<*>[Attachment(s) from Siddhartha Kumar included below]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: kumarv nangal <kumarv.nangal@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 4:31 AM
Subject: Dr. Ambedkar on Satyagraha
To:
Cc: mailsiddhartha.k@gmail.com
Dear Sir/ Madam,
One cannot stop wondering as to how, the Chief Architect of
Constitution of India, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar could foresee - with
precision - the dangers that the newly independent country, INDIA, may
encounter.
Dr. Ambedkar, in his speech, while presenting the Draft Constitution
before the Constituent Assembly, on 25th November, 1949, for voting,
warned people of India of such dangers.
Here are some excerpts from the same speech.
The link to this speech is at the bottom:
"…..I feel, however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out
bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot.
However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those
who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a
Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the
Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State
such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors
on which the workings of those organs of the State depend are the
people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments
to carry out their wishes and their politics.
….But it is quite possible in a country like India – where democracy
from its long disuse must be regarded as something quite new – there
is danger of democracy giving place to dictatorship. It is quite
possible for this new born democracy to retain its form but give place
to dictatorship in fact.
……If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in
fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgment we must do is to
hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and
economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of
revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil
disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way
left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social
objectives, there was a great deal of justification for
unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open,
there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods.
These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner
they are abandoned, the better for us.
….One of these is equality. On the social plane, we have in India a
society based on the principle of graded inequality which we have a
society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against
many who live in abject poverty. On the 26th 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.
…..Independence is no doubt a matter of joy. But let us not forget
that this independence has thrown on us great responsibilities. By
independence, we have lost the excuse of blaming the British for
anything going wrong. If hereafter things go wrong, we will have
nobody to blame except ourselves. There is great danger of things
going wrong. Times are fast changing. People including our own are
being moved by new ideologies. They are getting tired of Government by
the people. They are prepared to have Governments for the people and
are indifferent whether it is Government of the people and by the
people. If we wish to preserve the Constitution in which we have
sought to enshrine the principle of Government of the people, for the
people and by the people, let us resolve not to be tardy in the
recognition of the evils that lie across our path and which induce
people to prefer Government for the people to Government by the
people, nor to be weak in our initiative to remove them. That is the
only way to serve the country. I know of no better. "
The link to this speech:
www.parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/vol11p11.htm
<*>Attachment(s) from Siddhartha Kumar:
<*> 1 of 1 File(s) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/attachments/folder/559237269/item/list
<*> Dr. Ambedkar on SATYAGRAHA.doc
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