Great historical value: Jairam Ramesh posts brochure on Constitution brought out on Jan 26, 1950

New Delhi, Oct 19 (PTI) Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday shared a short brochure on the Constitution that was brought out on January 26, 1950, just as it was to come into effect that very day, noting that it is of "great historical value".

In a post on X, Ramesh said, "On January 26, 1950, the Government of India brought out a lovely explainer-monograph on the Constitution just as it was to come into effect that very day.

"It really is of great historical value and has a Foreword by Dr Rajendra Prasad, who would take over as the first President of the Republic of India on the very same day." In his Foreword to the brochure, Rajendra Prasad said, "This is a short brochure on the Constitution of India. It summarizes in a popular but accurate manner the main features of the Constitution." For an authoritative opinion regarding particular points the articles of the Constitution have obviously to be referred to, but an all round comprehensive view of it can be obtained from this, Prasad had said.

The introduction of the brochure talked about how Mahatma Gandhi first conceived the idea of a constituent assembly elected by the people.

"He (Gandhi) observed, 'Swaraj will not be a free gift of the British Parliament, it will be a declaration of India's full self-expression. That it will be expressed through an Act of Parliament is true but it will be merely a courteous ratification of the declared wish of the people of India even as it was in the case of the Union of South Africa'. Nevertheless it was not until 1935 that the idea was officially and seriously put forward by the Indian National Congress," the brochure said.

"'The National Congress,' wrote Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in January, 1938, 'stands for independence and a democratic state. It has proposed that the constitution of a free India must be framed, without outside interference, by a constituent assembly elected on the basis of adult franchise. That is the democratic way and there is no other way short of revolution which can bring the needed result.

"An assembly so elected will represent the people as a whole and will be far more interested in the economic and social problems of the masses than in the petty communal issues which affect small groups. Thus it will solve without much difficulty the communal and other like problems'," it said. PTI ASK MNK MNK