History · Ch 12 — Framing the Constitution — The Beginning of a New Era
The will of the people
The will of the people
The Constituent Assembly that met in December 1946 was not a free body. A Communist member, Somnath Lahiri, warned that British imperialism still cast a long shadow over its proceedings. An interim government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru existed, but it could only act under the direction of the Viceroy and the British Government in London. Lahiri argued that the Assembly itself was British-made and was “working the British plans as the British should like it to be worked out”.
Lahiri’s speech (Source 1 in the textbook) was blunt. He congratulated Nehru for his bold words against British imposition, but then asked when those words would be turned into action. The imposition, he said, was already present. The British Plan made any future Constitution dependent on a treaty satisfactory to the British. For every small dispute, Indians would have to run to the Federal Court or to the British Prime Minister. The Assembly sat “under the shadow of British guns, British Army, their economic and financial stranglehold”. Final power was still in British hands. Statements by Attlee had made it clear that the British would even threaten India with division. As Sardar Patel had put it, Indians had “freedom only to fight among ourselves”. Lahiri’s suggestion was not to work out the British Plan, but to declare independence immediately, stop internal fighting, and unite against British imperialism.
Nehru did not deny the force of these criticisms. He admitted that most nationalist leaders had wanted a different kind of Constituent Assembly, and that the British Government had a “hand in its birth” with certain conditions attached. But he insisted that the Assembly’s real strength came from a different source. Governments, he said, do not come into being by State Papers. They are the expression of the will of the people. The Assembly had met because of the strength of the people behind it, and it would go as far as the people — not any party or group, but the people as a whole — wished it to go. The makers of the Constitution had to keep in mind the passions that lay in the hearts of the Indian masses and try to fulfil them.
The Constituent Assembly was expected to express the aspirations of those who had participated in the independence movement. Democracy, equality and justice were ideals that had become intimately associated with social struggles in India since the nineteenth century. The textbook gives several examples:
- When social reformers in the nineteenth century opposed child marriage and demanded that widows be allowed to remarry, they were pleading for social justice.
- When Swami Vivekananda campaigned for a reform of Hinduism, he wanted religions to become more just.
- When Jyotiba Phule pointed to the suffering of the depressed castes, or Communists and Socialists organised workers and peasants, they were demanding economic and social justice.
The national movement against a government seen as oppressive and illegitimate was inevitably a struggle for democracy and justice, for citizens’ rights and equality. As the demand for representation grew, the British were forced to introduce a series of constitutional reforms. Three major Acts were passed:
| Act | Key Feature |
|---|---|
| Indian Councils Act, 1909 | Enlarged the space for Indian participation in provincial governments |
| Government of India Act, 1919 | Made the executive partly responsible to the provincial legislature |
| Government of India Act, 1935 | Made the executive almost entirely responsible to the provincial legislature |
When elections were held in 1937 under the 1935 Act, the Congress came to power in eight out of the eleven provinces. …
Source 2 — "Bold words, noble words". The Communist member Somnath Lahiri, urging the Assembly to free itself of British influence (CAD, Vol. I):
Well, Sir, I must congratulate Pandit Nehru for the fine expression he gave to the spirit of the Indian people when he said that no imposition from the British will be accepted by the Indian people … That is very good, Sir – bold words, noble words. But the point is to see when and how are you going to apply that challenge … the imposition is here right now … we are under the shadow of British guns, British Army, their economic and financial stranglehold … our humble suggestion is that it is not a question of getting something by working out this Plan but to declare independence here and now. …
Figure 12.7 is a straightforward portrait of Edwin Montague, the British Secretary of State for India who, along with Viceroy Lord Chelmsford, authored the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919. The image shows Montague alone — there is no background scene, no map, no diagram, and no other person in the frame. It is simply a photographic or painted likeness of a man in early 20th-century formal attire, likely with a stern or serious expression typical of official portraits of the period.
The caption tells you exactly what this figure is meant to illustrate: Montague was the architect of the 1919 reforms, which for the first time allowed Indians a limited form of representation in provincial legislative assemblies. This is the key point the textbook wants you to connect. The reforms introduced dyarchy (dual government) in the provinces, where certain subjects like education and health were transferred to Indian ministers responsible to the legislature, while others like finance and police remained with the British governor. The electorate was expanded, but still only about 10% of adult men could vote.
Why does this portrait appear here, in a chapter about framing the Constitution? The textbook is making a contrast. The 1919 reforms were a British concession, imposed from above, not a product of Indian will. They were part of a series of Acts (1909, 1919, 1935) that the British enacted to manage growing demands for representation, but they were never debated or formulated by Indians themselves. The Constituent Assembly of 1946–49 was different — it was the first time Indians sat down to write their own constitution, even if under the shadow of British power. Montague's portrait serves as a visual reminder of the colonial past that the framers were trying to leave behind: a system where reforms were granted, not demanded, and where Indians had only a limited, controlled voice in their own governance. …