THE MESSIAH AND THE
TESTAMENT
-Nani Palkhivala
In the year of Dr B R Ambedkar’s centenary, the Supreme
Court of India finds itself with the unenviable and monumental task of
redefining the rights of the socially backward classes with reference to the
Mandal commiission report. Nani Palkhivala pays a tribute to the country’s
greatest visionary. Accompanying this are his submissions before the Supreme
Court challenging the validity of the Mandal report.
Edwin Markham’s poignant words about the brutalised
toiler serve to sum up the condition of the Indian untouchable:
by the
weight of centuries he leans
Upon his
hoe and gazes on the ground,
The
emptiness of ages in his face,
And on
his back the burden of the world.
Who made
him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing
that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid
and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who
loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose
was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose
breath blew out the light within this brain?
Though
this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s
tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through
this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered,
profaned and disinherited,
Cries
protest to the Powers that made the world,
A
protest that is also prophecy.”
Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on 14th April
1891 and died on 6th December, 1956. He was an architect of consummate skill
and fidelity who, between 1947 and 1950, designed the structure which “has been
reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title.”
When Beverley Nichols visited India in 1945, he
took the opportunity of meeting most of the great figures in Indian public
life; and he described Dr Ambedkar as “one of the six brains in India.”
The country owes Dr Ambedkar an immeasurable debt
of gratitude which can never be repaid. He strove single-mindedly to bring
about the social integration of India, just as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel brought
about its political integration.
The most impressionable years of Dr Ambedkar’s life
were spent as an untouchable Mahar in conditions tantamount to slavery without
society recognizing even its obligation to feed the slave. For the untouchables
the harshness of life was so characterised by malnutrition, illiteracy,
disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as
to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency.
Those were bitter memories; but Dr Ambedkar laid
them down when India had a rebirth. It was India’s good fortune that Dr
Ambedkar became the chairman of the Drafting Committee of Free India’s
Republican Constitution. He presided over the group-- the galaxy of talent--
who conceived for the new republic a fundamental law dedicated to justice and
liberty; to equality of status and opportunity; and to fraternity assuring the
dignity of the individual and the unity of the nation. Chief Justice Mehr Chand
Mahajan (whose centenary was celebrated two years ago) rightly called it “our
sublime Constitution.”
Dr Ambedkar was too big a man to harbour any
thought of vengeance or vendetta, ill-will or revenge towards those who had
been exploiting casteism since time immemorial. He gave India a Constitution
which guarantees equality to all as its basic feature, and ensures a truly
egalitarian society where no class would be unprivileged, underprivileged or
privileged on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, dissent, place of birth or
residence.
While Mahatma Gandhi called the untouchables
“Harijans”-- children of God-- Dr Ambedkar was convinced that such soothing
nomenclature meant nothing. He asked the people not to forget that “whitewashing
does not save a dilapidated house. You must pull it down and build anew.” He
firmly believed in annihilation of the caste system, and wanted to rid our
society of this canker. He drew a sharp distinction “between social reform in
the sense of reforms of the Hindu family, and social reform in the sense of the
reorganisation and reconstruction of the Hindu society. The former has relation
to widow remarriage, child marriage, etc., while the latter related to the
abolition of caste.”
Dr Ambedkar’s philosophy was that self-respect and
human dignity were of paramount importance in a free republic. As he told his
followers two years before his death, “Ours is a battle not for wealth or for
power. It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of human
personality.”
He had an unshakable faith in guaranteed
Fundamental Rights. He said in the Constituent Assembly, “The Declaration of
the Rights of Man.., has become part and parcel of our mental make-up... These
principles have become the salient, immaculate premise of our outlook.”
Democracy and freedom are not synonymous. Adult
franchise may merely amount to the right to choose your tyrants. In Lord
Hailsham’s words, you may have “Elective Dictatorship.” Hence the conviction
shared by several countries about the sovereign virtue of having a Bill of
Rights in the Constitution which would guarantee basic human freedom. Even in
England, where freedom is bred in the bones of the people, eminent judges like
Lord Devlin, Lord Gardiner, Lord Hail- sham, Lord Salmon and Lord Scar- man
have advocated the incorporation of a Bill of Rights in British law.
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights is to withdraw
certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them
beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal
principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty and
equality, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and
other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the
outcome of no elections.
To Dr. Ambedkar the unit of society was the
individual, never the caste or the village. He wholly disbelieved in the glib
claptrap about the glories of the Panchayat Raj and observed: “...these village
republics have been the ruination of India. What is the village but a sink of
localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism? I am glad that
the draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted the individual as
the unit.”
Dr Ambedkar’s great vision enjoined the abolition
of casteism in every shape and form, since he was opposed to all divisive
forces and aimed at strengthening the impulse of national integration. The
ideals of fraternity and equality were the cement with which he wanted to bind
together a totally cohesive nation.
The highest tribute we can pay Dr Ambedkar on his
centennial is to redouble our efforts to preserve the Constitution which
endures as a lasting monument to the man who was one of the noblest sons of
India.
It is not a fortuitous accident, but a coincidence,
of deep symbolic significance, that the Supreme Court has been called upon to
decide, in the centenary year of Dr Ambedkar’s birth, the validity of the
Mandal Commission report in the context of the sanctity of the Constitution.
Courtsey: The Illustrated Weekly of India February
23-24, 1991.
