8 Major Committees & Criticisms

  1. Constitution Making Union Powers Committee
  2. Union Constitution Committee
  3. Provincial Constitution Committee
  4. Drafting Committee
  5. Advisory Committee on Fundamental rights and Minorities
  6. Rules of Procedure Committee
  7. States Committee
  8. Jawaharlal Nehru Steering Committee

Among these eight major committees, the most significant was the Drafting Committee. On 29th August 1947, the Constituent Assembly set up a Drafting Committee under the chairmanship of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to prepare a Draft Constitution for India.

 

Criticism of the Constituent Assembly

The grounds on which the Constituent Assembly was criticized were as follows:

1. Not a Popular body: Critics argued that the members of the Constituent Assembly were not directly elected by the people of India. The Preamble says that the Constitution has been adopted by the people of India, whereas it was adopted by only few individuals who were not even elected by the people.

2. Not a Sovereign body: The critics stated that the Constituent Assembly was not a sovereign body as it was not created by the people of India. It was created by the proposals of the British rulers by executive action before India’s independence and its composition was determined by them.

3. Time consuming: The critics maintained that the time taken to prepare the Constitution was too much in comparison to other nations. The framers of the US Constitution took only four months to prepare the Constitution.

4. Dominated by Congress: The critics continued to argue that the Congress in the Constituent Assembly was quite dominating and imposed its thinking on the people of the country through the Constitution drafted by it.

5. Dominated by one community: According to some critics, the Constituent Assembly lacked religious heterogeneity and was dominated by the Hindus.

6. Dominated by Lawyers: Critics also argued that the Constitution became bulky and cumbersome due to dominance of lawyers in the Constituent Assembly.
They have made the language of the Constitution difficult for a layman to understand. The other sections of the society couldn’t voice their concerns and were unable to participate in the decision making process during the time of drafting of the Constitution.

Therefore, the Constituent Assembly became the Provisional Parliament of India and significantly contributed to the drafting of the historic Constitution of India and later helped to construct the Indian political system.