Conceptualizing Freedom: M.N. Roy’s Revolutionary Blueprint for India’s Constituent Assembly

 

https://amzn.in/d/aiN4bMd

This book is available at Amazon 

It is about the significant contribution made by the Indian intellectual leader, M.N. Roy, who first proposed the idea of convening a Constituent Assembly in 1928, amid opposition to the Simon Commission. He argued that Indians must independently frame their Constitution, rejecting any Assembly under British control as lacking true sovereignty. 

This book explores Roy's vision of the Constituent Assembly. As a revolutionary, he visualized the CA as a democratic body arising from mass struggle, not a mere legal formality. Over time, he developed this vision through speeches and writings. He also advocated for including Fundamental Rights, as seen in the 1931 Karachi Resolution. For Roy, constitution-making was a transformative act of collective political will, rooted in the people’s active participation. He also authored the draft Indian Constitution in 1944, which was circulated by the Radical Democratic Party.

This work argues that Roy’s conception of the Constituent Assembly differed from his contemporaries and extended far beyond the procedural mechanics of constitution-making. For Roy, constituting the Constituent Assembly was a radical, democratic, and revolutionary project rooted in the active participation of informed, conscientious citizens addressing the immediate concerns of the masses.

This book concluded that if applied today, Roy’s vision could serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of participatory democracy. It underscores the need for civic engagement, transparency, and public accountability in constitutional governance, especially in times when democratic institutions are under stress. His ideas remain relevant as they challenge us to envision constitution-making not as a bureaucratic task but as a continuous, inclusive, democratic, people-driven process.

A quote from this book to demonstrate Roy's idea of the Constituent Assembly:

In his address at Faizpur, Roy elaborated on his idea of the Constituent Assembly, stating, “A Constituent Assembly means nothing less than a challenge to the self-assumed prerogative of the British Government to dictate the political right of Indian people…For us the Constituent Assembly is not only an agitation and propaganda slogan but also a slogan for practical politics. When we raise the slogan, we raise the issue of the capture of power.”

Another quote by MN Roy, as mentioned in this book 

"The idea of the Constituent Assembly means the determination of the Indian people to create an organ of power for asserting their right to self-determination."

MN Roy Memorial Lecture 2025 at Jaipur

The program began with MN Roy's quote

"Who is a revolutionary? A revolutionary is one who has got the idea that the world can be remade, made better than it is today; that is was not created by a supernatural power, and therefore could be remade by human efforts. A revolutionary further starts with the knowledge that the world has been remade time and again, and that the process of remaking the world takes place of necessity. "

 

Speaker Aruna Roy

Topic: Radical Humanism and its Relevance in Contemporary Times

The Videos of the MN Roy Memorial Lecture, 2025, are available here 

Part 1: https://youtu.be/o9g0TdFj67I

Part 2: https://youtu.be/s6zK63hZVXY

Part 3: https://youtu.be/BfY7G6iEhX4

Part 4: https://youtu.be/EZQNGdStwaE

Part 5: https://youtu.be/ISpAPkY_B8E

Her book `Personal is Political: An Activist Memoir' is a complex interplay of personal experiences and political activism linking micro-level experiences with broader macro-level struggles for democracy and justice.  

Quotes by MN Roy

M.N. Roy: A Global Intellectual and Revolutionary Thinker

While working on the fifth volume of Selected Works and Writings of M.N. Roy, I was struck by the depth, clarity, and foresight of his ideas. Roy emerges not merely as an Indian political thinker but as a truly global intellectual and revolutionary, one whose contributions spanned continents and ideologies. His writings reveal a powerful synthesis of Marxist thought, radical humanism, and democratic ideals.

Throughout his career, from his involvement in international communist movements to his later advocacy of reason, individual freedom, and ethical politics, Roy remained committed to the pursuit of truth and the emancipation of human consciousness. 

Many of his quotes reflect a profound concern for the moral and intellectual development of society, making his work as relevant today as it was in his time.

I am adding some of these here

“Who is a revolutionary?

What is a revolution? And who is a revolutionary? A revolutionary is one who has got the idea that the world can be remade, made better than it is today; that is was not created by a supernatural power, and therefore could be remade by human efforts. A revolutionary further starts with the knowledge that the world has been remade time and again, and that the process of remaking the world takes place of necessity. Those Indians who have felt the necessity of remaking our country, and are convinced that the people of India have the power to do so, are revolutionaries. One cannot be a revolutionary, without possessing scientific knowledge. One must have the conviction that not only human beings can remake the world, can make and unmake gods, but ever since the birth of the race have been doing that. Human nature is to set up gods, topple them down, and set up new ones.”

― MN Roy

"Freedom is the supreme value of life, because the urge for freedom is the essence of human existence."

M.N. Roy, Reason, Romanticism and Revolution

"Freedom is not a beautiful castle built in the air of imagination. It rests on the triple pillar of humanism, individualism, and nationalism."

MN Roy

"It is true that the common people are illiterate; they may not be able to govern the country. But at the same time, is it not a fact that, left to themselves, even the most ignorant peasants can manage their affairs better than our present government? The distrust for the ability of the common people to think for themselves and take care of themselves is only a pretext for seizing power in their name and abusing that power to suppress their liberty.”

MN Roy

"Science has given confidence to a growing number of human beings that they possess the power to remake the world."

 MN Roy, Science, Philosophy, and Politics, 1942

We stand for a thorough reconstruction of national life. Our political objective is the establishment of democratic freedom, which will mean effective political power for the people. We strive not only for national freedom, but also for the social emancipation of the toiling masses. Our task is to spread enlightenment, which will dispel obscurantism in the political and spiritual life of the country. We advocate modernism in every walk of life against revivalism. We want the disinherited to come to their own and enjoy the richness and fullness of life on this earth. We want man to be the master of the world and the maker of his destiny.”

MN Roy

"The spirit of inquiry into every physical phenomenon confronting us is a spirit of science."

MN Roy, Science, Philosophy, and Politics, 1940

https://www.academia.edu/127727821/Science_Philosophy_and_Politics 

"… the purpose of all rational human endeavour must be to strive for the removal of social conditions which restrict the unfolding of the potentialities of man. The success of this striving is the measure of freedom attained."

"Human beings starts with science. Baffled in primitive efforts to explain natural phenomenon in physical terms, he fell back on metaphysical assumptions, but in the last analysis, these also are analogous to the hypotheses of the scientific enquiry." 

MN Roy, Science, Philosophy, and Politics, 1940

https://www.academia.edu/127727821/Science_Philosophy_and_Politics 

"The realisation of the possibility of a secular rational morality opens up a new perspective before the modern world… It must be realised that human existence is self-contained and self-sufficient; and that, therefore, man can find in himself the power to work out his destiny, to make a better world to live in."

M.N. Roy, Reason, Romanticism and Revolution
From time to time, the march of history is obstructed by the requirements of the established social order,which sets a limit to human creativeness, mental as well as physical. The urge for progress and freedom,born out of the biological struggle for existence, asserts itself with a renewed vigour to break downthe obstacle. A new social order conducive to a less hampered unfolding of human potentialities isvisualised by men, embodying the liberating ideas and cultural values created in the past. A newphilosophy is born out of the spiritual heritage of mankind to herald a reorganisation of society.The passionate belief in the creativeness and freedom of man is the essence of the romantic view of life. The idea of revolution, therefore, is a romantic idea; at the same time, it is rational because revolutions take place of necessity. Revolution, thus, may appear to be a self-contradictory concept

MN Roy Reason, Romanticism, and Revolution 

"When, as a school boy of fourteen, I began my political life, which may end in nothing, I wanted to be free. Independence, complete and absolute, is a new-fangled idea. The old-fashioned revolutionaries thought in terms of freedom. In those days, we had not read Marx. We did not know about the existence of the proletariat. Still, many spend their lives in jail and went to the gallows. There were no proletariat to propel them. They were not conscious of class struggle. They did not have the dreams of Communism. But they had the human urge to revolt against the intolerable conditions of life. They did not know exactly how to those conditions could be changed. But they tried to change them anyhow. I began my political life with that spirit, and I still draw my inspiration from that spirit than from the three volumes of the Capital or three hundred volumes by the Marxists."

MN Roy, New Orientation, p. 120-121