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8/4/2019 Thorat on Anna
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Ambedkar's way & Anna Hazare's methods
SUKHADEO THORAT
Following Dr. Ambedkar's example, Team Anna should use constitutionalmethods and enhance people's faith in them. Otherwise it will convey themessage that only coercive and unconstitutional methods work.
A group of people, with placards showing Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, staged a demonstration in
Delhi a few days ago against Anna Hazare's proposals on the Lokpal and the methods used by
his team. More often than not, Dalits look with suspicion on any attempt to tamper with the
Constitution. Team Anna has, however, suggested that its Lokpal bill would benefit Dalits
more than anyone else. This led me to look at Dr. Ambedkar's position as compared to the
mode of agitation being deployed by Anna Hazare and his team.
In his last, visionary speech after the submission of the drafted Constitution on November25, 1949, Dr. Ambedkar warned of three possible dangers to the new-born democracy. These
related to social and economic inequalities, the use of unconstitutional methods, and hero-
worship.
Dr. Ambedkar first pointed to the contradiction between equality in politics in the form of
one-person-one-vote and the inequalities in social and economic life. He argued that for
political democracy to succeed, it needed to be founded on the tissues and fibres of social and
economic equality. He warned that 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. Although we in India are trying hard to reduce the vast inequalities that exist, the
working of political democracy is already under heavy stress due to discontent in some parts
of country.
Dr. Ambedkar's second, and more important, warning in the present context related to the
methods to achieve social and economic objectives. He urged the people to abandon bloody
as well as coercive methods to bring about change. This means abandoning methods of civil
disobedience, non-cooperation, coercive forms of satyagraha and fast. Referring to the use of
these methods during the British period, Dr. Ambedkar observed: When there was no way
left for the constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a
great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But using them since that period, in
his view, was nothing less than the Grammar of Anarchy. He advocated that the sooner
they are abandoned, the better for us as a nation.
Dr. Ambedkar's third warning related to hero worship. He was immensely concerned over
the political culture of laying down the liberties at the feet of great men or to trust them with
powers which enable them to subvert their institutions. He believed that 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. No man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, and no
nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty. This caution is far more necessary in the case
of the people of India than in the case of any other country, for in India,bhakti, or what may
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be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in politics, unequalled in
magnitude to the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world, argued Dr.
Ambedkar. He went on to add that bhaktior hero-worship in religion may be a road to the
salvation of the soul, but in politics, bhaktior hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and
to eventual dictatorship.
These views of Dr. Ambedkar also evolved through a much deeper commitment to
constitutional methods and their use in the anti-untouchability movement during the 1920s
and the 1930s. The 1920s and the 1930s saw a series of agitations led by Dr. Ambedkar to get
public wells, tanks and Hindu temples opened to untouchables. In the present context,
recalling two such incidents is very relevant, namely, the agitation for access to a water tank
in Mahad, and for entry into the famous Kalaram temple in Nasik. In both cases, Dr.
Ambedkar was up against violent high-caste Hindus, with the British sitting on the fence.
Dr. Ambedkar started the Mahad agitation in 1927, but the untouchables got access to the
tank only in 1937 through a court order. The people of the high castes had managed a court
order to ban the entry of untouchables into the tank on the grounds that it was a private
tank. Dr. Ambedkar accepted the court order and discontinued a second march to the tank.
But he fought through the courts and got justice in 1937, almost after 10 years. He did this
using legal instruments and a peaceful mass movement, without the coercive means of fasts
and hunger strikes.
Similarly, the agitation for entry into the Kalaram temple went on for four years, from 1930
to 1934. He discontinued the agitation in 1934 following opposition by priests,
notwithstanding the support extended by Gandhiji. But he fought a legal battle, along with a
peaceful agitation, for the next four years, and in 1939 ultimately secured entry to the temple
for untouchables.
During the 1920s and the 1930s, Dr. Ambedkar combined mass mobilisation with legal
methods in the anti-untouchability movement, but never allowed unconstitutional and
coercive methods to take hold, despite instances of violent attack on untouchables. Once he
came face to face with Gandhiji with the latter's fast-unto-death and he had to compromise
on the demand for a separate electorate with what is the present-day political reservation.
Coercive means forced him to surrender the demand for a separate electorate, the
consequences of which are visible today.
Team Anna should realise that the Indian Constitution provides ample opportunities for
advocacy, through discussion and lobbying with parliamentary Standing Committees,
Groups of Ministers, the Ministers concerned, the Prime Minister, courts, and above all
through a peaceful agitation. With several political parties on their side, the possibility ofreaching a middle ground is high. Experience with constitutional means shows that civil
society activists, through their constant struggles, have persuaded the two successive United
Progressive Alliance governments to acknowledge several basic rights and convert these into
laws. The right to employment through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the right to information, rights under the Forest Act, the right
to education, and now the right to food, are some of the revolutionary measures that civil
society has been able to accomplish through constitutional methods. It is an opportunity for
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Team Anna to use constitutional methods and enhance the faith of people in these; otherwise
Team Anna will convey the message that only coercive and unconstitutional methods work.
As Dr. Ambedkar observed, due to certain aspects of Indian culture our people are highly
vulnerable to hero-worship. How a yoga teacher could convert yoga devotees into religious
devotees and finally into political supporters within a few years' time is a classic example ofwhat hero-worship and bhaktican do. Another religious preacher has threatened that he
would use his religious followers for political end which he thinks does not require discussion
with them as they follow him in whatever he tells them to do.
Anna and his team should recognise that for a new democracy like ours, which is operating
within the framework of undemocratic relations based on the caste system, constitutional
methods and social morality need to be cultivated and promoted with a purpose. The Lokpal
Bill is too important a piece of legislation to be passed under threat and unreasonable
deadlines. All its aspects need to be discussed with extreme care and with consensus among
all sections. Dalits have begun to express concern about its implications for them. In a society
where the anti-caste spirit and prejudices are present in abundance, they feel that given its
proposed wide-ranging powers, it may be misused.
The Commissioner for Scheduled Castes reported about 11,469 complaints by Dalit
government employees during the period from 2004 to 2010 that were linked to caste
prejudice. Several thousand more complaints under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, such as giving false or frivolous
information to any public servant and thereby cause such public servant to use his lawful
power to the injury or annoyance of member of SC/ST are waiting for justice. Therefore,
Dalits have begun to seek safeguards against the complaints emanating from caste prejudices
in the Lokpal Bill. I think the government has rightly brought the bill for an open discussion
before the Standing Committee that comprises MPs from all parties, so that the Bill is
discussed by all sections in a peaceful milieu and not under duress and force.
Anna Hazare knows that the road to social change is a difficult one. He helped Dalits in a
number of ways, including by repaying loans taken by Dalits with contributions from
villagers. Yet he could not bring about fraternity between them Dalits continue to stay in
segregated localities in his village. Corruption, like untouchability, is deeply embedded in the
social fabric of our society. Therefore, besides legislation its eradication requires changes
through education and moral regeneration.
(Sukhadeo Thorat is Professor of Economics, Centre for the Study of Regional
Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University. E-mail: [email protected])
(The Hindu, 23/8/2011)