Closing speech of the first Constituent Assembly of India (New Delhi, November 1949) B.R. AMBEDKAR (1891–1956)

Closing speech of the first Constituent Assembly of India
(New Delhi, November 1949)
B.R. AMBEDKAR (1891–1956)

The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly was held on December 9,
1946, with more than 300 members. B.R. Ambedkar, Chairman of the
Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, made this beautiful speech
the day before the assembly formally finished its work. His tone was
jubilant yet somber and reflective. e warnings he gave—place of popular
protest in a democracy, the blind following of charismatic leaders and the
limitations of only a political democracy—retain their relevance, perhaps
more today than in 1949.

main speech

Sir, looking back on the work of the Constituent Assembly it will now be

two years, eleven months and seventeen days since it first met on the 9th of

December 1946. During this period the Constituent Assembly has

altogether held eleven sessions. Out of these eleven sessions the first six

were spent in passing the Objectives Resolution and the consideration of

the Reports of Committees on Fundamental Rights, on Union

Constitution, on Union Powers, on Provincial Constitution, on Minorities

and on the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes. e seventh, eighth,

ninth, tenth, and the eleventh sessions were devoted to the consideration of

the Draft Constitution. ese eleven sessions of the Constituent Assembly

have consumed 165 days. Out of these, the Assembly spent 114 days for the

consideration or the Draft Constitution.

Coming to the Drafting Committee, it was elected by the Constituent

Assembly on August 29, 1947. It held its first meeting on 30th August.

S A h f d d h h d h

Since August 30th, it sat for 141 days during which it was engaged in the

preparation of the Draft Constitution. e Draft Constitution, as prepared

by the Constitutional Adviser as a text for the Drafting Committee to work

upon, consisted of 243 articles and 13 Schedules. e first Draft

Constitution as presented by the Drafting Committee to the Constituent

Assembly contained 315 articles and 8 schedules. At the end of the

consideration stage, the number of articles in the Draft Constitution

increased to 386. In its final form, the Draft Constitution contains 395

articles and 8 Schedules. e total number of amendments to the Draft

Constitution tabled was approximately 7,635. Of them, the total number of

amendments actually moved in the house were 2,473.

I mention these facts because at one stage it was being said that the

assembly had taken too long a time to finish its work, that it was going on

leisurely and wasting public money. It was said to be a case of Nero fiddling

while Rome was burning. Is there any justification for this complaint? Let

us note the time consumed by constituent assemblies in other countries

appointed for framing their constitutions. To take a few illustrations, the

American Convention met on May 25, 1787, and completed its work on

September 17, 1787, that is, within four months. e Constitutional

Convention of Canada met on the October 10, 1864 and the Constitution

was passed into law in March 1867 involving a period of two years and five

months. e Australian Constitutional Convention assembled in March

1891 and the Constitution became law on the July 9, 1900, consuming a

period of nine years. e South African Convention met in October 1908

and the Constitution became law on the September 20, 1909 involving one

year’s labour. It is true that we have taken more time than what the

American or South African Conventions did. But we have not taken more

time than the Canadian Convention and much less than the Australian

Convention. In making comparisons on the basis of time consumed, two

things must be remembered. One is that the constitutions of America,

Canada, South Africa, and Australia are much smaller than ours. Our

Constitution, as I said, contains 395 articles while the American has just

seven articles, the first four of which are divided into sections which total up

to 21, the Canadian has 147, Australian 128, and South African 153

sections. e second thing to be remembered is that the makers of the

constitutions of America, Canada, Australia and South Africa did not have

to face the problem of amendments. ey were passed as moved. On the

h h d h C A bl h d d l h 7

other hand, this Constituent Assembly had to deal with as many as 2,473

amendments. Having regard to these facts the charge of dilatoriness seems

to me quite unfounded and this assembly may well congratulate itself for

having accomplished so formidable a task in so short a time.

Turning to the quality of the work done by the Drafting Committee, Mr

Naziruddin Ahmed felt it his duty to condemn it outright. In his opinion,

the work done by the Drafting Committee is not only not worthy of

commendation, but is positively below par. Everybody has a right to have

his opinion about the work done by the Drafting Committee and Mr

Naziruddin is welcome to have his own. Mr Naziruddin Ahmed thinks he

is a man of greater talents than any member of the Drafting Committee.

e Drafting Committee does not wish to challenge his claim. On the

other hand, the Drafting Committee would have welcomed him in their

midst if the assembly had thought him worthy of being appointed to it. If

he had no place in the making of the Constitution it is certainly not the

fault of the Drafting Committee.

Mr Naziruddin Ahmad has coined a new name for the Drafting

Committee evidently to show his contempt for it. He calls it a Drifting

Committee. Mr Naziruddin must no doubt be pleased with his hit. But he

evidently does not know that there is a difference between drift without

mastery and drift with mastery. If the Drafting Committee was drifting, it

was never without mastery over the situation. It was not merely angling

with the off chance of catching a fish. It was searching in known waters to

find the fish it was after. To be in search of something better is not the same

as drifting. Although Mr Naziruddin Ahmad did not mean it as a

compliment to the Drafting Committee, I take it as a compliment to the

Drafting Committee. e Drafting Committee would have been guilty of

gross dereliction of duty and of a false sense of dignity if it had not shown

the honesty and the courage to withdraw the amendments which it thought

faulty and substitute what it thought was better. If it is a mistake, I am glad

the Drafting Committee did not fight shy of admitting such mistakes and

coming forward to correct them.

I am glad to find that with the exception of a solitary member, there is a

general consensus of appreciation from the members of the Constituent

Assembly of the work done by the Drafting Committee. I am sure the

Drafting Committee feels happy to find this spontaneous recognition of its

l b d h A h l h h

labours expressed in such generous terms. As to the compliments that have

been showered upon me both by the members of the assembly as well as by

my colleagues of the Drafting Committee I feel so overwhelmed that I

cannot find adequate words to express fully my gratitude to them. I came

into the Constituent Assembly with no greater aspiration than to safeguard

the interests of the Scheduled Castes. I had not the remotest idea that I

would be called upon to undertake more responsible functions. I was

therefore greatly surprised when the assembly elected me to the Drafting

Committee. I was more than surprised when the Drafting Committee

elected me to be its Chairman. ere were in the Drafting Committee men

bigger, better and more competent than myself such as my friend Sir Alladi

Krishnaswami Ayyar. I am grateful to the Constituent Assembly and the

Drafting Committee for reposing in me so much trust and confidence and

to have chosen me as their instrument and given me this opportunity of

serving the country. (Cheers)

e 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 finalize the Constitution. I

must not omit to mention the members of the staff working under Mr

Mukherjee, for, I know how hard they have worked and how long they have

toiled, sometimes even beyond midnight. I want to thank them all for their

effort and their cooperation. (Cheers)

e task of the Drafting Committee would have been a very difficult one if

this Constituent Assembly has been merely a motley crowd, a tasseleted

pavement without cement, a black stone here and a white stone there in

which each member or each group was a law unto itself. ere would have

been nothing but chaos. is possibility of chaos was reduced to nil by the

f h C P d h bl h h b h

existence of the Congress Party inside the assembly which brought into its

proceedings a sense of order and discipline. It is because of the discipline of

the Congress Party that the Drafting Committee was able to pilot the

Constitution in the assembly with the sure knowledge as to the fate of each

article and each amendment. e Congress Party is, therefore, entitled to all

the credit for the smooth sailing of the Draft Constitution in the assembly.

e proceedings of this Constituent Assembly would have been very dull if

all members had yielded to the rule of party discipline. Party discipline, in

all its rigidity, would have converted this assembly into a gathering of ‘yes’

men. Fortunately, there were rebels. ey were Mr Kamath, Dr P.S.

Deshmukh, Mr Sidhva, Professor Sexena, and Pandit akur Das

Bhargava. Along with them I must mention Prof. K.T. Shah and Pandit

Hirday Nath Kunzru. e points they raised were mostly ideological. at I

was not prepared to accept their suggestions, does not diminish the value of

their suggestions nor lessen the service they have rendered to the assembly

in enlivening its proceedings. I am grateful to them. But for them, I would

not have had the opportunity which I got for expounding the principles

underlying the Constitution which was more important than the mere

mechanical work of passing the Constitution.

Finally, I must thank you Mr President for the way in which you have

conducted the proceedings of this assembly. e courtesy and the

consideration which you have shown to the members of the assembly can

never be forgotten by those who have taken part in the proceedings of this

assembly. ere were occasions when the amendments of the Drafting

Committee were sought to be barred on grounds purely technical in their

nature. ose were very anxious moments for me. I am, therefore, specially

grateful to you for not permitting legalism to defeat the work of

Constitution-making.

As much defence as could be offered to the Constitution has been offered

by my friends Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar and Mr T.T. Krishnamachari,

I shall not therefore enter into the merits of the Constitution. Because 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. e working of a Constitution does not

depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. e Constitution can

d l h f h h L l h E d

provide only the organs of state such as the Legislature, the Executive and

the Judiciary. e factors on which the working 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. Who can say how

the people of India and their parties will behave? Will they uphold

constitutional methods of achieving their purposes or will they prefer

revolutionary methods of achieving them? If they adopt the revolutionary

methods; however good the Constitution may be, it requires no prophet to

say that it will fail. It is, therefore, futile to pass any judgment upon the

Constitution without reference to the part which the people and their

parties are likely to play.

e condemnation of the Constitution largely comes from two quarters, the

Communist Party and the Socialist Party. Why do they condemn the

Constitution? Is it because it is really a bad Constitution? I venture to say

‘no.’ e Communist Party wants a Constitution based upon the principle

of the dictatorship of the proletariat. ey condemn the Constitution

because it is based upon parliamentary democracy. e Socialists want two

things. e first thing they want is that if they come in power, the

Constitution must give them the freedom to nationalize or socialize all

private property without payment of compensation. e second thing that

the Socialists want is that the Fundamental Rights mentioned in the

Constitution must be absolute and without any limitations so that if their

Party fails to come into power, they would have the unfettered freedom not

merely to criticize, but also to overthrow the state.

ese are the main grounds on which the Constitution is being condemned.

I do not say that the principle of parliamentary democracy is the only ideal

form of political democracy. I do not say that the principle of no acquisition

of private property without compensation is so sacrosanct that there can be

no departure from it. I do not say that Fundamental Rights can never be

absolute and the limitations set upon them can never be lifted. What I do

say is that the principles embodied in the Constitution are the views of the

present generation or if you think this to be an overstatement, I say they are

the views of the members of the Constituent Assembly. Why blame the

Drafting Committee for embodying them in the Constitution? I say why

blame even the members of the Constituent Assembly? Jefferson, the great

American statesman who played so great a part in the making of the

American Constitution, has expressed some very weighty views which

k f C ff d I l h h

makers of Constitution, can never afford to ignore. In one place, he has

said:

‘We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the

will of the majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding

generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.’

In another place, he has said:

‘e idea that institutions established for the use of the nation cannot be

touched or modified, even to make them answer their end, because of rights

gratuitously supposed in those employed to manage them in the trust for

the public, may perhaps be a salutary provision against the abuses of a

monarch, but is most absurd against the nation itself. Yet our lawyers and

priests generally inculcate this doctrine, and suppose that preceding

generations held the earth more freely than we do; had a right to impose

laws on us, unalterable by ourselves, and that we, in the like manner, can

make laws and impose burdens on future generations, which they will have

no right to alter; in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead and not the

living.’

I admit that what Jefferson has said is not merely true, but is absolutely true.

ere can be no question about it. Had the Constituent Assembly departed

from this principle laid down by Jefferson it would certainly be liable to

blame, even to condemnation. But I ask, has it? Quite the contrary. One has

only to examine the provision relating to the amendment of the

Constitution. e assembly has not only refrained from putting a seal of

finality and infallibility upon this Constitution by denying to the people the

right to amend the Constitution as in Canada or by making the amendment

of the Constitution subject to the fulfilment of extraordinary terms and

conditions as in America or Australia, but has provided a most facile

procedure for amending the Constitution. I challenge any of the critics of

the Constitution to prove that any Constituent Assembly anywhere in the

world has, in the circumstances in which this country finds itself, provided

such a facile procedure for the amendment of the Constitution. If those

who are dissatisfied with the Constitution have only to obtain a two-third

majority and if they cannot obtain even a two-third majority in the

Parliament elected on adult franchise in their favour, their dissatisfaction

with the Constitution cannot be deemed to be shared by the general public.

 l f l h h I k

ere is only one point of constitutional import to which I propose to make

a reference. A serious complaint is made on the ground that there is too

much of centralization and that the states have been reduced to

municipalities. It is clear that this view is not only an exaggeration, but is

also founded on a misunderstanding of what exactly the Constitution

contrives to do. As to the relation between the Centre and the states, it is

necessary to bear in mind the fundamental principle on which it rests. e

basic principle of federalism is that the Legislative and Executive authority

is partitioned between the Centre and the states not by any law to be made

by the Centre but by the Constitution itself. is is what Constitution does.

e states under our Constitution are in no way dependent upon the Centre

for their Legislative or Executive authority. e Centre and the states are

co-equal in this matter. It is difficult to see how such a Constitution can be

called centralized. It may be that the Constitution assigns to the Centre too

large a field for the operation of its Legislative and Executive authority than

is to be found in any other federal Constitution. It may be that the residuary

powers are given to the Centre and not to the states. But these features do

not form the essence of federalism. e chief mark of federalism as I said,

lies in the partition of the Legislative and Executive authority between the

Centre and the Units by the Constitution. is is the principle embodied in

our Constitution. ere can be no mistake about it. It is, therefore, wrong

to say that the states have been placed under the Centre. Centre cannot by

its own will alter the boundary of that partition. Nor can the Judiciary. For

as has been well said:

‘Courts may modify, they cannot replace. ey can revise earlier

interpretations as new arguments, new points of view are presented, they

can shift the dividing line in marginal cases, but there are barriers they

cannot pass, definite assignments of power they cannot reallocate. ey can

give a broadening construction of existing powers, but they cannot assign to

one authority powers explicitly granted to another.’

e first charge of centralization defeating federalism must therefore fall.

e second charge is that the Centre bas been given the power to override

the states. is charge must be admitted. But before condemning the

Constitution for containing such overriding powers, certain considerations

must be borne in mind. e first is that these overriding powers do not

form the normal feature of the Constitution. eir use and operation are

l fi d l  d d C ld

expressly confined to emergencies only. e second consideration is: Could

we avoid giving overriding powers to the Centre when an emergency has

arisen? ose who do not admit the justification for such overriding powers

to the Centre even in an emergency, do not seem to have a clear idea of the

problem which lies at the root of the matter. e problem is so clearly set

out by a writer in that well known magazine e Round Table in its issue of

December 1935 that I offer no apology for quoting the following extract

from it. Says the writer:

‘Political systems are a complex of rights and duties resting ultimately on

the question, to whom, or to what authority, does the citizen owe

allegiance. In normal affairs the question is not present, for the law works

smoothly, and a man goes about his business obeying one authority in this

set of matters and another authority in that. But in a moment of crisis, a

conflict of claims may arise, and it is then apparent that ultimate allegiance

cannot be divided. e issue of allegiance cannot be determined in the last

resort by a juristic interpretation of statutes. e law must conform to the

facts or so much the worse for the law. When all formalism is stripped away,

the bare question is, what authority commands the residual loyalty of the

citizen? Is it the Centre or the constituent state?’

e solution of this problem depends upon one’s answer to this question

which is the crux of the problem. ere can be no doubt that in the opinion

of the vast majority of the people, the residual loyalty of the citizen in an

emergency must be to the Centre and not to the constituent states. For it is

only the Centre which can work for a common end and for the general

interests of the country as a whole. Herein lies the justification for giving to

the Centre certain overriding powers to be used in an emergency. And after

all what is the obligation imposed upon the constituent States by these

emergency powers? No more than this—that in an emergency, they should

take into consideration alongside their own local interests, the opinions and

interests of the nation as a whole. Only those who have not understood the

problem, can complain against it.

Here I could have ended. But my mind is so full of the future of our country

that I feel I ought to take this occasion to give expression to some of my

reflections thereon. On 26th January 1950, India will be an independent

country. (Cheers) What would happen to her independence? Will she

maintain her independence or will she lose it again? is is the first thought

h d I h I d d d

that comes to my mind. It is not that India was never an independent

country. e point is that she once lost the independence she had. Will she

lose it a second time? It is this thought which makes me most anxious for

the future. What perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once

before lost her independence, but she lost it by the infidelity and treachery

of some of her own people. In the invasion of Sind by Mahommed-Bin-

Kasim, the military commanders of King Dahar accepted bribes from the

agents of Mahommed-Bin-Kasim and refused to fight on the side of their

King. It was Jaichand who invited Mahommed Ghori to invade India and

fight against Prithvi Raj and promised him the help of himself and the

Solanki kings. When Shivaji was fighting for the liberation of Hindus, the

other Maratha noblemen and the Rajput kings were fighting the battle on

the side of Moghul emperors. When the British were trying to destroy the

Sikh rulers, Gulab Singh, their principal commander sat silent and did not

help to save the Sikh kingdom. In 1857, when a large part of India had

declared a war of independence against the British, the Sikhs stood and

watched the event as silent spectators.

Will history repeat itself? It is this thought which fills me with anxiety. is

anxiety is deepened by the realization of the fact that in addition to our old

enemies in the form of castes and creeds we are going to have many political

parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Will Indians place the

country above their creed or will they place creed above country? I do not

know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country,

our independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost

forever. is eventuality we must all resolutely guard against. We must be

determined to defend our independence with the last drop of our blood.

(Cheers)

On the 26th of January 1950, India would be a democratic country in the

sense that India from that day would have a government of the people, by

the people and for the people. e same thought comes to my mind. What

would happen to her democratic Constitution? Will she be able to maintain

it or will she lose it again? is is the second thought that comes to my

mind and makes me as anxious as the first.

It is not that India did not know what is democracy. ere was a time when

India was studded with republics, and even where there were monarchies,

they were either elected or limited. ey were never absolute. It is not that

I d d d k l l d A d f h

India did not know parliaments or parliamentary procedure. A study of the

Buddhist Bhikshu Sanghas discloses that not only there were parliaments—

for the Sanghas were nothing but parliaments—but the Sanghas knew and

observed all the rules of Parliamentary Procedure known to modern times.

ey had rules regarding seating arrangements, rules regarding motions,

resolutions, quorum, whip, counting of votes, voting by ballot, censure

motion, regularization, Res Judicata, etc. Although these rules of

parliamentary procedure were applied by the Buddha to the meetings of the

Sanghas, he must have borrowed them from the rules of the political

assemblies functioning in the country in his time.

is democratic system India lost. Will she lose it a second time? I do not

know, 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 there is a landslide, the danger of the second possibility becoming

actuality is much greater.

If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what

must we do? e 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. ese methods are nothing but the grammar of anarchy and the

sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.

e second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart

Mill has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy,

namely, not ‘to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust

him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions.’ ere is

nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered lifelong

services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. As has been well

said by the Irish Patriot Daniel O’Connel, ‘no man can be grateful at the

cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and

b f l h f l b ’  f

no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty.’ is caution is far more

necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country, for in

India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship,

plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the

politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road

to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure

road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.

e third thing we must do is not to be content with mere political

democracy. We must make our political democracy a social democracy as

well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social

democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which

recognizes liberty, equality, and fraternity as the principles of life. ese

principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity are not to be treated as separate

items in a trinity. ey form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce

one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. Liberty

cannot be divorced from equality, equality cannot be divorced from liberty.

Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality,

liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality

without liberty would kill individual initiative. Without fraternity, liberty

and equality could not become a natural course of things. It would require a

constable to enforce them. We must begin by acknowledging the fact that

there is complete absence of two things in Indian Society. One of these is

equality. On the social plane, we have in India a society based on the

principle of graded inequality which means elevation for some and

degradation for others. On the economic plane, 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

l ll bl h f l l d h h h

inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this

Assembly has so laboriously built up.

e second thing we are wanting in is recognition of the principle of

fraternity. What does fraternity mean? Fraternity means a sense of common

brotherhood of all Indians—of Indians being one people. It is the principle

which gives unity and solidarity to social life. It is a difficult thing to

achieve. How difficult it is, can be realized from the story related by James

Bryce in his volume on American Commonwealth about the United States

of America.

e story is—I propose to recount it in the words of Bryce himself—that:

‘Some years ago the American Protestant Episcopal Church was occupied at

its triennial convention in revising its liturgy. It was thought desirable to

introduce among the short sentence prayers a prayer for the whole people,

and an eminent New England divine proposed the words “O Lord, bless

our nation”. Accepted one afternoon on the spur of the moment, the

sentence was brought up next day for reconsideration, when so many

objections were raised by the laity to the word “nation” as importing too

definite a recognition of national unity, that it was dropped, and instead

there were adopted the words “O Lord, bless these United States”.’

ere was so little solidarity in the USA at the time when this incident

occurred that the people of America did not think that they were a nation.

If the people of the United States could not feel that they were a nation,

how difficult it is for Indians to think that they are a nation. I remember the

days when politically-minded Indians resented the expression ‘the people of

India’. ey preferred the expression ‘the Indian nation.’ I am of opinion

that in believing that we are a nation, we are cherishing, a great delusion.

How can people divided into several thousands of castes be a nation? e

sooner we realize that we are not as yet a nation in the social and

psychological sense of the word, the better for us. For then only we shall

realize the necessity of becoming a nation and seriously think of ways and

means of realizing the goal. e realization of this goal is going to be very

difficult—far more difficult than it has been in the United States. e

United States has no caste problem. In India there are castes. e castes are

anti-national. In the first place, because they bring about separation in

social life. ey are anti-national also because they generate jealousy and

antipathy between caste and caste. But we must overcome all these

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difficulties if we wish to become a nation in reality. For fraternity can be a

fact only when there is a nation. Without fraternity, equality and liberty will

be no deeper than coats of paint.

ese are my reflections about the tasks that lie ahead of us. ey may not

be very pleasant to some, but there can be no gainsaying that political power

in this country has too long been the monopoly of a few and the many are

not only beasts of burden, but also beasts of prey. is monopoly has not

merely deprived them of their chance of betterment, it has sapped them of

what may be called the significance of life. ese down-trodden classes are

tired of being governed, they are impatient to govern themselves. is urge

for self-realization in the downtrodden classes must not be allowed to

develop into a class struggle or class war. It would lead to a division of the

House. at would indeed be a day of disaster. For, as has been well said by

Abraham Lincoln, a house divided against itself cannot stand very long.

erefore the sooner room is made for the realization of their aspiration,

the better for the few, the better for the country, the better for the

maintenance for its independence and the better for the continuance of its

democratic structure. is can only be done by the establishment of equality

and fraternity in all spheres of life. at is why I have laid so much stress on

them.

I do not wish to weary the House any further. 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. ere is great danger of things

going wrong. Times are fast changing. People including our own are being

moved by new ideologies. ey are getting tired of government by the

people. ey are prepared to have government 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.

at is the only way to serve the country. I know of no better.