The idea of a constitution

The idea of a constitution

We have prepared a democratic constitution. But successful working of democratic institutions requires in those who have to work them willingness to respect the viewpoints of others, a capacity for compromise and accommodation. Many things which cannot be written in a constitution are done by conventions. Let me hope that we shall show those capacities and develop those conventions. The way in which we have been able to draw this constitution without taking recourse to voting and to divisions in lobbies, strengthens that hope.

Whatever the constitution may or may not provide, the welfare of the country will depend upon the way in which the country is administered. That will depend upon the men who administer it. It is a trite saying that a country can have only the government it deserves. Our constitution has provisions in it which appear to some to be objectionable from one point or another.

We must admit that the defects are inherent in the situation in the country and the people at large, if the people who are elected are capable and men of character and integrity, they would be able to make the best even of a defective constitution. If they are lacking in these, the constitution cannot help the country.

After all, a constitution like a machine, is a lifeless thing. It acquires life because of the men who cast it and operate it and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men who will have the interest of the country before them. There is a fissiparous tendency arising out of various elements in our life.

We have communal differences, caste differences, language differences, provincial differences and so forth. It requires men of strong character, men of vision, men who will not sacrifice the interests of the country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas and who will rise over the prejudices which are born of these differences. We can only hope that the country will throw up such men in abundance.

I can say that from the experience of the struggle that we have had during the period of the freedom movement that new occasions throw up new men; not once but almost on every occasion when all leading men in the Congress were clapped into prison suddenly without having the time to leave instructions to others and even to make plans for carrying on their campaigns, people arose from amongst the masses who were able to continue and conduct the campaigns with intelligence, with initiative, with capacity for organisation which nobody suspected they possessed.

I have no doubt that when the country needs men of character, they will be coming up and the masses will throw them up. Let not those who have served in the past, therefore, rest on their oars, saying that they have done their part and now has come the time for them to enjoy the fruits of their labours. No such time comes to anyone who is really earnest about his work.

In India today, I feel that the work that confronts us is even more difficult than the work which we had when we were engaged in the struggle. We did not have then any conflict claims to reconcile, no loaves and fishes to distribute, no powers to share. We have all these now, and the temptations are really great. Would to God that we shall have the wisdom and the strength to rise above them, and to serve the country which we have succeeded in liberating.

Mahatma Gandhi laid stress on the purity of the methods which had to be pursued for attaining our ends. Let us not forget that this teaching has eternal value and was not intended only for the period of stress and struggle but has as much authority today as it ever had before...

Excerpted from Dr Prasad's speech made before putting the motion for the adoption of the Constitution to the vote of the House on November 26, 1949 and carried in a volume edited by Dr Subhash C Kashyap