‘Constitution of India’:Preservation of original

The ‘Constitution of India’ was adopted by the ‘Constituent Assembly’ on 26 November 1949 and came into force on 26 January 1950. It is the longest constitution of any sovereign country in the world written under the chairmanship of B. R. Ambedkar. The original English version of the ‘Constitution of India’ was calligraphed by Prem Behari Narain Raizada, which weighs ~13 kg and consists of 221 calligraphed sheets of hand-made parchment paper of size 45.7 cm × 58.4 cm size. The calligraphed sheets were decorated and illuminated by Nand Lal Bose, depicting a journey from the Mohen-jo-Daro and Vedic periods to the Indian freedom movement. The Hindi version of the ‘Constitution of India’– comprising of 252 calligraphed sheets and weighing about 14 kg – was calligraphed by Basantrao Vaidya. Interestingly, the Hindi version was calligraphed exactly as its English counterpart which had been calligraphed by Nand Lal Bose. Both documents have been bound in first-class Morocco leather embossed in gold. Both the original calligraphed copies of the ‘Constitution of India’ are with the Parliament Library, and have great autographic and historical value as they contain the signatures of the founding fathers of the Constitution.