One minute read. Written by a grade 6 student.

After India became independent, it needed a constitution (like a book of laws and rules that the people in the country needed to follow). So a committee was formed and some of our leaders of the time (which included freedom fighters) came together to write it. It took a long time to write this document. It was finalized and adopted on the 26^th of November 1949 and it came into effect on the 26^th of January 1950 – so this is the day that India officially became a Republic.

What is a Republic?

A Republic is a country that does not have a king or monarchy. It comes from a Latin word -res publica, which means “public affair”. So this kind of government is not a private matter of the rulers, but a public matter of the people– that’s why the word Republic.

In a Republic country, the people elect a government and there is a set of rules called constitution.

Who wrote India’s constitution?

Dr. B.R Ambedkar, who was the first law minister of independent India, is often called the father of the Indian Constitution. And he did play a very big part in drafting India’s constitution. But before telling you more about his role, let me tell you something that is not known by a lot of people.

Writing the constitution was not easy – so in 1946 something called the Constituent Assembly Secretariat (CAS) was set up to start the process of drafting (that is writing the first version) the constitution. The person leading this was Sir B.N. Rau. He did a lot of work on the constitution and laid the foundation for it.

A Drafting Committee had been formed to finalise the constitution. It had seven members and the Chairman was Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. This committee then worked with the draft that Sir. B.N. Rau had made. He was an important person who must be remembered as the

Dr Rajendra Prasad, who was the first President India, had said that Sir Rau “was the person who visualized the plan and laid the foundation” of the Indian Constitution.