Indian Constitution - The Story Behind The World's Longest Constitution

Constitution in numbers
The making of the Indian constitution was a milestone and a journey in itself, it took many intellectuals and hard debates to iron out differences before framing and agreeing on a constitution that was agreed by all. The Indian constitution with 448 articles, 12 schedules and many parts is the longest constitution whilst the american constitution is the shortest in the world, it took 2 years 11 months and 8 days to complete the constitution. India adopted many provisions from various other existing constitutions of the world including that of British, United States and Irish.

Constituent assembly
The constituent Assembly that was indirectly elected was entrusted with the framing of the Indian constitution. The first session of the constituent Assembly was held on 9th December 1946 with Sachidananda Sinha elected as the provincial president, four days later Rajendra Prasad was elected as the President of the constituent assembly.

Road to 26th January 1950
In total there were 17 committees formed that was entrusted with different responsibilities with respect to framing of the constitution. The first draft of the Indian constitution was prepared in October 1947 by the Advisory Branch headed by Rau. Dr Ambedkar was entrusted with the responsibility to scrutinize the first draft and as head of Drafting committee he was a natural choice to look into the same. The drafting committee submitted their own draft which was subject to three readings and the debates during the readings were the defining moments in the framing of the constitution. The motion adopted on 26th Nov 1949 and the signature of all the members were completed by 24th January 1950 and by 26th January 1950 the Indian constitution became the book that will shape India’s future.