Happy Ambedkar Jayanti : Recalling his golden words to save Constitution and to save Democracy

While addressing the constituent assembly on November 25, 1949, Dr. B R Ambedkar, the father of Indian Constitution had issued some warnings.  

“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 unequaled 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.”

What we severally witness presently, a large part of the Indian population seems more than eager to put themselves, along with many things this country stands for, at the feet of the front-runners always. How relevant really the words of Dr. Ambedkar even after seven decades! Have we ever thought that such activities are prompting for dictatorship / degradation in / of democracy? 

Another important warning is as follows.

“On the 26^th 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 recognizing 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 is Assembly has to laboriously built up.”

There may not be any second opinion that since independence though all governments have claimed to pursue the cause of social and economic equality, the progress made so far is hardly adequate which seems as a major threat right now jeopardizing our political democracy.

Thus, as a responsible India Citizen, first we have to define our role to save our constitution and our democracy which are being degraded day by day through political dictatorship and to see that India should not just remain content with political democracy, but strive for social democracy as well.