Who argued that the Constituent Assembly is not just a body of people or a gathering of able lawyers. Rather, it is a ‘nation on the move, throwing away the shell of its past political and possibly social structure, and fashioning for itself a new garment of its own making.’

Jawaharlal Nehru

The correct answer is Option 1 - Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru argued that the Constituent Assembly is not just a body of people or a gathering of able lawyers. Rather, it is a ‘nation on the move, throwing away the shell of its past political and possibly social structure, and fashioning for itself a new garment of its own making.’

The demand for a Constituent Assembly, Nehru claimed, represented a collective demand for full self-determination because; only a Constituent Assembly of elected representatives of the Indian people had the right to frame India’s constitution without external interference. Second, he argued, the Constituent Assembly is not just a body of people or a gathering of able lawyers. Rather, it is a ‘nation on the move, throwing away the shell of its past political and possibly social structure, and fashioning for itself a new garment of its own making.’ The Indian Constitution was designed to break the shackles of traditional social hierarchies and to usher in a new era of freedom, equality and justice.

This approach had the potential of changing the theory of constitutional democracy altogether: according to this approach, constitutions exist not only to limit people in power but to empower those who traditionally have been deprived of it. Constitutions can give vulnerable people the power to achieve collective good.