Indian Constitution as an aesthetic document

It is difficult to express history in simple terms. It is even more daunting a task to express more than 5,000 years of civilizational history visually on the founding document of the Indian Republic.

- Gajendra Singh Shekhawat

But Acharya Nandalal Bose was not just another artist, and illustrating the Constitution was not just another project.

All the illustrations are listed on the last page of the Constitution. They can be categorized under 12 heads—the Mohenjodaro period, the Vedic period, the Epic period, the time of the Mahajanapadas and the Nandas, the Mauryan period, the Gupta period, the Medieval period, the Muslim period, the British period, the Freedom Movement, the revolutionary movement for freedom, and India's natural features.

Illustrations begin with the National Emblem. Bose was very particular about the lions of the Emblem looking realistic. So, Dinanath Bhargava, who designed the Emblem (as a young student at Kala Bhavan, the fine arts institution in Shantiniketan where Bose taught) visited Kolkata Zoo several times over many months, observing the regal animal. The page bearing the Preamble, as well as many other pages of the Constitution, bear the art of Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, another of Bose's proteges. Bose endorsed Sinha's artwork for the Constitution without any alteration whatsoever.

The Preamble page bears Sinha's signature, a short Ram in the Devanagari script, in the lower right corner. The page features text bounded by a rectangular border. Four animals are depicted in the four corners of the border, taken from the National Emblem. The lotus motif is prominently featured in the border artwork.

Each part of the Constitution begins with an illustration, and pages have distinct border designs. The artists' signatures are carried along with the illustrations, indicating the collaborative nature of the project.