The Ambedkar Paradox: Why Congress's Constitutional Champion Claim Rings Hollow

It has been nearly three years since Congress started a new discourse of 'Save the Constitution' in Indian politics. It even achieved a little success by winning 99 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, its best performance since 2014.

The Congress didn't stop at just portraying itself as the 'protector of the Constitution' and paying respects to the architect of the Constitution, Dr B R Ambedkar, but went ahead to allege that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) disrespects both.

As a result, the Winter Session of Parliament of 2024 was marred by frequent adjournments and ultimately, a debate on the Constitution was called.

This debate highlighted many historical instances where Congress had opposed Ambedkar, both politically and during the making of the Constitution, and the Congress's distortion of the Constitution. Let's have a look at them:

Pre-Independence era

The conflict between Ambedkar and Congress began in the 1930s. At that time, the main opposition to Ambedkar in the Congress was Mahatma Gandhi, who opposed his idea of separate electorates for Dalits.

Ambedkar had to cave in due to Gandhi's fast unto death and agree on joint electorates with reserved seats for Dalits, but throughout his life, he kept criticising Congress's approach to the upliftment of Dalits.

Since social justice and annihilation of caste were Ambedkar's priorities, while Congress focused on political freedom, he was sidelined by the Congress throughout his political career and had to even struggle to get into the Constituent Assembly.

The members of the Constituent Assembly, formed in 1946 under the Cabinet Mission Plan, were to be elected by provincial assemblies, which were dominated by the Congress and the Muslim League.

The Congress did not nominate Ambedkar despite his legal and constitutional expertise. Moreover, it did not support his candidature when he contested from the Bombay Presidency, as a result of which Ambedkar lost.

Later, the Muslim League nominated Ambedkar from a reserved seat in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), where the League had a majority, enabling him to enter the Constituent Assembly.

However, after the Partition, when East Bengal became a part of Pakistan, Ambedkar faced the prospect of losing his seat in the Constituent Assembly, Congress helped in getting him elected from the Bombay Legislative Assembly, having realised his importance.

After Independence

Though Ambedkar was appointed Chairman of the Drafting Committee on 29 August 1947, he continued facing Congress's opposition, especially from the first Prime Minister (PM), Jawaharlal Nehru, to many of his proposals.

During the Constituent Assembly debates, Nehru started opposing Ambedkar's proposal for reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), but ultimately accepted it under certain provisions.

Even after the Constitution was adopted and enforced, Nehru continued opposing the expansion or permanence of reservations, as can be understood from his famous 1953 letter to Chief Ministers, where he wrote: “This way lies not only folly but disaster.”

PM Narendra Modi has also highlighted this aspect of Nehru, as Modi quoted a 1961 letter of Nehru, where the latter wrote: "I do not like reservation in any form. Especially reservation in jobs. I am against any such step that promotes inefficiency and takes us toward mediocrity."

Along with the reservation issue, Nehru did not appear to like Ambedkar much, as the former kept the latter confined only to the Law portfolio, despite Ambedkar expressing interest in more portfolios and that many Ministers had two to three portfolios at that time.

Even as the Law Minister, Ambedkar could not work with his full potential, as Nehru did not approve of many of his initiatives. One such thing was the Hindu Code Bill, proposed in 1951 to reform Hindu personal laws.

This bill was required to give equal inheritance to women, the right to divorce, etc., but fearing Hindu traditionalists, Nehru delayed and watered it down, leading Ambedkar to resign in frustration as Law Minister.

Opposing Ambedkar's political legacy

Soon after Ambedkar's resignation, independent India witnessed its first general election. Ambedkar contested from the Bombay (North Central) constituency as the head of the Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF).

The Congress ran a Dalit candidate N S Kajrolkar, against Ambedkar and even Nehru campaigned for him, leading to Ambedkar's loss. "Pandit Nehru was campaigning against him and making his loss a prestige issue," PM Modi alleged in his parliamentary speech.

As PM Modi said, "The list of the Congress's sins towards Dr Ambedkar includes: Getting him defeated in elections not once but twice." Ambedkar was defeated again in the 1954 bypoll by a Congress candidate in Maharashtra's Bhandara.

Under Nehru’s leadership, Congress also set up its own Dalit front groups like the Harijan Sevak Sangh, to diminish the influence of Ambedkar’s SCF and promoted 'Congress Dalits' as token representatives to divide Ambedkar’s base.

Unable to expand the influence of his own party, Ambedkar died before contesting the general election of 1957. Nonetheless, he had already converted to Buddhism in 1956, a move that Nehru thought could fragment Indian society.

Even after his death, Ambedkar was denied a Bharat Ratna by the successive Congress governments, while other contemporaries, including several Congress leaders and foreign dignitaries, received the honour. Ambedkar was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1990 by the BJP-supported V P Singh government.

Similarly, Ambedkar’s portrait was not installed in the Central Hall of Parliament, which houses portraits of India's greatest leaders, for decades after his death, until the V P Singh government did so in April 1990 during the rise of Mandal politics and growing Dalit assertion.

Even then, many senior Congress leaders, including former PM Rajiv Gandhi, boycotted the event of unveiling of Ambedkar’s full-sized portrait in the Central Hall, indicating the party's historical discomfort with Ambedkar's legacy.

The Constitutional amendments

The First Amendment to the Constitution was brought in 1951 by Nehru. The original Constitution gave absolute freedom of speech and expression, except for vague “reasonable restrictions,” while the First Amendment clarified and expanded the grounds for restricting speech.

Ambedkar vehemently criticised the move as he said, "Freedom of speech should not be tampered with lightly. Even if the press is critical or unfair to the government, that is the price we pay for democracy.”

After his resignation, Ambedkar had expressed apprehensions that the Constitution was vulnerable to elite capture, especially Congress at that time and that mere legal rights without power were hollow.

His apprehensions actually turned out to be true when the then-PM Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in 1975 and brought the 42nd Amendment in 1976, which distorted and undermined the original structure and spirit of the Constitution.

The Preamble was changed to add "Socialist", "Secular", and "Integrity" without constituent consensus and the Directive Principles were made superior to Fundamental Rights, undermining enforceable civil liberties.

The judicial review powers of the Supreme Court and High Courts were curtailed, threatening judicial independence and the Parliament was given absolute power to amend the Constitution, nullifying the basic structure doctrine established in the Kesavananda Bharati case.

The terms of the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies were extended from five to six years, undemocratically prolonging her power and it was made mandatory for the President to act on Cabinet advice, reducing checks on executive authority.

While the 44th Amendment of 1978, brought by the Janata government, reversed many of these distortions and set certain restrictions on imposing Emergency, the Emergency period would remain a black blot on India's democracy.

Undermining Constitution

Apart from the 42nd Amendment, Indira Gandhi also brought the 39th Amendment during the Emergency period. This was in response to the Allahabad High Court's judgment declaring Gandhi’s election invalid for electoral malpractices.

The petition was filed by Gandhi's electoral opponent Raj Narain, alleging malpractices in the Lok Sabha election of 1971 in Rae Bareli. In response to the court order, Gandhi passed this amendment to bar courts from questioning the elections of the PM.

Later, the 44th Amendment restored the jurisdiction of courts over election disputes, even involving the PM and Janata Party candidate Raj Narain defeated Indira Gandhi in the 1977 general election, in the aftermath of the Emergency.

Other than the Emergency period, Congress undermined the Constitution on several occasions. For instance, Indira Gandhi ignored seniority to appoint Justice A N Ray as Chief Justice of India, superseding three more senior judges after the Kesavananda Bharati judgment upheld the “basic structure doctrine”, undermining judicial independence and constitutional convention.

After winning the 1980 election, Congress dismissed nine non-Congress state governments using Article 356, citing vague reasons. In total, Congress used Article 356 nearly 90 times since Independence to dismiss state governments, undermining federalism.

A few other instances suggest Congress's opposition to strengthening democratic institutions. For decades, the CEC (Chief Election Commissioner) was a single-member body, as the Congress resisted institutionalising a multi-member commission.

Similarly, the anti-defection law, brought under the then-PM Rajiv Gandhi was weakened, giving the Speaker the sole authority to decide disqualifications and the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats was frozen to be based on the 1971 Census until 2001.

Jitni Abaadi, Utna Haq?

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been seen stressing on distribution of representation, opportunities and power in proportion to the population of a community with the slogan, "Jitni abaadi, utna haq" and demanding a caste census to enforce it in the past couple of years.

Moreover, the Congress is also seen promising the removal of the 50 per cent reservation limit set by the Supreme Court. However, one must not forget that he is a descendant, precisely the grand-grandson of Nehru, who believed that reservations promote mediocrity.

Also, he comes from the same Congress, which sat on the Mandal Commission report, which recommended 27 per cent reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBC), for a decade, denying affirmative action to the Backward Classes.

Notably, the Mandal Commission was formed in 1979 by the Janata Party government under PM Morarji Desai, with B P Mandal as chairman. It submitted its report in December 1980. But, by then, Indira Gandhi has returned to power.

After that, the successive governments of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi put the Mandal Commission report in cold storage. Rajiv Gandhi even criticised caste-based reservations in his speeches, warning that it would divide society and reduce merit. Ironically, now his son talks only about caste and reservations.

The implementation of the Mandal Commission was announced only after the V P Singh government came to power in 1990 with the BJP's support. Even after this, Rajiv Gandhi criticised V P Singh’s move as “hasty” and “divisive” and warned that it would tear the country apart along caste lines.

It was only under a non-Nehru-Gandhi PM of Congress, P V Narasimha Rao, that the implementation of the Mandal Commission report was defended in the Supreme Court and the OBC reservations were extended to central educational institutions.

The changed course now

After receiving subsequent electoral setbacks since the rise of PM Modi, Congress realised the need to change its political strategy and exploit the electoral potential of the OBC, SC and ST communities to regain power.

Hence, we see a 'changed' Congress. After being under the leadership of the Gandhi family for nearly two and a half decades, the party even appointed a Dalit, Mallikarjun Kharge, as Congress national president to solidify its messaging.

Nonetheless, we should not forget how Congress treated its last Dalit president, Sitaram Kesari. He was humiliated and unceremoniously removed from the post by the 'Congress high command', to make way for Sonia Gandhi’s ascension in politics.

His removal is considered one of the most undignified episodes in Congress's internal history, as reports say his dhoti was allegedly pulled, he was locked out of his own office, and his nameplate was replaced with that of Sonia Gandhi's.

Even now, Kharge is perceived as a 'rubber-stamp president'. The perception is emboldened by his own statement that the 'party high command' will decide on the change in Karnataka leadership, suggesting that, despite being the president, he is not the 'party high command' and the Gandhi family controls the party affairs.

In light of the above-mentioned incidents, it becomes difficult to believe the Congress's changed tune, with a high-pitched voice for social justice. On the other hand, there is the BJP, whose major welfare schemes are focussed on uplifting the OBC, SC and ST communities.

Even politically, the BJP has provided greater representation to these caste groups, whether at the national, state, or local level. Under the BJP rule, India got Presidents from the Dalit and the Tribal communities, Ramnath Kovind and Droupadi Murmu, respectively.

However, it cannot be denied that the changed pitch has helped Congress regain some of its lost votes, since the public memory is short. Hence, we can see that the BJP is working proactively to deal with the challenge.

Recently, the BJP announced a nationwide caste census included in the delayed 2021 census, Ambedkar Panchteerth is being developed to connect the five iconic places associated with Ambedkar to pay respects to him and even within the party organisation, the BJP is focussing on balancing the caste equations.