Preamble #1: Assorted Tidbits
The preamble to
the constitution. That’s the topic of Aakash Singh Rathore’s Ambedkar’s Preamble. Not the entire constitution, just
the preamble. Why a book on just the preamble? The author explains:
“The
ideas and principles behind a clause can be more important than the mere
mechanics of the clause itself.”
It starts with something
we don’t even notice this:
“WE,
THE PEOPLE OF INDIA… IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of
November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS
CONSTITUTION.”
Not 26 January, 1950 (our Republic Day).
Instead, 26 November 1949. And if it was ready on that earlier day, why did our
Republic Day have to be later?
Therein lies a
tale. In 1929, the Congress’ National Session made a call for complete
independence. A while later, Gandhi published an article on 26 January 1930
saying India would settle for nothing less than “complete independence”. It was
as a callback to that Gandhian demand that the country decided to make 26
January its Republic Day.
Making a
declaration is all fine, but it wasn’t until 16 May 1946 that the Cabinet
Commission and the viceroy made specific recommendations on how the
constitution of India should be. On 22nd July, the Congress Working
Committee (CWC) moved a “declaration” outlining the objectives of the
Constituent Assembly. 5 months later, Nehru added a few items to it to form
what is called Nehru’s Objective Resolution.
“While
the (original) declaration proposed “freedom of thought, belief, vocation,
association, and action”, Nehru’s Objective Resolution added “freedom of
expression, faith, and worship”.
The constitution
would eventually include all those points, but would replace the word “freedom”
with “liberty”. Why? That’s the topic of another blog.
Notice one word
that is not there in either list? Yes, the word “socialism” is missing, despite
Nehru being a dedicated socialist. Ambedkar noticed the gap, commented on it,
and even framed a memorandum calling for the constitution to establish a
socialist economy. Yet the socialism word never made it to the Preamble. Why
not?
There are 3
theories. First is the conspiratorial view. In 1953, Ambedkar said in
the Rajya Sabha on the constitution:
“I
was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will.”
This one is hard
to evaluate. Was Ambedkar unhappy with parts of the Constitution? That was
inevitable, for there were so many debates and concessions. But which parts?
And to what extent was he unhappy? There is no way to know for sure.
The next one is
the concessional explanation. This one focusses on the concessions and
sometimes contradictory stances he had to take (equal rights for all citizens
v/s special rights for Dalits). It was almost certain that to gain certain
points for the Dalits (banning untouchability and adding reservations), he must
have had to make concessions in other topics.
The last theory is
the constitutional explanation. This view believes that the debates
while framing the constitution made Ambedkar change his views.
“Although
Dr Ambedkar was firm on his principles, he was pragmatic about the means and
strategies used to secure them.”
As per this view,
he also adjusted for changing realities. The announcement of Partition led to a
quick change to the “nature and number of the Constituent Assembly members”.
Perhaps the overhaul then led to other changes in the contents of the constitution
that was Ambedkar wasn’t too happy about?
Ambedkar did push
through a key element into the constitution.
“(While
Nehru’s guidelines were about) securing justice (social, economic and
political), Dr Ambedkar reshaped the role of the state into a more
active one – to remove social, political and economic inequalities, which
it would do by promoting affirmative action policies.”
We will go deeper into various aspects in upcoming blogs.
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