80 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of this Draft Constitution that it will sound almost a tautology if I repeat the same sentiments again. But I think I will be failing in my duty if I do not offer my humble and respectful congratulations to the learned Law Minister for the very lucid manner in which he has presented this Draft Constitution for our consideration.
Many friends and critics have come here and levelled certain charges against our Constitution. The one charge which has been repeated by many friends is that ours is a very bulky Constitution. The Mover himself referred to the bulky nature of this document. When we really examine the clauses and articles of the various other Constitutions we come to the conclusion that ours is indeed a bulky Constitution. Sir, as you know, it contains 315 Articles, whereas the Constitution of British North America, that is Canada, contains only
147 Articles ; the Commonwealth of Australia Act contains about 128 Articles ; the Union of South Africa Act contains 153 Articles ; the Irish Constitution contains only 63 Articles ; the U. S. Constitution contains 28 Articles ; the U.S.S.R. Constitution 146 Articles ; the Swiss Federal Constitution 123 Articles; the German Reich Constitution contains 181 Articles, and the Japanese Constitution 103 Articles. A glance at these Constitutions shows that none of them contains more than 200 Articles whereas our Constitution contains 315 Articles.
Critics have tried to make a great deal out of this bulkiness of our Constitution. But we must not forget that ours is a big country of 330 millions and we are making a Constitution for almost one fifth of humanity. Therefore there should be no wonder that our Constitution is bulky……….
Sir, our is a country which has got its own problems. In no country in the world are there what we call the principalities—the States— and there should be no wonder that in order to bring all these various factors in line with the present day democratic principles, the draftsmen of our Constitution could not compress into a few Articles all that they wanted to do. Therefore the charge that has been levelled against our Constitution that it is bulky seems to me to be frivolous………
*Pandit Thakur Dass Bhargava (East Punjab : General) : ………. Since my friends insist that I should speak in English, I bow to their
*CAD, Vol. VII, 6th November 1948, p. 275.