Shankar Dayal Sharma Quotes

As a constitutional expert, and a jurist he got unequivocal recognition from the Congress and non-Congress parties. They believed that the letter and spirit of the Constitution was safe in his hands...He was a spiritualist to the core.

It was to take seven more years before the Constituent Assembly became a reality. This was a period which saw dramatic developments not merely in India but throughout the world. In India, our Freedom Struggle was at its peak in 1942 during the historic Quit India Movement. Internationally, there was a fundamental transformation in the geo-political situation after the Second World War. The world was in a state of flux when our peaceful and non-violent struggle attained success. It was a struggle led by women and men of character, leaders who had braved the trials and tribulations of colonial rule and had undergone tremendous suffering and hardship.

We must recognize that human development today is poised at the cross roads. The choices we make and the paths we seek to follow will determine how humanity will exist in the generations to come...Children, their welfare and development, are a subject unique in significance and compelling urgency. Representing as they do our lives relived, we need to devote to them the utmost attention.

The Rigveda stated that the earth was a ...globe suspended freely in space. The Vedic texts disclosed that the Sun held the earth and heavenly bodies in its orbit. The Shatapatha Brahmana, a treatise of untold antiquity, recognized and explained the fact that the earth was spherical.. Aryabhata explained the daily rising and setting of planets and stars in terms of the earth’s constant revolutionary motion. The Surya Siddhantha said that the earth, owing to its gravitational force draw all things to itself. In physics, the thinker Kanada, explained light and heat as different aspects of the same element, thus anticipating Clarke Maxwell's Electro-magnetic Theory, which unified different forms of radiant energy. Sankaracharya, in his Advaita thought expanded the concept of unity of matter and energy. Vacaspati recognized light as composed of minute particles emitted by substances, anticipating Newton’s Corpuscular Theory of Light and the later discovery of the Photon. In Botany, Sankara Mishra and Kanada have discussed the circulation of sap in the Plant and the Santiparva of Mahabharata has clearly stated that the plants develop on the strength of nutrients made through interaction of sunlight and materials obtained from the air and ground. Bhaskarcharya's concept of Differential Calculus preceded Newton by many centuries. His study of time identified Truti: The 3400th part of a second as the unit of time.

Independent of the relative intrinsic merits of the w:By-lawordinances proposed, promulgating these ordinances would appear to be inappropriate and contrary to the canons of constitutional propriety in view of circumstances existing at this particular juncture.

Already, in the decades before Independence our people were giving thought to their vision of an Independent India. Pandit Motilal Nehru drafted the well-known Nehru Report on the Constitution of free India. The Karachi Session of the Indian National Congress held in March, 1931 adopted the famous Resolution moved by Mahatma Gandhi which contained our charter on Fundamental Rights. It is against this historical backdrop of a long and arduous struggle and the crystallization of our vision of a sovereign, democratic nation that the first session of the Constituent Assembly was held in 1946, when, as Panditji said, we embarked on `the high adventure of giving shape, in the printed and written word, to a nation's dream and aspiration.

Communalism begets communalism. Ultimately, none gain; all lose, when communal thinking holds sway over us.

He was sometimes highly emotional. In 1990, while he was vice president and was presiding over the upper house of Parliament at time of turmoil, he broke into tears and left the hall, saying that he could not be a party to the murder of democracy.

He was a distinguished academician, [[astute politician, and an upholder of constitutional propriety – He was following his cherished motto of constitutional propriety in inviting BJP leader. A. B. Vajpayee to form the government after the 1996 general elections. But his government lasted for only 13 days.

He was god fearing and as spiritualist he paid visits to saints and sadhus, and the Shankaracharya of Sringeri Math conferred on him the title of Desh Ratna.

Pluralism has been central to India’s intellectual and spiritual heritage from ancient times. Respect for all religions and recognition of all religions as equally valid paths to truth constitute a national tradition.