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        Recently I was going through the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly from 13 December, 1946 till the birth of the Indian Republic on 26 January, 1950. The resolution on the aims and objects of free India's Constitution was introduced in the Constituent Assembly on 13 December, 1946. It was a period marked by great political turmoil and all-round uncertainty. It was a period of unforeseen flux and unknowable future. The Muslim League, the second major party in India at that time, had chosen to boycott the Constituent Assembly.

        Most of the States were unrepresented in that Assembly. Mahatma Gandhi was very much with us. Yet it is surprising that no specific mention was made in the Constituent Assembly resolution of 13 December, 1946 regarding the place of India's villages in independent India, their role in its Government and the meaning of Swaraj to the Indian village. It was taken for granted that more than 700,000 villages in India would be taken care of by emotional passages like - The passion that lies in the hearts of the Indian people today - and - There is no doubt that his (Gandhiji's) spirit hovers over this place in the Constituent Assembly Hall and blesses our undertaking'.

        During the course of his speech while moving the resolution, Sri Jawaharlal Nehru said: 'Obviously we are aiming at democracy and nothing less than democracy. What form of democracy, what shape might it take, is another matter. The democracies of the present day, many of them in Europe and elsewhere, have played a great part in the world's progress. Yet it may be doubtful, if those democracies may not have to change their shape somewhat before long if they have to remain completely democratic.

        We are not going just to copy, I hope, a certain democratic procedure or an institution of a so- called democratic country. We may improve upon it. In any event, whatever system of Government we may establish here must fit in with the temper of our people and be acceptable to them. We stand for democracy. It will be for this House to determine what shape to give to that democracy, the fullest democracy, I hope.' The real national tragedy is that he made no references to the villages of India.

        Most of the speakers who followed Nehru made passionate references to the future shape of Indian polity with accent on the meaning of Swaraj for every village. All of them invited the attention of the Constituent Assembly to a statement of Mahatma Gandhi which he had issued in December 1946 to this effect: 'The centre of power is in New Delhi, or in Calcutta and Bombay, in the big cities. I would have it distributed among the 700,000 villages of India....There will then be voluntary cooperation -not cooperation induced by Nazi methods. Voluntary cooperation will produce real freedom and a new order vastly superior to the new order in Soviet Russia. Some say there is ruthlessness in Russia but that is exercised for the lowest and the poorest and is good for that reason. For me, it has very little good in it'.

        After a lapse of more than a month, the Resolution on the Aims and Objects of the Constitution was finally adopted on 12 January, 1947. Outside political events were moving inevitably and inexorably towards the partition of India.

        The Secretariat of the Constituent Assembly, under the guidance of its Adviser, B N Rau, went on studying Constitution after Constitution of U S A, and all the other countries in Europe including the USSR. After this detailed exercise, a draft was finally placed before the Constituent Assembly in August 1947, three or four days after our independence on 15 August, 1947. On 29 August, 1947, the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs moved a Resolution to this effect in the Constituent Assembly: 'A Committee be appointed to scrutinise and to suggest necessary amendments to the draft Constitution of India, prepared in the office of the Constituent Assembly on the basis of the decision taken in the Assembly'. After some slight modification, the motion was adopted the same day. The Members of this Constitution Draft Scrutiny Committee were:

        1. Sir Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer

        2. Sri N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar

        3. The Hon'ble Dr B R Ambedkar

        4. Sri K M Munshi

        5. Saiyed Mohammed Saddulla

        6. Sri B L Mitter

        7. Sri D P Khaitan

        Even when the Draft Scrutiny Committee of the Constitution was doing its work, On 21 December, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi expressed his concern and anguish about the total omission of any reference to the principle of Village Swaraj based on village panchayats in the proposed Constitution. He expressed his views in 'Harijan' as follows: 'I must confess that I have not been able to follow the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly and the correspondent says that there is no mention or direction about village panchayats and decentralisation in the foreshadowed Constitution. It is certainly an omission calling for immediate attention if our independence is to reflect the people's voice. The greater the power of the panchayat, the better for the people'.

        The revised Draft after due scrutiny by the Constitution Draft Scrutiny Committee was reintroduced in the Constituent Assembly on November 4, 1948 - fifteen months after the scrutiny work was entrusted to that Committee on 29 August, 1947. During the intervening 15 months, the revised Draft was published and circulated and had generated great controversy and debate. One of the major issues which generated great heat, anger and public excitement was the issue relating to the 'place of the villages' in the new polity which was envisaged.

        In April 1948 itself, Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly, referred the matter relating to the position of villages and Village Swaraj and other connected issues to the Constitutional Adviser Sri B N Rau for appropriate action. Sri B N Rau in his note to the President of the Constituent Assembly stated: 'Even if the panchayat plan is to be adopted, its details will have to be carefully worked out for each province and for each Indian State with suitable modification for towns. Apart from other difficulties, this will take time and rather than delay the passing of the Constitution further, it would seem better to relegate these details to the auxiliary legislation to be enacted after the Constitution has been passed.'

        What is very painful to note as a fact of history is that most of the Members of the Scrutiny Committee had practically abdicated their allotted responsibility by reposing their total faith only in Dr B R Ambedkar. This is clear from the speech of Sri T T Krishnamachari, during the general debate at the start of the second reading of the Draft Constitution in the Constituent Assembly on 5 November, 1948: '...At the same time, I do realise that that amount of attention that was necessary for the purpose of drafting a Constitution so important to us at this moment has not been given to it by the Drafting Committee. The House is perhaps aware that of the seven Members nominated by you, one had resigned from the House and was replaced. One died and was not replaced. One was away in America and his place was not filled up and another person was engaged in State affairs and there was a void to that extent. One or two people were far away from Delhi and perhaps reasons of health did not permit them to attend. So, it happened ultimately that the burden of drafting the Constitution fell on Dr Ambedkar and I have no doubt that we are grateful to him for having achieved this task in a manner which is undoubtedly commendable. But my point really is that the attention that was due to a matter like this has not been given to it by the Constitution Draft Scrutiny Committee as a whole ...'

        Most of the Congress leaders on the eve of independence felt that the task of Constitution making was the job of lawyers and Constitutional Experts. All of them forgot the fact that all great Constitutions, like that of USA. that were framed after successful revolutions, had been the work of the revolutionary leaders themselves, the experts doing no more than giving their ideas a legal framework. Unfortunately, in the case of India, even the so-called distinguished lawyers to whom this sacred national task for all practical purposes was entrusted, with the spectacular exception of Dr Ambedkar, seem to have performed their functions casually and perfunctorily with tragic consequences for India and its rural millions after independence lasting till today.

        When the revised Draft of the proposed Constitution was re-introduced in the Constituent Assembly on 14 November, 1948, most of the Members expressed their sorrow, anger and disappointment about the total exclusion of the place of Indian villages in the new Constitution and the principle of Village Swaraj for which Mahatma Gandhi fought all his life.