By L S Herdenia
BHOPAL: Stalwarts like Dr Harisingh Gour, HV Kamath, Seth Govind Das and Raghu Vira were among the luminaries from Madhya Pradesh who contributed to the making of the Constitution of India which was passed on November 26, 1949. That way, November 26 is being observed as the Constitution Day since 1950.
In fact, Dr BR Ambedkar, the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, also had a Madhya Pradesh connect. He was born in Mhow, a military cantonment near Indore in the state, though his karmabhumi was primarily the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.
Around 30 political and legal stalwarts and eminent men from different walks of life from what is today Madhya Pradesh had played a role in the drafting of the new Constitution for the nascent Republic of India. Two of them went on to become the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.
The original copy of the Constitution was adorned with 22 illustrations, depicting the history of India from the ancient period to the modern, including the struggle for freedom. The illustrations were made by Nand Lal Bose, an artist from Santiniketan. Bose’s closest associate in the team was Beohar Ram Manohar Singha, who hailed from Jabalpur.
However, no place from Madhya Pradesh figured in the illustrations, including Eran and the Sanchi Stupas. And the famous Bhimbetika Rock Shelters were yet to be discovered.
The members of the Constituent Assembly from the present-day Madhya Pradesh, including the erstwhile Central Provinces and Berar, and the princely states, were: Raghu Vira, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Bhagwantrao Annabhau Mandloi, Brijlal Nandlal Biyani, Thakur Chhedi Lal, Seth Govind Das, Dr Hari Singh Gour, Hari Vishnu Kamath, Hemchandra Jagobaji Khandekar, Ghanshyam Singh Gupta, Laxman Shrawan Bhatkar, Panjabrao Shamrao Deshmukh, Ravi Shankar Shukla, RK Sidhva, Shankar Tryambak Dharmadhikari, Frank Anthony, Kazi Syed Karimuddin, Vinayak Sitaram Sarwate, Gopi Krishna Vijayvargiya, Kusum Kant Jain, Radhavallabh Vijayvargiya, Sitaram S. Jaju, Avdhesh Pratap Singh, Shambunath Shukla, Ram Sahai Tiwari, Mannulal Dwivedi, Bhaiyalal Singh and Lal Singh.
Dr Gour, a lawyer known for his dazzling intellect, founded the Saugor University, which is now a Central University named after him. Pt. Ravi Shankar Shukla went on to become the first chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, after it came into being on November 1, 1956. Bhagwant Rao Mandloi was the chief minister of the state twice in the late 1950s and then in early 1960s.
Another member from the state, Seth Govind Das, represented Jabalpur in the Lok Sabha for several terms. He was a great protagonist of Hindi and wanted the Constitution to be written in that language. However, the proposal was shot down due to stiff opposition from members from the Southern states.
Hari Vishnu Kamath was originally from Mysore and was an ICS officer of the 1933 batch. As the collector of Narsingpur, he met Subhash Chandra Bose after the Tripuri convention of the Indian National Congress near Jabalpur in 1939. That enraged the British Government. But Kamath, instead of bowing before the imperialist rulers, resigned from the ICS. His brother later became the chief secretary of the state.
Frank Anthony from Jabalpur was included in the Constituent Assembly as a representative of the Anglo-Indian community. Yet another member, Captain Avdhesh Pratap Singh was the father of state’s fifth chief minister Govind Narayan Singh. The Rewa University in the state is named after him. (IPA Service)
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