvidhan Divas) and came into force on 26 January 1950—a date chosen to honour the Purna Swaraj declaration of 26 January 1930. The Assembly took 2 years, 11 months and 18 days, held 11 sessions, and the framing cost about ₹64 lakh. B.N. Rau served as constitutional adviser. The final document carried 395 Articles, 22 Parts and 8 Schedules at commencement.

The framers consciously borrowed: the parliamentary system, rule of law, single citizenship and writs from Britain; Fundamental Rights, judicial review, an independent judiciary and impeachment from the United States; Directive Principles from Ireland; emergency provisions and the suspension of rights from the Weimar Constitution of Germany; the federation with a strong centre, residuary powers and appointment of governors from Canada; the Concurrent List, freedom of trade and joint sitting from Australia; fundamental duties and the ideals in the Preamble (justice, liberty, equality) partly from the USSR and the French Revolution; and amendment procedure and election of Rajya Sabha members from South Africa.

Why This Matters for the Exam

For Prelims (GS Paper I), this lesson is a fact mine: dates, presiding officers, committee chairmen, the source-country of each borrowed feature, and which colonial Act introduced dyarchy, separate electorates or provincial autonomy are perennial matching-type questions. For Mains GS-2, the analytical thread—that the Constitution is an evolutionary document rooted in the 1935 Act yet transformative in its Objectives Resolution and Preamble—supports answers on constitutional morality, federalism's colonial inheritance, and the legitimacy of an indirectly elected Assembly. PYQ pattern: 2017 Prelims tested the Objectives Resolution; multiple years test borrowed features. Retain the dated milestones verbatim.