India Celebrates Republic Day

The Indian Constitution is said to be among the longest in the world, originally with 395 articles and 8 schedules. It was framed over three years and the Constituent Assembly witnessed lively, acrimonious and incisive debates on every clause. The proceedings of the Assembly were published in 11 volumes, some over 1,000 pages.

The Constitution was enacted on January 26, 1950.

So what is the importance of November 26, 1949 which was celebrated last year as Constitution Day? This is the date when the Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly and the Preamble makes this explicit.  The Indian National Congress at its Lahore session passed a resolution demanding ‘poorna swaraj’ or full freedom.  Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose worked together to oppose those in the Congress party who were satisfied with ‘dominion status’, wherein the British monarch would continue to be the head of government.

On November 26, the Constitution was signed by the President of the Constituent Assembly. It was voted upon and the draft was adopted but in the draft it says explicitly ‘that on the 26th of January India shall be a Republic in 1950 when this draft will turn into a Constitution and we shall enact’ it then. Also the law that governed India in the two months between November 26, 1949 and January 26, 1950 after India adopted this Constitution was the India Independence Act, 1947 moved by the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee in the House of Commons in London. So we did not turn into a Republic on November 26, 1949. So no day can be parallel to January 26 as that is the day India became a republic.