Nature of The Assembly
The Constituent Assembly, consisting of indirectly elected representatives, was set up for the purpose of drafting a constitution for India (including what are now the separate countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh). In the event, it remained in being for almost three years, acting as the first parliament of India after independence in 1947. The Assembly was not elected on the basis of universal adult franchise; plus only Muslims and Sikhs were given special representation as "minorities". The influential Muslim League initially boycotted the Assembly after having failed to prevent its gathering. The Constituent Assembly was a one-party body in a one-party country. The Congress Party had wide diversity within itself, from conservative industrialists to radical Marxists, but party members mainly drove the process.
The Assembly met for the first time in New Delhi on 9 December 1946. The last session of the Assembly was held on January 24, 1950. Over the course of this period (two years, eleven months and seventeen days), the Assembly held eleven sessions, sitting on a total of 165 days. The hope behind the Assembly was expressed by Jawaharlal Nehru: "The first task of this Assembly is to free India through a new constitution, to feed the starving people, and to cloth the naked masses, and to give every Indian the fullest opportunity to develop himself according to his capacity."
Read more about this topic: Constituent Assembly Of India
Famous quotes containing the words nature of, nature and/or assembly:
“Such is the nature of crowds: either they are humble and servile or arrogant and dominating. They are incapable of making moderate use of freedom, which is the middle course, or of keeping it.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer’s own weaknesses reflected back from others.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Our assembly being now formed not by ourselves but by the goodwill and sprightly imagination of our readers, we have nothing to do but to draw up the curtain ... and to discover our chief personage on the stage.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)