11 Remarkable Facts About Our Incredible Indian Constitution You Might Not Know

Since today is Constitution Day, A Twitter user Sunanda shared some interesting facts about our Constitution which we think everybody should know: 1. The Constituent Assembly had 11 sessions over 2 years, 11 months and 18 days. The makers went through the Constitution of about 60 countries and the total expenditure on making the Constitution amounted to Rs.64 Lakh.

2. The Constitution as adopted on November 26, 1949 contained a Preamble, 395 Articles and 8 schedules. The Preamble was enacted after the entire constitution was already enacted.

3. Some provisions of the Constitution pertaining to citizenship, elections, provisional parliament, temporary and transitional provisions came into force on November 26, 1949 itself. The remaining provisions( the major part) came into force on January 26, 1950.

4. Prem Bihari Narain Raizada was the calligrapher of the Indian Constitution. The original constitution was handwritten by him in a flowing italic style.

5. The original version was beautified and decorated by artists from Shantiniketan.

6. It is the lengthiest of all the written constitutions in the world. Presently it consists of a Preamble, 448 Articles( divided into 25 parts) and 12 schedules.

7. Elephant was adopted as the symbol (seal) of the assembly. H.V. Kamath once commented : "The emblem and the crest that we have selected for our assembly is an elephant. It is perhaps in consonance with that our constitution too is the bulkiest that the world has produced."

8. Dr. B.R.Ambedkar proudly acclaimed that the Constitution of India has been framed after "ransacking all the known Constitutions of the World." This is because our constitution has heavily borrowed its provisions from other countries.

9. The structural part, to a large extent, is derived from the Government of India Act,1935. The philosophical part (Fundamental Rights and the DPSP) derive their inspiration from the American and Irish constitutions. The political part - British Constitution.

10. As per Dr. Ambedkar Article 32( right to Constitutional Remedies) is the most important article of the Constitution - 'an Article without which this constitution would be a nullity. It is the very soul of the Constitution and the very heart of it.'

11. And perhaps the most crucial feature for the present scenario- the Constitution stands for a secular state. It does not uphold any particular religion as the official religion of the Indian State . The term 'secular' was added by the 42nd amendment of 1976. However, as the SC said in 1974, although the words 'secular state' were not expressly mentioned in the Constitution there can be no doubt that the makers wanted to establish such a state and Articles 25-28 proves that.

Bonus Drafting committee was set up on August 29, 1947. It was this committee that was entrusted with the task of preparing in a draft of the new constitution. It consisted of the 7 members. They were : Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, N. Gopalaswami; B.R. Ambedkar, K.M Munshi, Mohammad Saadulla, B.L. Mitter and D.P. Khaitan. At its first meeting on 30th August 1947, the Drafting Committee elected B.R Ambedkar as its Chairman. Owing to death of D P Khaitan, T T Krishnamachari was chosen to be included in the drafting committee.