Five Excerpts From Ambedkar’s Historic ‘Grammar of Anarchy’ Speech

On 25 November 1949, a day before the Constitution was formally adopted by the Constituent Assembly, BR Ambedkar rose in the central hall of the Parliament and almost in a prophetic tone delivered a speech which is described as amongst the greatest speeches made in the Indian Parliament. This oration, where Ambedkar reflects on the Indian Constitution, it’s context, nature and possibilities related to it, is now referred to as the ‘Grammar of Anarchy’ speech. While the speech deserves to be read in full, here are five important excerpts from it which reflect the scholarship, observation and vision of Ambedkar.

1. How Good is the Constitution?

Ambedkar did not believe that just because he was the chairman of the drafting committee, the committee had come up with a Constitution that would be noble and all-powerful for all time to come. Even after producing a document like the Indian constitution, Ambedkar was clear that it was only an instrument in the hands of the people. An instrument by itself is not bad or good, useful or worthless. It is what one does with it that matters.

Much in the same way, Ambedkar believed that howsoever good a constitution may be, what mattered in the end was what kind of people put it into practice and how they did it.

2. On Communists and Socialists

In this section of the speech, Ambedkar takes to task the Communists and the Socialists for their contrived and malicious opposition to the newly-created Constitution. Best to get to the quote straight away here:

3. The Admission of Fallibility

Is ignorance of one’s greatness a final proof of it? Is an admission of fallibility a stamp of wisdom?

Ambedkar, on part of his generation, was willing to concede what most people will never—that a later generation might want to do things differently and that they would and should have every right to do so.

This concession becomes all the more important when it is looked in its temporal context. India was a newly independent, divided and poor country. At the time, the only thing that could be said with certainty about India’s future was that it was uncertain. Secondly, the Constituent Assembly was comprised of many accomplished men and women. Given the uncertainty of the times and the credentials of the Constituent Assembly, it would have been very easy for Ambedkar to accord an infallibility to the Constitution produced by such a group.

However, he was willing to grant the future generation of Indians as much right to govern themselves in the way they wanted as he accorded to his own.

4. The Greater Threat Lies Within

At the dawn of the Indian republic, Ambedkar was worried that an old tragedy might strike again—the failure of some Indians to think beyond their or their community’s interest. He quoted examples from India’s history to prove that his fears weren’t unfounded, that rather than an external power, what India had to be most wary of, were its own internal divisions.

5. On the ‘Grammar of Anarchy’

The preservation of democracy in any new state is contingent upon its political and social stability. This is not to say that the state shouldn’t have competing political or social groups, but that the conflicts among them are sought to be resolved within the framework of the constitution. So while there can be massive upheaval at the micro-level, there is continuity and stability at a macro-level.

All political parties in India, by virtue of operating within the ambit of constitution, accord a right to be in government to all other parties. Imagine if this were not the case. What would happen? What would happen if say the BSP opposed SP’s rule in UP, only because it is the SP.

The BSP would try to create a popular movement against the the Samajawadi Party. If it succeeds, it would throw the state into turmoil. And who is to say the SP would not do the same once it finds itself out of power?

That this is not the case in India is a matter of great relief, especially so when one looks around in India’s neighbourhood in south Asia.

Even if inadvertently, Indian political parties seem to have heeded Ambedkar’s advice to forsake unconstitutional methods to achieve their objectives. As a result, even the most bitter political conflicts today in India are sought to be resolved within the limits of the Constitution.