People who steered India’s founding document
ALLADI KRISHNASWAMI AYYAR JAIPAL SINGH BEGUM AIZAZ RASUL KAZI SYED KARIMUDDIN K. T. SHAH
Born in 1883 in the erstwhile Madras Presidency, Ayyar was responsible for key sections of the Constitution, and on whom praise was heaped by BR Ambedkar.
The son of a priest, Ayyar studied history and then law, quickly becoming a leading member of the Madras bar. He was knighted in 1932 and was the advocate general of the Madras Presidency from 1929 to 1944. He was invited to the Constituent Assembly by Jawaharlal Nehru for his legal expertise.
He was part of nine committees, including the drafting committee.
“There were in the drafting committee men bigger, better and more competent than myself such as my friend Sir Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer,” Ambedkar said about him.
A politician, writer and athlete, Jaipal Singh Munda was born in 1903 near Ranchi and emerged as one of the most vocal advocates for India’s tribal communities in the Constituent Assembly. Singh spent his childhood looking after cattle but academic brilliance saw him graduate from the University of Oxford, before joining the Indian Civil Services.
He was also a gifted hockey player and part of the Indian team that lifted the Olympic gold in 1928. He became president of the Adivasi Mahasabha in 1939 and was among the first to articulate the demand for a separate tribal homeland of Jharkhand.
In the Constituent Assembly, he was part of three commit- tees and called for greater representation from tribes, and said the government should concentrate on welfare of the marginalised community.
The only Muslim woman member of the Constituent Assembly, Rasul was born in 1909 in Lahore to a branch of the royal family of Malerkotla in Punjab.
She was one of a handful of women to fight the 1937 election and get elected from present day Uttar Pradesh. She was staunchly against separate electorates for Muslims and is credited with having turned the opinions of some more conservative members; and a great believer in the Constitution. “As a woman, I have very great satisfaction in the fact that no discrimination will be made on account of sex…i am sure women can look forward to equality of opportunity under the new Constitution,” she said in a speech in November 1948.
Rasul also headed the Indian Women’s Hockey Federation for two decades.
Born in 1899 in Maharashtra, Karimuddin studied at the Aligarh Muslim University and became a noted criminal lawyer.
He was a prominent member of the Congress and was a member of legislative assembly of the erstwhile Central Provinces. He was also a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1954 to 1958.
He is remembered for having articulated the need for protecting the privacy of an individual by moving an amendment to protect individuals from unreasonable search-and-seizure, on the lines of the American Constitution. This was probably the first time that the right to privacy was articulated in the Constituent Assembly. His amendment received some support from BR Ambedkar but the right to privacy did not find an explicit place in the Constitu- tion at the time.
Article 19(1)a states: All citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression;
Article 19(2) imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of right.. in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to offence
Whether you spend Saturday evenings at a stand-up comedy show where the performer roasts the PM or Opposition leaders, or stay at home to chuckle at your favourite political cartoon, it is Article 19 (1) that you have to thank
A leading advocate and economist, Shah was appointed by the Congress as the general secretary of the National Planning Committee in 1938 under the chairmanship of Nehru. The committee aimed to tackle unemployment and focus on industrialisation.
In the Constituent Assembly, he was a part of two committees and two sub-committees.
He is remembered for two attempts at including the word ‘secular’ in the Constitution – both of which were rejected by the assembly. He was a strong votary of states’ rights and argued that states should not be seen as secondary to the Union government. He also argued that the freedom of the press be explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Shah was also the principal opponent of Rajendra Prasad in the first presidential election of India in 1952