Today,
April 14, is the birth anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (April, 1891 –
December, 1956), the greatest Indian of the contemporary India. The greatness
of Ambedkar rests with fact that in spite of the fact that he held divergent or
even conflicting views with Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar
Vallabh Bhai Patel and other leaders of the contemporary India on many matters
of interest and concern, Dr. Ambedkar could hold and prevail against tides of
the time. Mahatma Gandhi rightly said on dealing with Ambedkar ‘You may criticize
him but you cannot ignore him’. It is a matter of satisfaction to note that as
the time passes, contemporary India is in the process of paving its way to go
ahead in its progress and development, the acceptance of Ambedkar and
recognition of his contribution in the nation building also increases and
rightly so.
There
were two major contributions which Ambedkar made to the polity and governance
and social edifice of India. First he was the father of the Indian
constitution. It is gratifying to note that India is the largest functional
democracy of the world. The governance of the country is run under the
provisions of the constitution in which the ultimate power rests with the
people. India is on the rails. It has come a long way in its development but
still it is still to go a long way to eliminate poverty and misery among the
masses. There is hope to do so if we remain in the constitutional norms as
stipulated by Dr. Ambedkar. He said in his last speech in the Constituent
assembly on November 25, 1949 “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 we must abandon the methods of civil dis-obedience, non-cooperation
and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods 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.”
The second important contribution of Baba
Sahib to the society at large was his untiring crusade the clean the society
from the shameful stigma of untouchability, caste system, religious dogmas, ill
treatment of women folk and socio-economic inequality in general. Dr. Ambedkar
was of the view that unless the political democracy we had established in the
constitution was transformed to economic and social democracy, India will not make
a big dent in its progress and prosperity. The mission and philosophy of Baba
Sahib is as relevant and potent today as it was before.
