“Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution.What we will have to say is, that Man was vile.”
– BR Ambedkar speaking to the Constituent Assembly of India, November 1948.
The Indian Constitution came into force on January 26, 1950, marking its 75th anniversary this weekend. While politicians in power may celebrate with pomp, it's worth reflecting on the warnings Dr. BR Ambedkar, the law minister and chairman of the Drafting Committee, issued before its adoption.
During the three years of debate on the Constitution, Ambedkar made several major interventions.
One well-known passage from his second speech, though, is worth repeating. He cautioned against India's tendency for hero-worship, “not ‘to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions’.”
Ambedkar continued: “This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. 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.”
He added: “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.”
Ambedkar’s warnings were prescient, reflecting both the cult of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and the current one around Narendra Modi.
These personality cults have undermined Indian democracy in different ways. Ambedkar might not have been surprised by the extension of hero-worship to figures like cricketers, film stars, and businessmen.
But, he may have been uncomfortable with the worshipful adoration he now faces from his own followers.
A second warning in Ambedkar’s final speech remains highly relevant today. He stressed that “we must make our political democracy a social democracy as well.” He pointed out: “On the 26th of 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?”
Ambedkar was acutely aware of caste and gender inequalities in India. While the Constitution granted voting rights to all, including Dalits and women, the ideal of "one person, one value" remains unrealized.
Discrimination against Dalits persists, women are treated as subordinate, and upper-caste men dominate in business and professions.
But there are two more things he deeply cares for.
Ambedkar focused on Dalits and women, but Adivasis and religious minorities were largely overlooked.
Tribal communities in central India have suffered the most over 75 years of democracy, losing their lands and homes to mining and industrial companies, with political backing.
Adivasis face even greater discrimination and dispossession than Dalits, yet remain underreported.
India’s Muslims may feel betrayed by Independence promises. After Pakistan's creation, they stayed, trusting full citizenship rights. However, these rights have been eroded, especially since the last few years.
The persecution, harassment & stigmatisation of Muslims today is worse than it was even in the 1950s, with the principle of one person, one value denied to them.
The partisanship between the BJP and Congress highlights how far India is from its democratic ideal. Ambedkar may not have been entirely surprised.
As he said in his November 1948 speech: “Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.”
This has come to pass. Indira Gandhi’s Congress began promoting a “committed bureaucracy” and judiciary.
The Modi government, since 2014, added to that, eroding the independence of civil services, police, agencies, the judiciary, and the Election Commission to serve its agenda. It has even tried to inject religious majoritarianism into the armed forces.
Seventy-five years later, the habit of blaming others for our problems has increased. Shifting responsibility for failures has reached extreme levels. The Mughals, whose rule ended centuries ago, the British, who left in 1947, and Jawaharlal Nehru, who died in 1964, are blamed for what our supposedly swadeshi governments have failed to do.
We’d like to say that let’s take things in our own hands, and as Ambedkar himself ended his last speech: “Let us not forget that this independence has thrown on us great responsibilities.”
“By independence, we have lost the excuse of blaming the British for anything going wrong. If hereafter things go wrong, we will have nobody to blame except ourselves.”
Happy Republic Day!
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