Subhash Gatade 

 

(This article has been edited by us for reasons of space. The full article is available on Janata blog.)

 

At a time when we are witnessing a concerted attempt from the powers that be to water down Ambedkar’s legacy and appropriate his name to peddle an agenda which essentially hinges around political and social reaction, we need to understand how during his more than three decade long political career he put forward a “variety of political and social ideas that fertilised Indian thinking” (as per late President K R Narayanan) which contributed to the rulers of the newly independent nation’s decision to adopt the parliamentary form of democracy. Perhaps more important would be to understand his differentiation between what he called ‘political democracy’—which he defined as ‘one man one vote’ and ‘social democracy’—which according to him was one man with one value and his caution that political democracy built on the divisions, asymmetries, inequalities and exclusions of traditional Indian society would be like ‘a palace built on cow dung’.

 

We also need to take a look at the unfolding scenario in the country and also see for oneself whether there is a growing dissonance or resonance between what and how Dr Ambedkar envisaged democracy and the actual situation on the ground and how should we see our role in confronting the challenges which lie before it.

 

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Let us first try and understand whether the image of Ambedkar which has been taught to us through textbooks and popularised by the ever expanding media matches with his actual contributions as a great leader, scholar and renaissance thinker, all put together.

 

This image would include: ‘Dalit leader’, ‘Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution’, ‘fought for the rights of Scheduled Castes’, and ‘embraced Buddhism with lakhs of followers’. The image of Ambedkar in people’s minds normally does not transcend these limits.

 

The imagery does not include the historic Mahad Satyagraha which was organised under his leadership way back in 1927 at the Chawdar Talab (lake) nor does it include the burning of Manusmriti in the second phase of this Satyagraha, which was compared to the French revolution by Ambedkar in his speech. It also does not include details of the first political party formed under his leadership called Independent Labour Party, role of many non-dalits or even upper castes in the movement led by him or the historic march to Bombay assembly against the ‘Khot pratha’ in which communists had participated in equal strength. His historic speech to the railway workers in Manmad wherein he asked them to fight the twin enemies of ‘Brahmninism’ and ‘Capitalism’ (late thirties) or his struggle for Hindu Code Bill, which ultimately became the cause of his resignation from Nehru cabinet, all these details of his stormy life, never get mention in the imagery. One can add many other important interventions under his leadership which definitely do not ‘suit’ his image of a ‘dalit messiah’.

 

Is it not surprising that most of us know so little of him, which is definitely not the case with other great leaders who emerged during the anti-colonial movement ?

 

This selective amnesia about Ambedkar is largely due to the way in which the ruling classes then—dominated by the upper caste elite—tried to belittle his image in a very surreptitious manner. Undoubtedly people or formations involved in the work of broader social transformation, which also include organisations claiming to be his legatees, cannot escape blame for the critical silences around his image.

 

Any student of politics of the oppressed would vouch that this is a bane of most of the leaders of the exploited and oppressed. In fact, we have been witness to a similar process which  unfolded itself in the USA itself where a very sanitised image of Martin Luther King has been made popular. Instead of MLK who opposed Vietnam War, looked at capitalism as source of all evils, who equally struggled for workers rights, we have before us an image of King which seems more amenable to the ruling classes there.

 

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Coming to his ideas on democracy, it can definitely be said that future of Indian democracy depends to a great deal upon revival of Ambedkar’s visionary conception of democracy. Of course, this would need to be enlarged and updated in the light of the recent experience.

 

But before taking up this aspect it would be opportune to know from Ambedkar himself how he looked at the idea of democracy. Perhaps his speech on the ‘Voice of America’ radio (20th May 1956) which he gave few months before his death could best summarise his ideas around the concept.

 

The first point which he makes is that ‘Democracy is quite different from a Republic as well as from Parliamentary Government.’ According to him:

 

“The roots of democracy lie not in the form of Government, Parliamentary or otherwise. A democracy is more than a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living. The roots of Democracy are to be searched in the social relationship, in the terms of associated life between the people who form a society.’”

 

Next he comes to define the word ‘society’ itself.  For him a society is united by its very nature and “the qualities which accompany this unity are praiseworthy community of purpose and desire for welfare, loyalty to public ends and mutuality of sympathy and co-operation.”

 

Interrogating Indian society, he asks whether “these ideals are found in Indian society?”  Elaborating on the Indian society which is nothing but “an innumerable collection of castes which are exclusive in their life and have no common experience to share and have no bond of sympathy”, he concludes that:

 

“The existence of the Caste System is a standing denial of the existence of those ideals of society and therefore of democracy.”

 

He discusses how “Indian Society is so embedded in the Caste System that everything is organised on the basis of caste.” He shares examples from daily life of individuals revolving around the twin concepts of purity and pollution, then moves to how the caste system operates in the social-political arena and wryly concludes that “there is no room for the downtrodden and the outcastes in politics, in industry, in commerce and in education.”

 

He discusses other special of the caste system and focusses on what is called “Graded Inequality” where “Castes are not equal in their status” but rather ‘are standing one above another’ and form “an ascending scale of hatred and descending scale of contempt” which has the most pernicious consequences as “it destroys willing and helpful co-operation.”

 

He then takes up the manner in which one caste is bound to one occupation which “cuts at the very roots of democracy.” He goes on to say that a democratic society “should open a way to use all the capacities of the individual. Stratification is stunting of the growth of the individual and deliberate stunting is a deliberate denial of democracy.”

 

In the concluding part of his speech he discusses obstacles in the way of ending the caste system. He says that the first obstacle is the “system of graded inequality which is the soul of the Caste System.” The second obstacle is that “the Indians Society is disabled by unity in action by not being able to know what is its common good” as “the mind of the Indians is distracted and misled by false valuations and false perspectives.” He ends his speech by emphasising that mere education cannot destroy the caste system, it would require education to be given to the right strata of society, it would require education to be given  “to the lowest strata of Indian Society which is interested in blowing up the Caste System.” Giving education to those “who want to keep up the Caste System” is not going “to improve the prospect of Democracy in India” but rather would “put our Democracy in India in greater jeopardy.”

 

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Ambedkar believed that democracy is “a form and a method of government whereby revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed.” The conditions for that are as follows:

 

“(1) there should not be glaring inequalities in society, that is, privilege for one class; (2) the existence of an opposition; (3) equality in law and administration; (4) observance of constitutional morality; (5) no tyranny of the majority; (6) moral order of society: and (7) public conscience.” (See: Shyam Chand, Dr Ambedkar on Democracy, Mainstream, Vol XLV, No 51.)

 

In his speech to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949 he also elucidated three devices that he stated were essential to maintain democracy: “(i) constitutional methods: (ii) not to lay liberties at the feet of a great man: (iii) make a political democracy a social democracy.”

 

Looking at the fact that India happens to be a multi-denominational society where the common denominator could be secularism which is understood as one of the pillars on which the superstructure of our democracy rests and is a unifying force of our associated life, he emphasised :

 

“The conception of a secular state is derived from the liberal democratic tradition of the West. No institution which is maintained wholly out of state funds shall be used for the purpose of religious instruction irrespective of the question whether the religious instruction is given by the state or by any other body.”

 

In a debate in Parliament, he also underlined:

 

“It (secular state) does not mean that we shall not take into consideration the religious sentiments of the people. All that a secular state means that this Parliament shall not be competent to impose any particular religion upon the rest of the people. That is the only limitation that the Constitution recognises.”

 

Taking into consideration the possibility that a minority can become victim of the tyranny of the majority, he suggested enough safeguards for their protection :

 

“The State should guarantee to its citizens the liberty of conscience and the free exercise of his religion including the right to profess, to preach and to convert within limits compatible with public order and morality.”

 

Prof Jean Dreze, in an article “Dr Ambedkar and Future of Indian Democracy”, brings forth an important point wherein he underlines how “Ambedkar’s passion for democracy was closely related to his commitment to rationality and the scientific outlook.” In this connection he quotes from one of his last speeches, “Buddha or Karl Marx”, wherein summarising the essential teachings of Buddha, Ambedkar elaborates :

 

“Everyone has a right to learn. Learning is as necessary for man to live as food is … Nothing is infallible. Nothing is binding forever. Everything is subject to inquiry and examination.”

 

According to Prof Dreze, raising this issue has become particularly important today considering the recent threats to Indian democracy which often involve a concerted attack on rationality and the scientific spirit.

 

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Let us now go  beyond Ambedkar’s understanding of democracy to take a look at another danger to democracy in the unfolding situation in India today.

 

What is the sine qua non of democracy?

 

It is the understanding that minority voices will be allowed to flourish and they will not be bulldozed.

 

On the surface, majoritarianism—rule by majority—appears to be very similar to democracy but it essentially stands democracy on its head. For real democracy to thrive, it is essential that ideas and principles of secularism are at its core. The idea that there will be a clear separation between state and religion and there won’t be any discrimination on the basis of religion has to be its guiding principle.

 

Majoritarianism thus clearly defeats democracy in idea as well as practice.

 

While democracy’s metamorphosis into majoritarianism is a real danger, under the rule of capital— especially its present phase of neoliberalism—another lurking danger is its evolution into what can be called as plutocracy—government by the rich.

 

This has been brought out in considerable detail in a recent book by Thomas Picketty, Capitalism in the 21st Century. This convincingly demonstrates that the twentieth century exhibited a secular tendency towards continuous and widening inequality, with disproportionate concentration of income at the top, and that this can be seen in India too, which too is a relatively high inequality country. 

 

In such an unfolding situation, where on the one hand, we are faced with the danger of democracy metamorphosing into majoritarianism, and on the other hand, democracy becoming an oligarchy, the question arises: what needs to be done ?

 

Jean Dreze, in the above mentioned article, suggests a course of action which merits attention: 

 

“The best course of action may be to revive the Directive Principles of the Constitution, and to reassert that these principles are “fundamental in the governance of the country” (Article 37).

 

Indeed, in spite of much official hostility to these principles today, there are unprecedented opportunities for asserting the economic and social rights discussed in the constitution—the right to education, the right to information, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to equality, among others. For this, Dr. Ambedkar’s advice to “educate, organise and agitate” is more relevant than ever.

 

(The author is a social activist and writer.)