An equally portentous problem was that of the princely states. The British had controlled some two-thirds of the subcontinent directly, the rest being divided between more than five hundred chiefdoms and principalities whose rulers owed allegiance to the King-Emperor in London but were largely free to govern as they pleased. In the 1930s an All India States People’s Conference (AISPC) promoted by the Congress sought to involve the subjects of these chiefdoms in the nationalist struggle. The princes themselves they disparaged as reactionary feudals. Now, however, they had to be persuaded—or coerced—to join the new nation, a process that was to take more than two years.
The refugees had to be placated, the princely states integrated. Beyond these immediate concerns, a larger future for the new nation had to be designed. Between December 1946 and November 1949, some two hundred individuals served as elected members of the Constituent Assembly of India and collectively designed a democratic constitution which guaranteed freedom of speech, association and worship; enshrined special privileges for disadvantaged social groups such as low castes and tribals; identified the respective powers of the Centre and the states; and adopted a parliamentary system of governance based on universal adult franchise.
In 1946, the year the Constituent Assembly was convened in New Delhi, a group of Americans designed the Japanese Constitution. In 1949, when the assembly concluded its deliberations, a communist party led by Mao Zedong established control over China. The new political system of India was thus in marked contrast to that adopted by these other Asian nations. Unlike in the case of Japan, it was chosen and designed by Indians; unlike in the case of China, it allowed its citizens to speak their minds freely and to vote for whichever party they pleased. But there was a contrast with the advanced Western democracies as well: namely, that in India the right to elect one’s leaders had been granted to all adults in one fell swoop, rather than in stages. That some two-thirds of the electorate was illiterate made the choice even more striking.
Between 15 August 1947, when India acquired Dominion status within the British Empire, and 26 January 1950, when the Constitution making it a democratic republic came into operation, the unity of the new nation was sorely tested. There were several serious problems other than those of the refugees and the princely states. In September 1947 an armed conflict broke out with Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir. In March 1948 the Communist Party of India launched an insurrection, hoping to capture power on the Chinese model and install a one-party state. There was discontent in the north-eastern borderlands, with a large section of Nagas and Manipuris unwilling to join the Indian Union.
It was against this background of dissent and discord that India held its first general elections in January-February 1952. Polls were held simultaneously to the national Parliament and to the various state assemblies. A variety of parties contested, some regionally based, others with national ambitions. (Among them were the Communists who had laid down arms and accepted the Constitution.) The party of the freedom struggle, the Indian National Congress, was elected to power with a comfortable majority. But it still faced major challenges—including the forging of an economic policy that could lift the masses out of poverty; and the forging of a foreign policy that could assert India’s place in a world increasingly defined by the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Many observers—not all of them cynical Westerners—had thought that India’s first general elections would be its last. They did not think that democracy could take root in an illiterate and hierarchical society. Surely it would soon give way to rule by a strongman or, at the least, by a strong, centralized institution such as the Indian Army? Other commentators were sceptical of the ability of India to stay together as a single nation. They thought it would balkanize again, perhaps after a bloody civil war based this time on language rather than religion; or that it would return to the pattern of pre-colonial India, with the government in Delhi controlling territory within a radius of a few hundred miles (at best), with the more far-flung areas slowly seceding to form a series of independent nations or kingdoms.
The fears were to be proved unfounded. The general elections of 1952 were followed by nationwide polls in 1957 and 1962. Elections to the state assemblies were also held regularly. The processes of democracy were consolidated and upheld by an independent judiciary and a free press. At the same time, despite discontent in the borderlands, national unity was also maintained. The writ of the Central government ran over the whole of India.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, the specific contours of democracy and national unity were intensely debated in all parts of the country. The Congress won successive general elections, but had still to answer its critics on the left and the right who were represented in Parliament. It also met strong opposition in the states; not least in the southernmost state of Kerala, where Congress dominance was successfully challenged first by the socialists and then by the communists. Apart from this political opposition, individuals and groups within civil society were also vocal in their criticisms of the policies of the Congress government.
This part of the book features the major debates on politics and social policy that took place in the first decades of Indian independence. These arguments covered a wide range of topics—among them, the ideals and institutions of democracy; the relations between different religious communities; the respective roles of the state and private enterprise in promoting economic development; India’s place in the world; the place of the English language in India; the honourable integration within the nation-state of small ethnic minorities; and more.
The range of topics discussed in the pages that follow was commensurate with the scale of the enterprise, namely, the building of a single, united nation out of so many disparate fragments; the nurturing of a democratic ethos in a poor and divided society; the promotion of industrial development in an agrarian economy; and the safeguarding of national honour and dignity in an increasingly polarized international climate. I think that the quality of the interlocutors is worthy of note too. As in other parts of the book, these makers of modern India combine subtlety of argument with intensity of expression—the first marking them out as original political thinkers, the second as focused political actors. There may be one exception to this characterization, which I shall leave to the reader to identify, only remarking here that what this particular ‘Maker’ lost by way of intellectual sophistication he perhaps made up by way of social and political influence.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
The Wise Democrat
B.R. Ambedkar
As we have seen in Chapter Nine, B.R. Ambedkar had been a bitter critic of Gandhi and the Congress. Remarkably, despite twenty years of intense personal and political rivalry, when India became independent Ambedkar was offered the job of law minister in the Union Cabinet. This was an extraordinary act of reconciliation, for which Gandhi seems to have been personally responsible. It is said that he told the pre-eminent Congress leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, that freedom had come not to a single party, but to all of India. In this spirit, the first cabinet also included representatives of the Akali Dal and the Justice Party, who had likewise previously opposed the Congress.
To facilitate Ambedkar’s entry into the cabinet, the Congress elected him to the Constituent Assembly of India from a safe seat in Bombay. As law minister, he was made chairman of the committee formed to draft the Indian Constitution. As the thirteen volumes of the proceedings of the assembly demonstrate, Ambedkar handled criticism with tact and authority. He also made some quite brilliant speeches on the significance of the Constitution for the future of democracy.
Apart from piloting the Constitution of India through a sometimes fractious assembly, Ambedkar made one other important contribution as law minister. This was to oversee the drafting of a new law that would, for the first time, allow Hindu women to choose their marriage partners, to divorce them if necessary and to inherit a fair share of
ancestral property. These reforms only came into effect after Ambedkar resigned from the cabinet in 1951. But he was their principal architect, as he was of the Constitution itself.
The Indian Constitution Defended and Interpreted
We print excerpts from two important speeches made by Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly of India. The first introduced the draft of the Constitution and outlined the meanings of ‘constitutional morality’.1
… One likes to ask whether there can be anything new in a Constitution framed at this hour in the history of the world. More than hundred years have rolled over when the first written Constitution was drafted. It has been followed by many countries reducing their Constitutions to writing. What the scope of a Constitution should be has long been settled. Similarly what are the fundamentals of a Constitution are recognized all over the world. Given these facts, all Constitutions in their main provisions must look similar. The only new things, if there can be any, in a Constitution framed so late in the day are the variations made to remove the faults and to accommodate it to the needs of the country. The charge of producing a blind copy of the Constitutions of other countries is based, I am sure, on an inadequate study of the Constitution. I have shown what is new in the Draft Constitution and I am sure that those who have studied other Constitutions and who are prepared to consider the matter dispassionately will agree that the Drafting Committee in performing its duty has not been guilty of such blind and slavish imitation as it is represented to be.
As to the accusation that the Draft Constitution has produced a good part of the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935, I make no apologies. There is nothing to be ashamed of in borrowing. It involves no plagiarism. Nobody holds any patent rights in the fundamental ideas of a Constitution. What I am sorry about is that the provisions taken from the Government of India Act, 1935, relate mostly to the details of administration. I agree that administrative details should have no place in the Constitution. I wish very much that the Drafting Committee could see its way to avoid their inclusion in the Constitution. But this is to be said on the necessity which justifies their inclusion. Grote, the historian of Greece, has said that:
The diffusion of constitutional morality, not merely among the majority of any community but throughout the whole, is the indispensable condition of government at once free and peaceable; since even any powerful and obstinate minority may render the working of a free institution impracticable, without being strong enough to conquer ascendency for themselves.
By constitutional morality Grote meant ‘a paramount reverence for the forms of the Constitution, enforcing obedience to authority acting under and within these forms yet combined with the habit of open speech, of action subject only to definite legal control, and unrestrained censure of those very authorities as to all their public acts, combined too with a perfect confidence in the bosom of every citizen amidst the bitterness of party contest that the forms of the Constitution will not be less sacred in the eyes of his opponents than in his own.’ (Hear, hear.)
While everybody recognizes the necessity of the diffusion of Constitutional morality for the peaceful working of a democratic Constitution, there are two things interconnected with it which are not, unfortunately, generally recognized. One is that the form of administration has a close connection with the form of the Constitution. The form of the administration must be appropriate to and in the same sense as the form of the Constitution. The other is that it is perfectly possible to pervert the Constitution, without changing its form by merely changing the form of the administration and to make it inconsistent and opposed to the spirit of the Constitution. It follows that it is only where people are saturated with Constitutional morality such as the one described by Grote the historian that one can take the risk of omitting from the Constitution details of administration and leaving it for the Legislature to prescribe them. The question is, can we presume such a diffusion of Constitutional morality? Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realize that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.
In these circumstances it is wiser not to trust the Legislature to prescribe forms of administration. This is the justification for incorporating them in the Constitution.
Another criticism against the Draft Constitution is that no part of it represents the ancient polity of India. It is said that the new Constitution should have been drafted on the ancient Hindu model of a State and that instead of incorporating Western theories the new Constitution should have been raised and built upon village Panchayats and District Panchayats. There are others who have taken a more extreme view. They do not want any Central or Provincial Governments. They just want India to contain so many village Governments. The love of the intellectual Indians for the village community is of course infinite if not pathetic (laughter). It is largely due to the fulsome praise bestowed upon it by Metcalfe2 who described them as little republics having nearly everything that they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. The existence of these village communities each one forming a separate little State in itself has according to Metcalfe contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the people of India, through all the revolutions and changes which they have suffered, and is in a high degree conducive to their happiness and to the enjoyment of a great portion of their freedom and independence. No doubt the village communities do not care to consider what little part they have played in the affairs and the destiny of the country; and why? Their part in the destiny of the country has been well described by Metcalfe himself who says:
Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down. Revolution succeeds to revolution. Hindoo, Pathan, Mogul, Maratha, Sikh, English are all masters in turn but the village communities remain the same. In times of trouble they arm and fortify themselves. A hostile army passes through the country. The village communities collect their little cattle within their walls, and let the enemy pass unprovoked.
Such is the part the village communities have played in the history of their country. Knowing this, what pride can one feel in them? That they have survived through all vicissitudes may be a fact. But mere survival has no value. The question is on what plane they have survived. Surely on a low, on a selfish level. I hold that these village republics have been the ruination of India. I am therefore surprised that those who condemn Provincialism and Communalism should come forward as champions of the village. 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 its unit …
Some critics have taken objection to the description of India in Article 1 of the Draft Constitution as a Union of [States] … Some critics have said that the Centre is too strong. Others have said that it must be made stronger. The Draft Constitution has struck a balance. However much you may deny powers to the Centre, it is difficult to prevent the Centre from becoming strong. Conditions in [the] modern world are such that centralization of powers is inevitable. One has only to consider the growth of the Federal Government in the U.S.A. which, notwithstanding the very limited powers given to it by the Constitution, has out-grown its former self and has overshadowed and eclipsed the State Governments. This is due to modern conditions. The same conditions are sure to operate on the Government of India and nothing that one can do will help to prevent it from being strong. On the other hand, we must resist the tendency to make it stronger. It cannot chew more than it can digest. Its strength must be commensurate with its weight. It would be a folly to make it so strong that it may fall by its own weight …
The Constitution has been discussed in some of the Provincial Assemblies of India. It was discussed in Bombay, C.P., West Bengal, Bihar, Madras and East Punjab. It is true that in some Provincial Assemblies serious objections were taken to the financial provisions of the Constitution … But excepting this,
in no Provincial Assembly was any serious objection taken to the Articles of the Constitution. No Constitution is perfect and the Drafting Committee itself is suggesting certain amendments to improve the Draft Constitution. But the debates in the Provincial Assemblies give me courage to say that the Constitution as settled by the Drafting Committee is good enough to make in this country a start with. I feel that it is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is, that Man was vile. Sir, I move.
A year after a draft had been introduced and discussed, a final constitution was agreed upon. In his last speech to the assembly, Ambedkar offered some prophetic warnings about the course of Indian democracy.3
… The credit that is given to me does not really belong to me. It belongs partly to Sir B.N. Rau, the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly who prepared a rough draft of the Constitution for the consideration of the Drafting Committee. A part of the credit must go to the members of the Drafting Committee who, as I have said, have sat for 141 days and without whose ingenuity to devise new formulae and capacity to tolerate and to accommodate different points of view, the task of framing the Constitution could not have come to so successful a conclusion. Much greater share of the credit must go to Mr. S.N. Mukherjee, the Chief Draftsman of the Constitution. His ability to put the most intricate proposals in the simplest and clearest legal form can rarely be equalled, nor his capacity for hard work. He has been an acquisition to the Assembly. Without his help, this Assembly would have taken many more years to finalise the Constitution. I must not omit to mention the members of the staff working under Mr. Mukherjee. For, I know how hard they worked and how long they have toiled, sometimes even beyond midnight. I want to thank them all for their effort and their cooperation. (Cheers.)