Indian embassy commemorates Constitution Day

Professor Bidyut Chakrabarty, vice chancellor of Visva Bharati University in India, speaks during a webinar commemorating India's Constitution Day, Nov. 27. Captured from the Indian Cultural Centre's Twitter

By Kwon Mee-yoo

The Embassy of India and the Indian Cultural Centre in Seoul commemorated the country's 72nd Constitution Day, Friday.

Constitution Day celebrates the Constitution of India, highlighting justice, liberty, equality and fraternity that was adopted on Nov. 26, 1949, and came into effect Jan. 26, 1950.

The embassy held various events for Indians living in Korea as well as "Friends of India" including an online reading of the Preamble to the Constitution of India and a quiz on the country's constitutional democracy.

On Saturday, the center organized a webinar titled "Working of Indian Constitution" in cooperation with the Institute of Indian Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) and the Department of Political Science, Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi. Sonu Trivedi, director of the Indian Cultural Centre, moderated the online event.

"This is a very special day in the journey of India as a nation ― the day that we celebrate the bedrock of our nationhood, the bedrock of the polity, the bedrock of all that we have achieved thus far and that is the Constitution," Indian Ambassador to Korea Sripriya Ranganathan said.

"The principles and philosophy of the Indian Constitution are extraordinary not only by the way of its larger vision and scope with which they are well known for, but also for the manner in which they have reflected the requirements and priorities of the people of India."

Professor Bidyut Chakrabarty, vice chancellor of Visva Bharati University in India, and Kim Chan-wahn, director of the Institute of Indian Studies at HUFS, delivered special lectures.

The event was also part of “India@75 celebrations,” commemorating the 75th anniversary of India's liberation from colonial rule in 1947.