7 months ago
3
A quiescent revisionism successful law past is being seeded. Some commentators present reason that Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly, was the existent designer of India’s Constitution, portion Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, simply polished an already finished product. This statement whitethorn dependable academic, but it is not. It represents an effort to diminish Dalit bureau successful India’s founding communicative and to erase the motivation unit that B.R. Ambedkar brought to the making of the Republic.
Complementary, not competing
Both men were indispensable to the Constitution’s creation, but their roles were wholly different. Sir B.N. Rau, a distinguished civilian servant and jurist, was appointed Constitutional Adviser successful July 1946. His duty was method and preparatory. Rau had successful British India, helped successful the drafting of the Government of India Act of 1935. Eleven years later, helium had to hole a moving draught of the Constitution based connected reports of the Constituent Assembly’s committees and his survey of different constitutions. He examined the American, Canadian, Irish, Australian and Weimar models, and consulted jurists specified arsenic Felix Frankfurter and Harold Laski. In October 1947, helium submitted his draught with 243 articles and 13 schedules. Rau’s papers provided the Assembly with a starting point. He had nary spot successful the Constituent Assembly and nary governmental mandate. His authorization was scholarly, not representative.
Ambedkar’s task was of a antithetic order. As Chairman of the Drafting Committee, helium had to crook a ineligible draught into a governmental covenant. He carried the Constitution done the turbulence of Partition, the execution of the Mahatma and had to support its provisions, clause by clause, successful the Assembly. His work was not lone to refine the substance but besides to physique statement among sharply divided interests. Rau built the framework. Ambedkar made it a surviving instrumentality of justice.
Ambedkar ne'er denied Rau’s contribution. In his concluding code to the Constituent Assembly connected November 25, 1949, helium said: “The recognition that is fixed to maine does not truly beryllium to me. It belongs partially to Sir B.N. Rau, the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly who prepared a unsmooth draught of the Constitution for the information of the Drafting Committee.”
He besides said, “A portion of the recognition indispensable spell to the members of the Drafting Committee who, arsenic I person said, person sat for 141 days… Much greater stock of the recognition indispensable spell to Mr. S.N. Mukherjee, the Chief Draftsman of the Constitution. His quality to enactment the astir intricate proposals successful the simplest and clearest ineligible signifier tin seldom beryllium equalled, nor his capableness for hard work.”
Thus the words which are often utilized to assertion that Rau, not Ambedkar, was the existent writer of the Constitution successful fact, amusement the opposite. Ambedkar called Rau’s enactment a “rough draft”, not a finished text. The Drafting Committee and the Assembly turned that earthy worldly into the papers that yet came into unit successful January 1950. Nor does immoderate grounds beryllium to amusement that Rau ever claimed to beryllium the Constitution’s author. His correspondence astatine that clip with Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru conveys respect and cooperation. The existent effort to crown him arsenic “Father of the Constitution” distorts some the grounds and Rau’s ain modesty.
The governmental motive
The run to elevate Rau and sideline Ambedkar is not driven by assistance alone. It reflects a discomfort with the thought that a Dalit thinker could basal astatine the centre of the Republic’s founding moment. Recasting Rau arsenic the Constitution’s main writer is an effort to reclaim authorship for caste privilege. It tames Ambedkar’s extremist bequest and turns a societal gyration into a bureaucratic exercise. The Constitution is not a sterile ineligible document. It is, archetypal and foremost, a societal manifesto which promises the dignity of the individual. It was calved retired of conflict, anticipation and redemption. It represented the accomplishment of the oppressed astatine the array of power. To detach Ambedkar from it is to rob it of its soul.
Ambedkar’s beingness successful the Constituent Assembly was itself the effect of a decisive enactment of governmental wisdom. He had primitively been elected from Bengal, but aft Partition, that spot went to Pakistan. Many wrong the Congress were hesitant to bring him backmost due to the fact that of past disagreements. It was Mahatma Gandhi’s involution that settled the question.
Though Gandhi and Ambedkar had clashed implicit abstracted electorates, Gandhi insisted that Ambedkar indispensable beryllium portion of the Assembly. He told Congress leaders that nary Constitution could assertion legitimacy if the Scheduled Castes were excluded from its making.
As a result, Ambedkar was re-elected from the Bombay Presidency. Gandhi’s insistence was an enactment of foresight. In 1947, erstwhile the federation was fractured by religion, an alienated Dalit enactment could person deepened the divide. By ensuring Ambedkar’s inclusion, Gandhi prevented a situation that could person weakened the caller Republic astatine its birth. Ambedkar’s consequent enactment proved that inclusion right. He turned the making of the Constitution into a motivation endeavor that bound the state together.
Rau’s draught provided the bid and structure. Ambedkar gave the Constitution its motivation depth. The provisions connected Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles, and affirmative enactment carnivore his imprint. His speeches successful the Assembly made the Constitution a surviving motivation philosophy.
Ambedkar warned that governmental equality would neglect without societal and economical equality. He said, “How agelong shall we proceed to contradict equality successful our societal and economical life? If we proceed to contradict it for long, we volition bash truthful lone by putting our governmental ideology successful peril. We indispensable region this contradiction astatine the earliest imaginable infinitesimal oregon other those who endure from inequality volition stroke up the operation of governmental ideology which this Assembly has truthful laboriously built up.” That informing inactive remains the astir almighty motivation connection successful India’s law history.
The peril of forgetting
Every Republic indispensable defender its memory. The effort to rise Rau supra Ambedkar is portion of a larger effort to drain the Constitution of its extremist spirit. It presents the founding arsenic a substance of method competence alternatively than societal transformation. To honour Ambedkar is not to diminish Rau. Both served the Republic faithfully. But the Constitution is much than a ineligible framework. It is simply a connection of nationalist purpose. It needed a scholar’s precision, but it besides needed a reformer’s conviction. Ambedkar was that reformer.
When the Constitution was adopted, leaders crossed the governmental spectrum, including Nehru, Patel and Prasad, publically acknowledged Ambedkar’s cardinal role. None suggested that Rau was the Constitution’s main author. They understood the quality betwixt drafting a substance and shaping a nation’s conscience.
Rau deserves admiration arsenic a superb adviser. Ambedkar deserves reverence arsenic the Constitution’s motivation architect. The Constitution was not written successful the calm of assemblage offices but successful the shadiness of Partition, the Mahatma’s assassination and caste oppression. To spot Ambedkar astatine its centre was not symbolic generosity but a connection that India’s caller bid would beryllium arsenic to those erstwhile excluded.
Ambedkar ne'er claimed sole authorship. Yet, his enactment of the Drafting Committee, his defence of each clause, and his imaginativeness of liberty, equality and fraternity person defined the Indian Republic. To diminish his relation is to betray the Republic’s founding promise. Rau built the structure; Ambedkar filled it with justice. Sir B.N. Rau deserves gratitude arsenic the law engineer. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar remains the designer and motivation laminitis of modern India.
To contradict that information is to contradict the Republic.
Sanjay Hegde is simply a Senior Advocate designated by the Supreme Court of India
