HOn January 26, 1950, India became a republic by adopting a Constitution based on the foundations of liberty, equality and fraternity. It was not just a transition from a fractured polity, a stratified majority and a highly unequal socio-economic society. It was a historic metamorphosis towards the evolution of mankind in this part of the world, towards a civilised society – a society which would strive for the welfare of all citizens and resolve differences through peaceful dialogue, instead of by the sword.
The ultimate panacea
The founding fathers of this nation, including Dr. B. R. Ambedkar – who was the chief architect of the Indian Constitution- favoured parliamentary democracy and hoped that it would be the ultimate panacea for the problems of the nation. There were, of course, some apprehensions, considering the country’s multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-religious ethos along with a huge socio-economic void.
In his word of caution while presenting the draft constitution in the Parliament on November 26, 1949, Dr. Ambedkar had said, “We must begin by acknowledging the fact that there is complete absence of two things in Indian society. One of these is equality. On the social plane, we have in India a society based on the principle of graded inequality in which we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty. On 26th January, 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has to labouriously build up.”
He had faith in the values enshrined in the Constitution, but was apprehensive about the implementation of the provisions made in the statute by future generations. “I feel, however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of these organs of the State depends are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics.”
Advocating peaceful means of transformation and settling of differences, he said, “The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution…These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.” He was opposed to the concept of an armed revolution and any kind of dictatorship, even the dictatorship of the proletariat propagated by the Communists.
He was for peace and progress, even at the cost of the pace of development. “Progress by peaceful means is always a slow process and to impatient idealists like myself it is sometimes painfully slow. In an old country like India, with no tradition of collective action and no trace of social conscience, progress is bound to be slower. No one need be disheartened by this. For to my mind what matters is not so much the rate of progress as the nature of the outlook,” he said in his speech as a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council at the first session of the Plenary Labour Conference in New Delhi on September 6, 1943.
In the same speech, he counted the advantages of having a parliamentary democracy. “In Parliamentary Democracy there is the Legislature to express the voice of the people; there is the Executive which is subordinate to the Legislature and bound to obey the Legislature. Over and above the Legislature and the Executive there is the Judiciary to control both and keep them both within prescribed bounds. Parliamentary Democracy has all the marks of a popular Government, a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
To the critics of parliamentary democracy, he said in his speech while delivering the draft constitution, “The Communist Party want a Constitution based upon the principle of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. They condemn the Constitution because it is based upon parliamentary democracy. The Socialists want two things. The first thing they want is that if they come in power, the Constitution must give them the freedom to nationalise or socialise all private property without payment of compensation. The second thing that the Socialists want is that the Fundamental Rights mentioned in the Constitution must be absolute and without any limitations so that if their Party fails to come into power, they would have the unfettered freedom not merely to criticise, but also to overthrow the State.”
He wanted the country to be run on the principles enshrined in the Constitution on the basis of liberty, equality and fraternity, with checks and balances to avoid dictatorship or excesses of any kind. He wanted the country independent from the British rule not just politically, but for delivering socio-economic justice as well through peaceful means.
Whither the statesmen?
Sixty-six years later, the country seems to be living in extremes as professional politicians obsessed with capturing and retaining power have been indulging in power politics, at the cost of the principles enshrined in the Constitution. These professional politicians are from different political hues and are just politicians, not statesmen. As a consequence, while implementing the provisions of the Constitution, personal ambitions or political considerations of a party have taken precedence over the principles of parliamentary democracy on various occasions. At times, these have culminated in disturbance of communal harmony and unnecessary bloodshed of innocent citizens.
The reasons for the state of affairs are many. After becoming a republic, the country faced a mammoth task of nation building as a result of the huge backlog of socio-economic development. On the pretext of addressing the backlog, the rich and the powerful took large plots of government land on nominal leases. Numerous schools, colleges, hospitals, cooperatives (in sectors like sugar, dairy and credit) etc., were created with additional help from the government in the form of tax concessions, additional FSIs, etc. Eventually, these became hubs of political activity and/or money-spinning centres for professional politicians. Some minorities, who took special favours as religious or linguistic minorities, set up educational institutions, which today refuse to follow the provisions of the Right To Education (RTE) Act in admitting students from poor families, flashing their minority card.
The rich and the influential, due to their proximity with the people in power, received favours in return. In a changing country, the erstwhile princes, zamindars, munims and British bureaucracy were replaced by powerful politicians and educated Indians. The age of professionalism set in and politics became the most lucrative one. One in which you could not just live on public money but also become powerful, with the help of like-minded bureaucrats, and captains of industry.
Since the country has been ruled by the Congress for a major period than any other party, the major part of the discredit, including the excesses during the emergency clamped in 1975, goes to it. Incidentally, Dr. Ambedkar was always a bitter critic of the Congress party, for which he was marginalised and defeated by Congress candidates at the hustings. The only time he worked with the Congress was as the law minister in the first union cabinet headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, as an independent member. The Nehru cabinet included non-Congress members too, like Dr. Shyamaprasad Mukerjee of the Jan Sangh, apart from Dr. Ambedkar.
Acknowledging Dr. Ambedkar, at last!
Installing a portrait of Dr. Ambedkar in the Parliament took 40 years as a result of the hostility of the Congress towards him. It was done in 1990 by Prime Minister V.P. Singh, who broke away from the Congress. Subsequently, the Congress as well as the Communists have appropriated him. Now it is the turn of the BJP to follow suit. Whether it is the Congress, the left or the right, each one of them has selectively picked up bits and pieces from Dr. Ambedkar’s thoughts as per convenience. This is irrespective of the fact that Dr. Ambedkar never supported the communist theory of an armed struggle to bring in the dictatorship of the proletariat. He was also a bitter critic of the evil practices in Hinduism and had sought its cleansing by suggesting a formula in his Annihilation of Caste.
He always considered politics as a means to serve society, not an end in itself. So, when the Hindu Code Bill moved by him in the Nehru cabinet for womens’ rights was shot down, he resigned as the law minister.
As the country celebrates his 125th birth anniversary, his thrust on parliamentary democracy is much more relevant than ever, considering the state of affairs in the country.
[/column][column size=”4/5″]
Rakshit Sonawane
Rakshit Sonawane started as a factory worker at L& T’s Powai factory in 1975 and then supervised cargo operations in the Mumbai docks before becoming a journalist. He has worked in Mid-Day, The Indian Express and The Times of India. He holds a masters degree in literature and is currently a freelancer. [/column]