The Constitution of India-Role of Dr.K.M.Munshi

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Shri Sheshrao Chavan, is a prolific writer. He has to his credit over a dozen books, the chief among them are, India after Mahatma Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi: The Sole Hope and Alternative; Mahatma Gandhi: The Eternal Pilgrim of Peace and Love; Mahatma Gandhi: Man of the Millennium; Gandhi and Ambedkar: Saviours of Untouchables; The Makers of Indian Constitution: Myth and Reality; Whither India Today and H.H. Shri Bhola Nath Maharaj: God Incarnate.

Shri Chavan is at present the Chairman of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Aurangabad Kendra. He is also the Convenor of Gandhi Smarak Prakritik Chikitsa Samiti, New Delhi for West Zone (Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa). He is actively associated with the environment programmes of U.N.O. undertaken in India through International Institute for Sustainable Future, Mumbai.

Shri Chavan is humbly making efforts to motivate and mobilise the newer generation in particular to follow Mahatma Gandhi's teachings and preachings at grassroot level to evolve India to see as Mahatma's strong and dynamic nation.

The Bhavan's invitation to me to write a Foreword to the book "The Constitution of India: Role of Dr. K.M. Munshi" by Shri Sheshrao Chavan gives me a welcome opportunity to pay my filial homage to my revered mentor, Dr. K.M. Munshi whose many- splendoured contributions in the life of the nation deserve to be remembered and cherished.

Dr. Munshi was a veritable Renaissance Man with a prodigious versatility and creativity. He has left his footprints on the sands of time. He embellished all that he touched. The Psalm of his life was a joyous celebration of India's heritage, a battle for India's freedom and a consecration of every endeavour to build a strong, just and democratic India. He was a brilliant lawyer.

His forensic skills were legendary. He was not only an eminent lawyer at the peak of the profession but he was also a scholar and a statesman of the highest calibre. His legal training did not confine him to any narrow and constricted view. His was not a fragmented view of life. Law, literature, art, culture, politics, country's freedom struggle, people's welfare, heritage, history and institution building all belonged together in the saga of Dr. Munshi's extraordinary life. He had a strong sense of India and the vision of an architect for the future of India. His profound patriotism illumined by his rare sense of history and a vibrant awareness of India's glory from antiquity to modern renaissance also drew its inspiration from Bankim Chandra Chatterji's vision of national resurgence and the life and work of Swami Vivekananda, Mahayogi Shri Aurobindo and above all Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.

The author has attempted on the basis of Munshi Papers and the Papers and proceedings in the Constituent Assembly bequeathed to the Bhavan by Munahiji to delineate the truly seminal and substantial role of Dr. K.M. Munshi in the making of the Constitution of India. He gives us a comprehensive, connected and contextual account of Dr. Munshi's contribution including the elaborate task of constitution-making at every crucial step, the very conception of the Constituent Assembly as "a symbol of India's freedom and the source of her people's strength."

Dr. Munshi was one of the Indian Pilgrim Fathers who marched with the tallest of the nation's Indian leaders on the road to India's freedom.

Kulapati Dr. K. M. Munshi the man, was a phenomenon; his achievements legendary. He played many parts and all of them with distinction. He was a Lawyer, Statesman, Constitution Maker, Institution Builder, Educationist, Historian and Litterateur; and running through all his achievements was the silken thread of commitment to moral and ethical values.

Munshiji was proud of being an Indian, belonging to a Country of sages and saints and seers, of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Puranas, of being a legatee of a culture that upheld Truth and Duty, Satya and Dharma. If he followed Mahatma Gandhi in the nation's pilgrimage to political freedom, he found in Mahayogi Aurobindo, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Paramahamsa Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekanada the eternal spring of culture and spiritual renaissance. He so fashioned his life that he became a representative of India of his times- aspiring and working for a free, renascent India. His place among the builders of Modern India in general and constitution makers in particular, in any chronicle of the times is assured.

In the designing of the Constitution, Munshiji in his characteristic, affable and unobtrusive manner played a significant role both as member of the Drafting Committee and as an active member of the Constituent Assembly. Behind many of the ideas enshrined in the Constitution lay, the fertile constructive brain of Munshiji. The debates of the Constituent Assembly, which sat almost continuously for nearly two years clearly mirror the meaningful contribution made by Munshiji towards the resolution of a vast number of difficult problems, conflicting claims, ideologies and opinions which had to be faced before at last the Constitution was finally hammered out.

Future history of India will record to what extent Munshiji was right in his ideas, but he will always be remembered for the valiant fight he put up for a strong and united India, a strong centre and an integrated judiciary and he is assured of a permanent place among the founding fathers of the Constitution.

At the outset I would like to make it clear that I have made maximum use of Dr. K.M. Munshi's books particularly, "Pilgrimage to Freedom, and Indian Constitutional Documents Part II, with a view to high light the role played by him in framing the Constitution of India. I however, hasten to say that in doing so I have not attempted to undermine the part of the other prominent members of the Constituent Assembly and the Drafting Committee.

If one takes the dispassionate resume it can be said without fear of contradiction that in the great process of framing the Constitution Munshiji played an important and conspicuous part, taking continuous interest from the very beginning till the end. Behind many of the ideas enshrined in the Constitution lay Munshiji's fertile brain. Future history of India will record to what extent Munshiji was right in his ideas but he will always be remembered for the valiant fight he put up for a strong and united India, a strong centre and an integrated judiciary and he is assured of a permanent place among the Founding Fathers of Indian Constitution. The following facts will stand in testimony of what I have ventured to say.

Mahatma Gandhi had asked Dr. K.M. Munshi way back in 1934, to prepare an article on the Constituent Assembly and send it to him. Accordingly Munshiji wrote an article and sent it to Gandhiji. The article as corrected by Gandhiji was subsequently published on 21st July 1934, in 'Hindustan Times, 'The Tribune' and a little later in the Hindu'.

Gandhiji told Munshiji on 10th July 1946 that the Working Committee of the Congress has appointed a Committee of Experts to prepare draft proposals for the constituent Assembly and Jawaharlal Nehru has appointed him as one of its members. Gandhiji further told Munshiji that he should give up whatever he is doing and take up this work and added that it is very important and he will have to bear his share of the burden.

Munshiji prepared the Draft Constitution, which was a complete constitution, short and precise. It was the result of laborious research, a comparative study of the constitutions of the various countries and a search for provisions suitable to Indian conditions.

According to Munshi's draft, the sovereign power was vested in people of India, one and indivisible, neither in classes nor states. It was to be exercised through the organs set up by the constitution, the people expressing their will through their directly elected representatives.