As we celebrate the 75th year of Independence, we must pause to recall the extraordinary contribution of some national leaders who paved the way for independent India’s socio-economic transformation and democratic journey. Prominent among them was Dr B R Ambedkar, whose birth anniversary is observed on April 14.
Dr Ambedkar was a voracious reader and a political leader with an unwavering commitment to social justice and equality among all citizens. He had a deep understanding of democratic traditions in ancient India and other nations. He was determined to ensure that these traditions became the bedrock of independent India. As a result, one finds that his erudition and political commitment runs through the deliberations in the Constituent Assembly and are firmly imprinted in the Constitution of India, which was finally approved by that Assembly in November 1949.
While much can be said about Ambedkar’s contribution to the philosophy permeating the Constitution, this article will centre around the core principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, which he said were critical to genuine democracy. Some of his observations in the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949, while summing up the debate on the Constitution, provide us with an idea of the foundations on which the Indian State and democracy stand.
He said we should not be content with mere political democracy. “We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well.” By social democracy, he meant a system which recognised liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. All three are critical, and one cannot be divorced from the other. “Without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many, whereas equality without liberty would kill individual initiative.” And finally, “Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things. It would require a constable to enforce them.” In his view, while political democracy would mean one man, one vote, and one vote, one value, the social and economic structure denied the principle of one man, one value. “If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril.” The second thing he found missing was recognition of fraternity. “It is this principle which gives unity and solidarity to social life.”
While we are still some distance away from achieving the goals set by Dr Ambedkar, there can be no denying the fact that the Indian State has assiduously strived to achieve the target set by him. Since Independence, various governments have pursued the policy of reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Classes in educational institutions and government jobs. In recent years, Parliament amended the Constitution to extend this to economically backward citizens. These initiatives have enabled equal opportunity among various social groups and ensured upward mobility of hitherto downtrodden communities.
The other major development over the last few decades which has helped the State pursue the objectives set out by Dr Ambedkar is the coming to life of Part IV of the Constitution, which contains the Directive Principles of State Policy.
Some key provisions in the Directive Principles are: State must minimise inequalities in income, status, facilities and opportunities; justice—social, economic and political—should inform all institutions of national life; ownership and control of material resources must be distributed; there must be equal pay for equal work; childhood and youth must be protected from exploitation; just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief must be ensured as also a decent standard of living and enjoyment of leisure by workers; and workers must participate in management. While Article 37 says that the provisions contained in this part shall not be enforceable by any court, it, however, declares that the principles laid down are nevertheless fundamental to governance. It shall be the State’s duty to apply these principles in making laws. Over the years, the Supreme Court has played a key role by nudging the State to enforce these provisions.
Although much more needs to be done to realise all the goals envisioned in Part IV, one must acknowledge that the State has taken many steps to enforce these principles and the socio-economic goals that Dr Ambedkar set for the country. The plethora of labour laws and the judicial system to enforce them; employees’ state insurance scheme and health care; subsidised housing; specific laws to protect women and children; measures to equalise educational opportunities for children, including free uniforms, textbooks and even bicycles for high school students; the Consumer Protection Act; and free legal aid schemes are some of them which gathered pace under various prime ministers including Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In recent years, the Narendra Modi government has given a further push to Ambedkar’s socio-economic agenda and the Directive Principles through schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (which guarantees critical health insurance coverage to 100 million low-income families); the Jan Dhan Yojana which has led to the opening of over 440 million bank accounts of individuals living below the poverty line (BPL); the Ujjwala Yojana which provides domestic cooking gas to BPL families; and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana to provide housing to the poor.
Despite his phenomenal contribution to drafting the Constitution of India, Ambedkar suffered several electoral reverses in the 1950s. In January 1952, he contested from the Bombay North Lok Sabha constituency but was defeated by the Congress. He made a fresh bid to enter the Lok Sabha in a by-election from the Bhandara constituency in Maharashtra in May 1954 and again lost to the Congress. Sadly, the Congress saw no reason to acknowledge his phenomenal contribution once the Constitution was adopted. Thus, while PM Nehru conferred the Bharat Ratna on himself in 1955, neither he nor any of his successor Congress governments felt the need to accord the nation’s highest honour to Dr Ambedkar. It was finally left to the Janata Dal-led coalition government headed by V P Singh to correct this injustice in 1990. But the real tribute to him will be the complete transformation of our political democracy into a social democracy as he envisaged in 1949.
A Surya Prakash
Former Chairman of Prasar Bharati and scholar of democracy studies