Working of Constituent Assembly

• December 9, 1946 : The first meeting of Constituent Assembly was held in the constitution hall(now 'Central Hall of Parliament House'). Demanding a separate state, the Muslim League boycotted the meeting. Dr.Sanchidanand Sinha was elected as temporary President of Assembly following the French practice.

Committees under the Constituent Assembly

• Committee on the Rules of procedure - Rajendra Prasad
• Drafting Committee - B.R. Ambedkar
• Steering Committee - Rajendra Prasad

The Constituent Assembly and Making of Indian Constitution

The Constituent Assembly was set up while India was still under British rule, following negotiations between Indian leaders and members of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India from the United Kingdom. The Assembly members were elected to it indirectly by the members of the individual provincial legislative assemblies, and initially included representatives for those provinces which came to form part of Pakistan, some of which are now within Bangladesh. The Constituent Assembly had 217 representatives, including 15 women.

The Indian Independence Act, 1947

Indian Independence Act was passed in June 1947, which specified the following:

• The British rule of India should be over on the midnight of August 15, 1947.
• An independent dominion of India shall be created out of the United Provinces, Central Provinces, Bombay Presidency, Madras Presidency, the Carnatic, East Punjab, West Bengal, Assam and the Northeast Frontier Agency. The territories of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Lakshadweep Islands are also turned over to the Indian Dominion.

The Mountbatten Plan

Lord Mountbatten worked out a detailed plan for the transfer of power to the Indian people. The salient features of the Mountbatten plan were as follows-

• Muslim-dominated areas may be separated to form a Dominion In that case such domination would be constituted by a partition of Bengal and the Punjab.
• A referendum in North-West Frontier Province would decide whether it should join Pakistan or not.

Cabinet Mission Plan

Main Provisions of the Cabinet Mission Plan:

• The Cabinet Mission proposed two-tiered federal plan which was expected to maintain national unity while conceding the largest measure of regional autonomy:
• There was to be a federation of the provinces and the States, with the federal central controlling only defence, foreign affairs and communications.

Cripps Mission

The Cripps Mission came to India in 1942 headed by Sir Stafford Cripps, a socialist member of the war cabinet, to negotiate with Indian leaders on behalf of the British government. When the entire world was at midst of Second World War, the British government in India declared the participation of India in the war in favour of Allied Powers. This was done without consulting the Indian political leaders or the elected representatives of the parties. This provoked the crowd who reacted to this injustice where it was the Indians who were to lay their lives for a war out of which they themselves would hardly win anything. As a result the mission on its arrival was received with a huge countrywide protest resulting into a complete failure.

Government of India Act of 1935

The round table conferences of the early 1930's as well as a White Paper published in 1933 formed the basis for what would become the Government of India Act of 1935. The important clauses of the act were:

Simon Commission

The Indian Statutory Commission was a group of seven British Members of Parliament that had been dispatched to India in 1927 to study constitutional reform. The Commission was named Simon Commission, following the name of the chairperson of the Commission Sir John Simon.

Government of India act of 1919

This was the next major revision of the administration policy of the British in India. The earlier Morley-Minto reforms had failed to satisfy the aspirations of the nationalists and hence a report was tabled called the Montague-Chelmsford report which eventually became the Government of India act of 1919. The British aimed to subdue nationalist feelings by involving Indians more in the administration.