Why BR Ambedkar’s three warnings in his last speech to the Constituent Assembly resonate even today
On
November 25, 1949, he spoke of the need to give up the grammar of
anarchy, to avoid hero-worship, and to work towards a social – not just a
political – democracy.
BR Ambedkar (https://scroll.in/author/1500)
Jan 26, 2016 · 02:30 pm

Excerpts from the speech to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949
On
26th January 1950, India will be an independent country. What would
happen to her independence? Will she maintain her independence or will
she lose it again? This is the first thought that comes to my mind. It
is not that India was never an independent country. The point is that
she once lost the independence she had. Will she lose it a second time?
It is this thought which makes me most anxious for the future.
What
perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once before lost
her independence, but she lost it by the infidelity and treachery of
some of her own people.

In the invasion of Sindh by
Mahommed-Bin-Kasim, the military commanders of King Dahar accepted
bribes from the agents of Mahommed-Bin-Kasim and refused to fight on the
side of their King. It was Jaichand who invited Mahommed Gohri to
invade India and fight against Prithvi Raj and promised him the help of
himself and the Solanki Kings. When Shivaji was fighting for the
liberation of Hindus, the other Maratha noblemen and the Rajput Kings
were fighting the battle on the side of Moghul Emperors. When the
British were trying to destroy the Sikh Rulers, Gulab Singh, their
principal commander sat silent and did not help to save the Sikh
Kingdom. In 1857, when a large part of India had declared a war of
independence against the British, the Sikhs stood and watched the event
as silent spectators.
Will history repeat itself? It is this thought
which fills me with anxiety. This anxiety is deepened by the realisation
of the fact that in addition to our old enemies in the form of castes
and creeds we are going to have many political parties with diverse and
opposing political creeds. Will Indians place the country above their
creed or will they place creed above country? I do not know. But this
much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our
independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost
for ever. This eventuality we must all resolutely guard against. We must
be determined to defend our independence with the last drop of our
blood.
On the 26th of January 1950, India would be a democratic
country in the sense that India from that day would have a government of
the people, by the people and for the people. The same thought comes to
my mind. What would happen to her democratic Constitution? Will she be
able to maintain it or will she lose it again? This is the second
thought that comes to my mind and makes me as anxious as the first.

Democratic system
It
is not that India did not know what is Democracy. There was a time when
India was studded with republics, and even where there were monarchies,
they were either elected or limited. They were never absolute. It is
not that India did not know Parliaments or parliamentary procedure.
A
study of the Buddhist Bhikshu Sanghas discloses that not only there
were Parliaments – for the Sanghas were nothing but Parliaments – but
the Sanghas knew and observed all the rules of parliamentary procedure
known to modern times. They had rules regarding seating arrangements,
rules regarding Motions, Resolutions, Quorum, Whip, Counting of Votes,
Voting by Ballot, Censure Motion, Regularisation, Res Judicata, etc.
Although these rules of parliamentary procedure were applied by the
Buddha to the meetings of the Sanghas, he must have borrowed them from
the rules of the Political Assemblies functioning in the country in his
time.

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. It means that
we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and
satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for
achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of
justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional
methods are open, there can be no justification for these
unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of
Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.
The
second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart Mill
has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy,
namely, not “to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or
to trust him with power which enable him to subvert their institutions”.
There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered
life-long services to the country. But there are limits to
gratefulness. As has been well said by the Irish Patriot Daniel
O’Connel, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can
be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful
at the cost of its liberty. This caution is far more necessary in the
case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India,
Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays
a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in
the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may
be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or
hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.
The
third thing we must do is not to be content with mere political
democracy. We must make our political democracy a social democracy as
well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of
it social democracy.

Social democracy
What does social
democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty,
equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of
liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items
in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce
one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy.
Liberty
cannot be divorced from equality, equality cannot be divorced from
liberty. Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity.
Without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over
the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative.
Without fraternity, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over
the many. Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a
natural course of things. It would require a constable to enforce them.

The story is – I propose to recount it in the words of Bryce himself:
“Some
years ago the American Protestant Episcopal Church was occupied at its
triennial Convention in revising its liturgy. It was thought desirable
to introduce among the short sentence prayers a prayer for the whole
people, and an eminent New England divine proposed the words `O Lord,
bless our nation’. Accepted one afternoon, on the spur of the moment,
the sentence was brought up next day for reconsideration, when so many
objections were raised by the laity to the word nation’ as importing too
definite a recognition of national unity, that it was dropped, and
instead there were adopted the words `O Lord, bless these United
States.”
There was so little solidarity in the USA at the time when
this incident occurred that the people of America did not think that
they were a nation. If the people of the United States could not feel
that they were a nation, how difficult it is for Indians to think that
they are a nation?
A great delusion
I remember the days when
politically minded Indians, resented the expression “the people of
India”. They preferred the expression “the Indian nation.” I am of
opinion that in believing that we are a nation, we are cherishing a
great delusion. How can people divided into several thousands of castes
be a nation? The sooner we realise that we are not as yet a nation in
the social and psychological sense of the world, the better for us. For
then only we shall realise the necessity of becoming a nation and
seriously think of ways and means of realising the goal. The realisation
of this goal is going to be very difficult – far more difficult than it
has been in the United States. The United States has no caste problem.
In India there are castes. The castes are anti-national. In the first
place because they bring about separation in social life. They are
anti-national also because they generate jealousy and antipathy between
caste and caste. But we must overcome all these difficulties if we wish
to become a nation in reality. For fraternity can be a fact only when
there is a nation. Without fraternity, equality and liberty will be no
deeper than coats of paint.