Tej Bahadur Sapru

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Tej Bahadur Sapru
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, Dominion of India
NationalityIndian
Alma materDr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University

Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru (8 December 1875 – 20 January 1949) was an Indian freedom fighter, lawyer, and politician. He was a key figure in India's struggle for independence, helping draft the

Indian Constitution. He was the leader of the Liberal party in British-ruled India.[citation needed
]

Early life and career

Tej Bahadur Sapru was born in

Allama Iqbal, national poet of Pakistan
and a Muslim ideologue who was among those who formulated the very idea of Pakistan in the 1930s.

He was educated at the

called to the English bar.[2]

Political career

Sapru served in the

Indian Constitution
. In 1928, he helped draft the Nehru Committee Report on Constitutional Reforms. It is acknowledged as the most important document related to the evolution of the Indian Constitution. For the first time in the history of India, it proposed uniting the princely states with the rest of India as a part of the federal polity.

Although initially a member of the

M. R. Jayakar, alongside C. P. Ramaswami Aiyer from Madras. The Committee absorbed Haksar's Report, and agreed to hold monthly meetings; their deliberations became known as the Sapru Committee recommendations. These "conversations with the princes are very important" declared New Delhi.[4] Kailas Nath Haksar was a personal friend who also proposed federation of British and princely India, responsibility was a conservative counter-weight to radicalisation. They established good relations with the British Ministry of Works and Gandhi to build a forum for the round table conference. On 17 November 1930 the All-India Federation gained princely support for a constitutional relationship. Although unaware of the impact of this shift, Sapru sought out Gandhi and Nehru for conversations against civil disobedience movements. He was not successful, other than drawing criticism from Nehru about British control over the Army and financial safeguards. However they had more success in Bhopal and Bikaner, proposed the establishment of a Centre Party with allies in Oudh and United Provinces. They were in no stronger position when the Second Round Table Conference started. The factional splits were fatal to the princes cause; and Sapru's severe criticisms of Maharaja of Dhollpur only served to postpone federation. But he persevered with colleagues Jayakar and Haksar to lobby officials, when he was informed the Viceroy warned against repudiation. Lord Willingdon remained aloof and indifferent to his efforts. The bureaucratic denials slowed attempts, and so in early 1932 Lord Lothian of the Franchise Committee made overtures towards Federation, they recruited Hailey's organ The Pioneer to persuade the princes to donate.[citation needed
]

Sapru and other Liberal politicians, eager to achieve independence through dialogue, participated in the central and provincial legislatures set up by the British, even though they were opposed by most Indian political parties and ignored by the people, who considered the legislatures to be unrepresentative "rubber stamps" for the

Untouchables", which was settled by the Poona Pact.[citation needed] Sapru was chosen as the representative of Indian Liberals at the Round Table Conferences (1931–33), which sought to deliberate plans over granting more autonomy to Indians. His efforts along with those of his contemporary M. R. Jayakar at the Round Table Conferences for bridging the differences between the British administration and Congress are well known. But by Third Round Table many princes would not turn up, and their ministers were lukewarm about federation, and personalities clashed to exclude his able lieutenant Haksar. Sapru had to battle conservative intransigent and princely fickleness when participation was largely voluntary.[5] He was appointed a member of the Privy Council on 26 February 1934.[6]

Sapru supported the Viceroy's decision to bring India into the Second World War in 1939, even as the Congress criticised the decision as unilateral and made without consulting the representatives of India's people. Sapru was also one of the main lawyers engaged to defend captured soldiers of the rebel

Imperial Japan during the war[citation needed]and the Quit India Movement
(1942–46).

Sapru Committee Report

In 1944, the Standing Committee of the Non-Party Conference adopted a resolution to appoint a committee that would make recommendations on constitutional principles, taking into particular account issues of communal division in India. Sapru was invited to head the committee, and to appoint members representing various communities to participate in the preparation of its report.[7] This report, titled 'Constitutional Proposals of the Sapru Committee', came to be commonly known as the Sapru Committee Report, and contained 21 recommendations pertaining to constitutional questions that concerned the governance and politics of India.[8] The Report was published along with a detailed exposition of the reasoning behind these recommendations and included a number of notes of dissent from committee members, as well as details of correspondence regarding their deliberations between the committee and political figures such as B.R. Ambedkar, Gandhi, and others.[7] The Sapru Committee Report rejected the proposal for the division of the Indian sub-continent into the two states of India and Pakistan, and made a number of recommendations for the protection of minorities in a unified state.[7] While the Report did not receive much attention or consideration when it was published, it was cited and considered a number of times by the Constituent Assembly of India when drafting the Constitution of India.[9][10]

Personal life

Sapru and his wife were the parents of five children. Their three sons were Prakash Narain Sapru, Trijugi Narain Sapru, and Anand Narain Sapru and their daughters were named Jagdambashwari and Bhuvaneshwari. Sapru was the grandfather of

British Oxygen and of ITC Limited.[citation needed
]

Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru died on 20 January 1949 in

Allahabad
, seventeen months after India gained independence.

Notes

  1. ^ Mohan Kumar (1981). Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru: a political biography. Vipul Prakashan. Retrieved 25 March 2007. Even now there are many distinguished scholars of Persian among the Kashmiri Brahmins in India. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and Raja Narendranath to mention two of them.
  2. ^ Sturgess, H.A.C. (1949). Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. Butterworth & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.: Temple Bar. Vol. 3, p.927.
  3. ^ "No. 32782". The London Gazette (4th supplement). 1 January 1923. p. 4.
  4. ^ Setalvad to Sapru, 10 March 1930, National Library of India (NLI), Sapru MSS, I, 24, S 124; ed. B R Nanda, Essays in Modern Indian History, Delhi: OUP, 1980, p.123.
  5. ^ Report of the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform (session 1933-4), vol.1, pt.1 (London, 1934); Nanda, p.144.
  6. ^ "No. 34168". The London Gazette. 7 June 1935. p. 3691.
  7. ^ a b c Sapru, Tej Bahadur; et al. (1945). Constitutional Proposals of the Sapru Committee. Bombay: Padma Publications.
  8. ^ "Sapru Committee Report (Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, 1945)". constitutionofindia.net. Center for Law and Policy Research. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
  9. ^ "'Chairman's Inaugural Address'". Constituent Assembly Of India Debates (Proceedings). Vol. I. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, Government of India. 1946.
  10. ^ "'Speech by M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar (29 July 1947)'". Constituent Assembly of India Debates (Proceedings). Vol. IV. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat. 1956.

References

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