NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 10 The questions India had to answer before independence — In-text Questions

India chose a democratic republic with a parliamentary form of government.

• Democratic — the people enjoy equal political rights, elect their rulers and hold them accountable, and the government is run according to some basic rules.
• Republic — the head of the state is an elected person, not a hereditary king.
• Parliamentary — the executive, headed by the prime minister, is drawn from and answerable to the legislature.
• Three organs with separated powers — legislature, executive and judiciary, with checks and balances between them.
• Three tiers — central, state and local (Panchayati Raj), each with its own functions and responsibilities.

The principles chosen were the ones the freedom movement had lived by and the ones India's own heritage had long held. The chapter lists them as equality of all, justice for all, freedom, fraternity and the preservation of India's cultural heritage.

They were then written into the Constitution in three layers:

Some principles came from India's own culture — acceptance that people may hold different points of view, Nature as sacred, the pursuit of learning, respect for women, vasudhaiva kutumbakam and sarve bhavantu sukhinah. The old emphasis on the duties of people in governance reappears as the Fundamental Duties.

Every adult citizen — this is called universal adult franchise.

The chapter records that one of the ‘how’ questions the framers had to answer was: “How do we make sure that every adult citizen has a right to vote?” Their answer was that the electoral system “has been laid down to ensure that every eligible citizen of the country is enabled to vote”.

That means the vote does not depend on:

• caste, religion, community or gender;
• how much property or wealth a person owns;
• whether a person can read and write;
• where in India the person lives.

Through an independent judiciary, using the Constitution and the law as the standard — not by force and not by the government's own preference.

Two features make this work. First, the judiciary is one of the three separate organs of government, so it can rule against the executive or the legislature. Second, the idea of an independent judiciary was one of the things the framers took from the American Constitution.