On January 26, 1950, after 165 days of deliberation, 284 members of the Constituent Assembly of India unanimously adopted the Constitution. The original, calligraphed copies of the document were sent to the artist Nandalal Bose and his students at Santiniketan, who decorated each of the 22 parts with elaborate art.
The artworks are titled after the eras they depict: the Mohenjo Daro Period, Vedic Period, Epic Period (covering scenes from Ramayana and Mahabharata), Mahajanapada and Nanda Period (covering Mahavira and Buddha), Mauryan period, Gupta Period, Medieval Period with scenes from Orissa and the South, Muslim Period (portraying Akbar, Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singh), British Period (portraying Jhansi Lakshmi Bai and Tipu Sultan) and the Indian Freedom Movement (including images of MK Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose).
Prem Behari Narain Raizada (1901–1966) was an Indian calligrapher. He is notable for being the calligrapher who hand-wrote the Constitution of India.
Raizada was born in December 1901 to a Kayastha Saxena family of calligraphers.His mother and father both died when he was young and so Raizada was raised by his grandfather - himself a scholar of English and Persian - who would teach Raizada the art of Indian calligraphy. Raizada would go on to study at St. Stephen's College in Delhi, where he continued to refine his calligraphic skills.
When the Indian Constitution was being drafted by the Constituent Assembly of India in the late 1940s, Raizada was asked by Jawaharlal Nehru to write out the first copy of the seminal document. Asked what he would charge for hand-writing the constitution, Raizada replied
“Not a single penny. By the grace of God I have all the things, and am quite happy with my life,”
“But I have one reservation—that on every page of Constitution I will write my name and on the last page I will write my name along with my grandfather’s name.
Prem Behari Narain Raizada was the calligrapher of the Indian Constitution. The original constitution was written by him in a flowing italic style. The Calligraphy of the Hindi version of the Original Constitution was done by Vasant Krishan Vaidya. Working in a room in Constitution Hall (now known as the Constitution Club of India), he rendered the document - consisting of 395 articles, 8 schedules, and a preamble - over the course of six months. He incorporated his flowing style of calligraphy into the document, using hundreds of pen nibs in the course of his writing.cThe stipulation that he and his grandfather's names be added to the document was honored, and both names can be seen in the document. When it was completed, the manuscript was 251 pages and weighed 3.75 kg (8.26 lbs).
The manuscript was completed on 26 November 1949, and was signed on 26 January 1950
Beohar Rammanohar Sinha (15 June 1929 – 25 October 2007) was an Indian artist who is very well known for his illustrations in the original final manuscript of Constitution of India, including the complete Preamble-page, which was brought to fruition in 1949 as one of the most beautiful Constitutions in the world.
So that his art on the Indian Constitution represents the sum acumen of original Indian art in its unadulterated purity, Rammanohar took the Herculean-challenge and made exploratory trips to such places as Ajanta, Ellora, Bagh, Badami, Sanchi, Sarnath and Mahabalipuram. From these cradles of pure Indian art, he used such summary motifs as Padm, Nandi, Airavata, Vyaghra, Ashwa, Hans and Mayur to symbolically convey the essence of Indian Constitution pictorially.
Rammanohar initially refused to subscribe his signatures on his artworks in Indian Constitution but his mentor Nandalal Bose, who shouldered the responsibility of the overall project, saw things from historic perspectives and, therefore, strongly insisted that Rammanohar sign at least some of the pages "so that future generations are able to recognize, remember and celebrate the artist who ornamented the Constitution of India." In fact, in addition to all the embellishments, most of the basic sketches, line-drawings (pictured) and designs for final illumination of the original manuscript of Constitution of India were executed by Rammanohar,[25] who was the senior-most and favorite disciple of Nandalal Bose. On the original manuscript of Constitution of India, Rammanohar's artworks on page 1 (Harappan seal), 102 (Lanka), 104 (Vikramaditya and his coin/seal), 105 (Nalanda seal), 106 (Kalinga archer), 113 (Nataraja and Swastika), 160 (Subhas Chandra Bose), 167 (Landscape), 181 (Maritime Expedition motif), 231-232 (borders) bear testimony to his saintly refusal to sign his artworks as a mark of his altruistic contribution to the Nation.