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        When a general debate on a second reading of the Draft Constitution for India took place in the Constituent Assembly from 4 to 9 November, 1948, many members raised strong objection against the proposed Draft stating that no part of it represented the ancient polity of the country. Many of them said the new Constitution should have been drafted on the ancient Hindu model of a State and that instead of incorporating Western theories, the new Constitution should have been raised and built upon Village Panchayats and District Panchayats.

        There were many others who took a more extreme view. They did not want any Central or Provincial Governments at all. They just wanted India to be a conglomeration of so many village governments. Dr B R Ambedkar, participating in the general debate on the second reading of the Constitution on 4 November, 1948, reacted sharply against the proposal for a return to the ancient polity of India based on Village Panchayats. To quote his exact words in this context: 'The love of the intellectual Indian for the village community is of course infinite if not pathetic.

        It is largely due to the fulsome praise bestowed upon it by Sir Charles Metcalfe who described them as little Republics having nearly everything that they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. ...No doubt the village communities have lasted where nothing else lasts. But those who take pride in the village communities do not care to consider what little part they have played in the affairs and the destiny of the country; and why?

        Their part in the destiny of the country has been well described by Sir Charles Metcalfe himself who says: 'Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down. Revolution succeeds to revolution. Hindu, Pathan, Mughal, Maharatta, Sikh, English are all masters in turn but the village communities remain the same. In times of trouble they arm and fortify themselves. A hostile army passes through the country. The village communities collect their cattle within their walls and let the enemy pass unprovoked.' Such is the part the village communities have played in the history of their country. Knowing this, what pride can one feel in them? That they have survived through all vissicitudes may be a fact but mere survival has no value. The question is on what plane they have survived. Surely on a low, selfish level. I hold that these village Republics have been the ruin of India. I am therefore surprised that those who condemn provincialism and communalism should come forward as champions of the village.

        What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow- mindedness and communalism? I am glad that the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted the individual as a unit.

        In this context, we have to distinguish between two different concepts of society which were put forth by Mahatma Gandhi on the one hand and Dr Ambedkar on the other.

        Mahatma Gandhi's life- long mission plan of treating the village as a unit of national governance with total accent on Village Swaraj was rejected by the makers of our Constitution. Instead, the concept put forward by Dr.Ambedkar, his proposal for a polity based on the atomised and inorganic view of society was accepted as the basis of the new Indian Constitution.

        On the other hand, the organic or communitarian view, that puts man in his natural milieu as a responsible Member of a responsible community. This view does not treat man as a particle of sand in an inorganic heap, but as a living cell in a larger organic entity. In this approach it is natural that emphasis should be laid more on responsibility than on right, just as in the inorganic view it is natural that it should be the opposite.

        When the individual lives in community with others, his rights flow from his responsibilities. It cannot be otherwise. In Gandhiji's sociological thought, the emphasis was always laid upon responsibility.

        Sri Damodar Swaroop Seth (UP), a senior Member of the Constituent Assembly, spoke against the Draft Constitution and said: 'We have seven lakh villages in our country and the village is its smallest unit. Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi, our struggle for freedom reached the villages and it was because of the villages and because of their might that India became free. I want to ask whether there is any mention of villages and any place for them in the structure of this great Constitution. No, nowhere.

        The Constitution of a free country should be based upon local self-government. We see nothing of local self-government anywhere in this Constitution. This Constitution as a whole, instead of being evolved from our life and reared from the bottom upwards is being imported from outside and built from above downwards.

        A Constitution which is not based on units and in the making of which they have no voice, in which there is not even a mention of thousands and lakhs of villages of India and in framing which they have had no hand well, you can give such a Constitution to the country but I very much doubt whether you would be able to keep it for long.

        Sri Loknath Misra (Orissa) spoke eloquently against Dr Ambedkar's Constitution. He indicated that the strength of a nation and the unity of her people did not depend upon the State power. It depended upon the realisation of the inner unity of the human spirit that made all men brothers. He said he was surprised that Dr Ambedkar knew so little of India. Sri Loknath Misra described D Ambedkar's Draft Constitution as something which was absolutely 'un-Indian'. To quote his own words: 'By un-Indian, I mean that however much Dr Ambedkar may repudiate, there is no doubt that the Draft Constitution is absolutely a slavish imitation of nay, much more, a slavish surrender to the West.

        A distinguished Muslim Member of the Constituent Assembly Kazi Syed Karimuddeen (C P and Berar) said that the fourth part of the Constitution related to the directive fundamentals which were vague. He made it clear that the need of the hour was not mere talk of economic or philosophical ideals. He concluded in these words: 'We want an economic pattern of the country in which the lot of the poor masses can be improved.'

        Dr P S Deshmukh (CP and Berar) stated that India was a country of agriculturists. The peasants and labourers should have a large share and the most dominating voice in the government. He felt that they should have been made to feel that they were the real masters of this big nation on earth. He did not share the view of Ambedkar that the past of our ancient Indian civilisation was not worth utilising for the building up of the future Indian nation.

        Sri T Prakasam (Madras) attacked Dr Ambedkar in these biting words: 'So far as the drafting of this Constitution is concerned, with all respect to Dr Ambedkar, I must say that he has not been able to put himself in the position of those who had been fighting for the freedom of this country for 30 long years. In one stroke he has condemned the Village Panchayat System. We want a government based on Village Panchayats. Village Panchayat should be one which is up to date, which gives real power to rule and to get money and expand it, in the hands of the villagers. I would like to know what is this government that is being constituted under this Draft Constitution. For whose benefit is this intended? Is it for the benefit of a few people or is it for the benefit of the millions of people who pay tax. .... It is only right and proper that this Constituent Assembly which has been sent by the people of this country should take particular care to see that this Draft Constitution of Dr Ambedkar is so amended that it would really become a Constitution for the benefit of the masses and the millions of people for whose sake the battles have been fought by that great friend (Mahatma Gandhi) who has gone away leaving us here to get along with our work.

        More than 80 per cent of the members in the Constituent Assembly were strongly of the view that the soul of India was not represented by this Constitution because the autonomy of the villages was not fully delineated there and that the Draft Constitution did not give a true picture of what many people would like India to be. Most of them felt that Dr Ambedkar had drawn his inspiration from foreign Constitutions alone and he had deliberately failed to take even a casual glance at the historic spirit and culture of India or take into consideration the Indian approach to life. Finally, most of them were of the view that Dr Ambedkar's Constitution will only safeguard the bread of those whose hands were full of bread and not the hands of those whose hands were empty.

        Against the background of these strong objections, on 22 November, 1948, a new clause was inserted in the Constitution and adopted unanimously without a single dissenting voice. This was: 'That after Article 31, the following new Article be added: 31-A: The State shall take steps to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government'.

        This is how the present Article 40 which forms part of the Directive Principles of State Policy was incorporated in free India's Constitution.