India Becomes a Republic — Ambedkar's Constitution

On January 26, 1950, India ceased to be a British dominion and became a sovereign democratic republic, with a constitution that had taken nearly three years to draft. The Constituent Assembly, elected in 1946, entrusted the drafting to a committee chaired by Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar — a man born into the "untouchable" Mahar caste who had overcome extraordinary discrimination to earn doctorates from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. Ambedkar's constitution was a radical document: it established universal adult suffrage (giving the vote to 173 million people, including women), abolished untouchability, enshrined fundamental rights including equality before the law and freedom of expression, and created a federal parliamentary system. At 146,385 words, it remains the longest written constitution of any sovereign nation. The document's Directive Principles of State Policy laid out aspirations for social and economic justice that Ambedkar knew would take generations to fulfill. January 26 was chosen as Republic Day because it was the date on which the Indian National Congress had declared Purna Swaraj (complete independence) in 1930. Ambedkar warned the Assembly: "In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality... We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment."