Constitution: Why & How? PDF

# Ch-1 Constitution: Why & How? ## What is fundamental identity? Fundamental identity means that people as a collective identity come into being only through the basic Constitution. ## What is national identity? National identity is the conception embedded by a nation of the relationship between...

# Ch-1 Constitution: Why & How? ## What is fundamental identity? Fundamental identity means that people as a collective identity come into being only through the basic Constitution. ## What is national identity? National identity is the conception embedded by a nation of the relationship between the different regions of a nation and the central government. ## What is the mode of promulgation of the Indian Constitution? Mode of promulgation refers to how a Constitution came into being. India's Constitution was framed in the aftermath of the nationalist movement. ## How did the Indian Constitution ensure that power was intelligently organized so that it was not easy for any group to subvert the Constitution? - One way of intelligently designing a Constitution is to ensure that no single institution acquires monopoly of power. This is often done by fragmenting power across different institutions. - An intelligent system of checks and balances has facilitated the success of the Indian Constitution. Even if one institution wants to subvert the Constitution, others can check it's transgressions. - The Indian Constitution strikes the right balance between certain norms and procedures as authoritative, and at the same time allows enough flexibility in it's operations to adapt to changing needs and circumstances. - By striking a balance between the possibility to change the provisions and the limits on such changes, the Constitution ensures that no section or group can, on it's own, subvert the Constitution. ## How were the members of the Constituent Assembly elected and how was it composed? - The Constituent Assembly held it's first sitting on 9 December 1946 and reassembled on the basis of partition on 14 August 1947. It was composed along the suggestions of the Cabinet Mission, a committee of the British Cabinet. - The members of the Constituent Assembly were chosen by indirect election by the members of the Provincial Legislative Assemblies that had been established under the Government of India Act, 1935. - Each Province and Princely state was allotted Seats proportional to their population in the ratio 1:10,00,000. As a result, the Provinces were to elect 292 members and the Princely States were to elect 93 members. - The Seats in each Province were distributed among the three main communities, Muslims, Sikhs and general, in proportion to their respective populations. - Members of each community in the Provincial Legislative Assembly elected their own representatives by the method of proportional representation with single transferable vote.