The Citizenship question in the Constituent Assembly
The Hindu
The Constituent Assembly debates on citizenship showed that in the rousing of sentiments of ethnicity and distrust, sagacity had an upper hand, leading to the saner denouement of toleration.
‘Letter and Spirit’ as a new column will focus on explaining and understanding basic Acts and Articles enshrined in our Constitution. These columns will put into context different aspects of the Acts be it historical, legal, political etc. Today’s column discusses the Constituent Assembly debates around Citizenship.
With the contentious , the discussions turn to the second most politically and legally resisted legislation of recent times, . The vignettes of the citizenship question find its retro-reflection in the Constituent Assembly debates which serve as the undeniable autobiography of India’s basic law.
The citizenship question had been one of the most gruelling tasks confronted by the drafting committee as admitted by Dr B.R.Ambedkar, who moved a set of consolidated amendments to the citizenship provisions of the original draft. He said that the task had given the drafting committee “such a headache” and multiple “drafts were prepared” and “destroyed” before arriving at a consensus, which may satisfy “most people, if not all.”
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