Jawaharlal Nehru

Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution in December 1946, setting out popular sovereignty, a republic and commitments to justice and equality as guides for India's constitution-making. He later urged the Assembly to test the draft against those ambitions. The resolution was a political framework, not a completed constitution, and the final distribution of powers emerged through later debate. Its lasting significance lies in making public purposes part of the standard by which the constitutional order can itself be judged.