B.N. Rau

Also called: Benegal Narsing Rau · Topic: Framing the Indian Constitution · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Framing the Constitution"

Meaning

B.N. Rau (Benegal Narsing Rau) was a senior civil servant who served as Constitutional Advisor to the Government of India while the Constituent Assembly was framing the Constitution. He prepared background papers on how other countries were governed, and he wrote an early draft that the Drafting Committee worked from.

He matters because he shows that the Constitution was not made by elected leaders alone. Expert officials gave the Assembly the comparative knowledge it needed to choose between different models.

Explanation

Background: why the Assembly needed an expert

• The Constituent Assembly had about 300 members. Only six of them played especially important roles.
• Most members were politicians, not experts on how constitutions work in other countries.
• Before choosing a system for India, the Assembly needed to know how other democracies were run.
• Elected leaders got the credit, but two civil servants gave vital help. B.N. Rau was one of them.

His main work

• Background papers on other countries
• He prepared background papers on the political systems of other countries.

• This let members compare different models before they chose one.

• An early draft

• Standard textbooks note that he also prepared an initial draft of the Constitution.

• The Drafting Committee under B.R. Ambedkar then worked on it and turned it into the Draft Constitution.

• His role was advice, not decisions

• Rau was not a member of the Drafting Committee.
• He supplied ideas and material. The Assembly debated and decided.

How his work fitted into the whole process

• Rau gathered and compared models from other countries.
• S.N. Mukherjee, the Chief Draughtsman (the official who writes laws in exact legal words), turned complicated proposals into clear legal language.
• Ambedkar, with lawyers K.M. Munshi (Gujarat) and Alladi Krishnaswamy Aiyar (Madras), prepared the Draft and guided it through the Assembly over three years.
• Rajendra Prasad, as President of the Assembly, made sure every member got a chance to speak.

Result and later career

• Rau's comparative work helps explain why the Indian Constitution takes ideas from many countries but still reads as one document.
• Later he served as a judge of the International Court of Justice (the main court of the United Nations, which settles disputes between countries).

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the framing of the Constitution, 1946–1950.
• Place: the Constituent Assembly of India, which met in Delhi.
• Key people around him:
• Jawaharlal Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution (the statement of the main aims of the new Constitution) on 13 December 1946. The Assembly adopted it unanimously on 22 January 1947 [3].
• B.R. Ambedkar was Chairman of the Drafting Committee. The committee was set up on 29 August 1947 [2].

• S.N. Mukherjee was Chief Draughtsman.

• How we know:

• The Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD), the printed record of the debates, fill eleven bulky volumes.
• The NCERT account (Class 12, Ch 4 "Framing the Constitution") names Rau as Constitutional Advisor.

Don't confuse with

• B.R. Ambedkar: The initials sound alike. Ambedkar was an elected member, Chairman of the Drafting Committee and law minister. B.N. Rau was a civil servant and Constitutional Advisor, not a member of the Assembly.
• S.N. Mukherjee: Both were civil servants. Rau prepared background papers on other countries' systems. Mukherjee was Chief Draughtsman and put proposals into clear legal language.
• Rajendra Prasad: Prasad was President of the Constituent Assembly and chaired the debates. Rau advised from outside the membership.
• K.M. Munshi / Alladi Krishnaswamy Aiyar: These were lawyers and Assembly members who worked with Ambedkar. Rau was an official adviser, not an elected member.

Prelims Hooks

• B.N. Rau was Constitutional Advisor to the Government of India during the framing of the Constitution.
• B.N. Rau prepared background papers on the political systems of other countries.
• S.N. Mukherjee was Chief Draughtsman of the Constitution. Do not mix him up with Rau.
• Trap: B.N. Rau was a civil servant, not Chairman of the Drafting Committee. That was B.R. Ambedkar, and the committee was set up on 29 August 1947 [2].
• B.N. Rau later served as a judge of the International Court of Justice.
• Of about 300 Assembly members, six played especially important roles. Two civil servants, Rau and Mukherjee, gave vital help.

Mains Points

• Expertise mattered as much as politics.
• Rau's comparative papers let the Assembly study many models before choosing.

• This explains why the Constitution borrows from many countries yet works as one document.

• The Constitution was a joint effort, not one person's work.

• Leaders (Nehru, Patel, Prasad), lawyers (Ambedkar, Munshi, Alladi) and civil servants (Rau, Mukherjee) each did a different job.

• Use this to argue against the idea that one person or a small elite "wrote" the Constitution.

• Experts advised, the Assembly decided.

• Rau gave material and an early draft, but the final text came out of open debate among members with "many conflicting ideas of India".
• This makes the Constitution a negotiated settlement that gains its legitimacy from public argument.

Related concepts

• Rajendra Prasad
• B.R. Ambedkar
• Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly
• K.M. Munshi
• Alladi Krishnaswamy Aiyar
• S.N. Mukherjee
• Women in the Constituent Assembly
• Rajkumari Amrit Kaur
• Vijayalakshmi Pandit
• Sucheta Kripalani

Read more

• The dominant voices