 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Prem Bihari Narain Raizada wrote 145,000 words in flowing italic styles. It took him 6 months and hundreds of nibs.
The Constitution of India was hand written in beautiful calligraphy by Prem Bihari Narain Raizada, a graduate from Delhi's St Stephen's College.
Belonging to a family of calligraphers, he took six months to write the nearly 145,000 words with a nib and holder in a flowing italic style.
The Constitution is the longest written constitution in the world.
Raizada did most of the writing in the Constitution Hall which is now the Constitution Club and wrote it meticulously on parchment paper.
The parchment sheets measured 16x22 inches and have a lifespan of thousands of years.
The finished manuscript has 252 pages and weighs 3.25 kgs, according to the information in the Constitution gallery at the Pradhan Mantri Sangralaya or Prime Minister's Museum in New Delhi.
Mr Raizada used hundreds of nibs, some procured from England. He did not charge any money for this national duty. In adherence to his request, his signature appears on the left margins of each page and on the last page.
The illustrations on the Constitution were done by the legendary artist Nandlal Bose, principal of Kala Bhavan, Beohar Rambahadur Sinha and his team from Santiniketan. The artwork covers 5,000 years of Indian history from different periods up till Independence.
The signatures of the illustrators appear in the right corner.
Nandlal Bose also designed the Bharat Ratna and Padma Shri emblems.
The Constitution was published and photolithographed at the Survey of India in Dehradun.
The original is bound in black and embossed in gold.
The Hindi version of the Constitution was written in Devanagri script by calligrapher Vasant K Vaidya.
Both Hindi and English copies are kept in the Parliament Library in a special helium case.
Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar was the chief architect of the Constitution. The Constituent Assembly sat for 167 days to debate and frame the Constitution. It was adopted on November 26, 1949 and came into effect on January 26, 1950.