On Constitution Day, recalling Ambedkar’s 3 warnings about India’s future, which echo today

The statement Dhankhar quoted is from Ambedkar’s concluding remarks in the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949, in which he voiced several fears regarding the future of the country. Today, as the Constitution is frequently invoked by both sides amid an increasingly acrimonious political discourse, echoes can be heard of many of Ambedkar’s fears. We list three.

1. 01

   'Will India lose her independence again?'

   Ambedkar talked about how India had lost her independence because of internal divisions, and wondered if this would happen again.

   “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,” Ambedkar said.

   The loss of independence, of course, is not just territorial. If the actions of a country's people are not guided by the desire for her progress, and if they are held prisoner to fears and prejudices along the lines of creed, community, caste, etc., the country can't be called truly independent.

2. 02

   'India has known democracy before, will it remain democratic?'

   Ambedkar in his speech talked about how democracy was not a new concept for India but had existed in ancient times.

   “There was a time when India was studded with republics... 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.”

   Ambedkar said that the Buddha must have borrowed this form of functioning “from the rules of the Political Assemblies functioning in the country in his time.”

   He then went on to caution against hero-worship, or bhakti, of one leader.

   “There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered lifelong services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness... 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,” he said.

3. 03

   If political democracy would expand to social democracy

   Ambedkar said political democracy would not last “unless there lies at the base of it social democracy”, which means a way of life that “recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life.”

   He then highlighted the extreme social and economic inequality that existed in India.

   “...political power in this country has too long been the monopoly of a few and the many are only beasts of burden, but also beasts of prey. This monopoly has not merely deprived them of their chance of betterment, it has sapped them of what may be called the significance of life. These down-trodden classes are tired of being governed. They are impatient to govern themselves. This urge for selfrealisation in the down-trodden classes must not be allowed to devolve into a class struggle or class war,” Ambedkar cautioned.

   Finally, he said if the future of the country indeed turned out to be dark, there would be only one conclusion left to draw. “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.”