Indian Constitution, what a masterpiece! Completely hand-written in two languages, Hindi and English, India’s constitution is 145,000 words long. Today on 26th January when the country is celebrating the day from which constitution came into effect, we all should know about the man who carefully wrote this entire piece.
Obviously, Dr B.R. Ambedkar is the architecture of this longest document on earth but do you know who had actually penned this artistic document?
Indian calligrapher, Prem Behari Narain Raizada is the real man behind it who didn’t even charged a penny for this tough job.
A Calligrapher Turns Writer Of Constitution
via: indianexpress
Prem was born in a family of calligraphers on 17th December 1901. But before he could get a chance to learn skills of calligraphy from his parents, both his mother and father died.
His grandfather who was a English-Persian scholar raised and taught him the art of calligraphy. He, then, went to Delhi’s St. Stephen’s Collège for further studies.
Who would have thought that Prem would get a chance to write out the constitution. PM Jawaharlal Nehru had send a proposal to him for which he agreed without thinking much.
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Did He Charge Any Fees?
via: twitter
When Nehru asked Prem Ji about the fees for the work , Shri Behari replied:
“Not a single penny. By the grace of God I have all the things, and am quite happy with my life,”
Though he didn’t charge a penny, he did put a condition and Nehru couldn’t discard his request.
Shri Behari asked for a reservation of his name on every single page of constitution. In addition to this, he also requested to include his grandfather’s name along with his on the last page.
Nehru agreed and this prestigious task of writing began in the Constitution club which was the hall earlier.
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One Man, 254 Ink Bottles, & 6 Months
via: thebetterindia
Can you guess how many bottles of ink have been used to write this lengthy document? Around 254 ink bottles, 303 nibs and 432 pen holder nibs for the task were used and Prem Ji did not make even a single mistake.
The preamble, 395 articles and 8 schedules were written on a special handmade paper that were brought from Pune. The pages were so chosen that it could have long life without undergoing wear and tear.
The 16×22 inches long sturdy parchment sheets were also decorated with beautiful art pieces. Nandalal Bose, Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, and his students of Shanti Niketan had decorated each page’s border.
Signed By 299 Members
via: thebetterindia
After the completion of writing work, Dr Rajendra Prasand signed the constitution which was further signed by other 299 members of the assembly.
Feroz Gandhi was the last person to sign the document. He was the president of Constituent Assembly.
Besides careful writing and artistic design, safety of document was also a concern. Thus, a special helium-filled case was used to provide further protection to this document. All the original copies are kept safely in the Parliament of India.