However, the arguments presented by the members of the Constituent Assembly and the trajectory of each provision, through its various iterations, culminating in either inclusion or exclusion make the records of these Debates a useful source to think about Constitution making. The focus on the period up to 1950 deserves explanation as the Constitution of India, 1950, did not contain fundamental duties. As we noted earlier, these duties were introduced by amendment in 1976, adopting the recommendations of the Swaran Singh Committee Report, first submitted on 3 April 1976.16 Hence, the emergency period and the Committee Report are critical to an understanding of Article 51A as introduced. This proximate history would be explored in a separate paper. This paper seeks to explore how duties were discussed and understood in Indian constitutional discourse prior to the 1950 Constitution. These discussions invoke a richer and thicker account of duties than what is found in the Swaran Singh Committee Report and, arguably, it should shape our understanding of fundamental duties in Article 51A today. Three questions are explored in this study: nature of duties, that is the conception of the duty and underlying principles along with the matrix of whom the duty is owed to and by whom; the content of duties, that is, what are the duties owed and what are the justifications for these duties. These questions are explored in two periods of time: 1895-1946 and in the Constituent Assembly Debates from 1946 to 1950. Part A: Historical Constitutions — 1895-1946 Modern Constitution making in India began in earnest in the late 1800s. These protoconstitutional documents were drafted by several actors — key figures in the Indian freedom movement, collective association, and the British colonial government among others. The study of these ‘historical’ or ‘antecedent’ constitutions has grown in importance as the salience of historical continuities and discontinuities with current constitutional law and politics becomes increasingly contested. Kim Lane Scheppele argues that, [Co]nstitution drafters invariably look even more toward a past than they do toward a future. In fact, this is impossible to avoid. Constitution drafters know about the past experiences of their country and its people; these drafters are usually selected for the constituent assembly or other constitution-drafting body precisely because of their roles in the immediate past crisis that provided the opportunity for a new constitution. What they do not know, and in fact cannot know, is the future. If they are well-prepared—and many Constitution drafters prepare themselves for their tasks with extensive research all 16 Granville Austin, Working of a Democratic Constitution (Oxford University Press, 1999)353. 24 Journal of the National Human Rights Commission, Vol. 22, 2023