A LIGHT FOR OUR PATH: EXCERPTS FROM THE CLOSING SPEECH OF THE FIRST CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY OF INDIA BY DR. B. R AMBEDKAR, Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution.(PART II) “On the26th 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. The 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? This is the second thought that comes to my mind and makes me anxious as the first. It is not that India did not know what is democracy. There was a time when India was studded with republics, and even where there were monarchies, they were either elected or limited. It is not that 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. They had rules regarding seating arrangements, rules regarding motions, resolutions, quorums, 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 political assemblies functioning in the country in his time. This 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 the 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? THE FIRST THING IN MY JUDGEMENT 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 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" ( emphasis added) Prescient ? Is it not? Gerry.
