“We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. Liberty cannot be divorced from equality, equality cannot be divorced from liberty. Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative. Without fraternity, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative. Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things. It would require a constable to enforce them. We must begin by acknowledging the fact that there is complete absence of two things in Indian Society. One of these is equality. On the social plane, we have in India a society based on the principle of graded inequality in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty. On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?”
—From a speech in the Constituent Assembly, 1949
It must be mentioned first and foremost that Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born in a Mahar (Dalit) caste on 14 April 1891 in the town and military cantonment of Mhow which is now officially known as Dr Ambedkar Nagar in Madhya Pradesh. His original surname was Sakpal but his father registered his name as Ambadawekar in school, meaning he comes from his native village ‘Ambadawe’ in Ratnagiri district. His Marathi Brahmin teacher named Krishnaji Keshav Ambedkar had changed his original surname from ‘Ambadawekar’ to his own surname ‘Ambedkar’ in school records.
It must be noted that he was the 14th and last child of Ramji Maloji Sakpal who was an Army Officer who held the rank of Subedar and served in Mhow Cantonment in British Indian Army and Bhimabai Sakpal was his mother. Dr Ambedkar family was of Marathi background and originally came from the town of Ambadawe (Mandangad Taluka) in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. In 1897, Dr Ambedkar family moved to Mumbai and he enrolled in Elphinstone High School affiliated to the University of Bombay. At age of 15 he got married to Ramabai aged 9.
It is worth noting that he earned a Doctorate in Economics from the Columbia University in USA and London School of Economics from University of London in 1917 and 1923. He also did Law from Gray Inn in London in England and in 1923 was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn. In 1990, he was posthumously conferred the Bharat Ratna Award.
It would be also extremely important to mention here that Dr BR Ambedkar is also referred to fondly by the nickname of “Babasaheb” which means “Respected Father”. He most strongly believed in equality of not just all people but also of all regions and all States. He had faced inequality right from his birth and so he deeply resented against discrimination of any kind in any form! He had the guts to accuse Jawaharlal Nehru of being “conscious of the fact that he is a Brahmin”. In October 1956, he renounced Hinduism and became a Buddhist and died shortly after on 6 December, 1956!
We definitely ought to bear in mind that Dr BR Ambedkar is not only the founding father of our Constitution and also the first Law Minister of India! We also need to note that on 27 September, 1951, Dr BR Ambedkar had resigned from Jawaharlal Nehru’s Union Cabinet Ministry after his “The Hindu Code Bill 1951” was defeated in Parliament. He favoured the retention of polygamy among Hindus just like for Muslims on ground of equality but Jawaharlal Nehru boldly ensured that polygamy was abolished totally for Hindus and bigamy was declared an offence for Hindus in penal laws and so also for religions related with Hindus like Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists among others to control the population of India!
To be sure, how liberal and broad minded Dr Ambedkar thoughts and magnanimous his heart was can be gauged from this that he on 25 November 1949 while concluding his speech in the Constituent Assembly had most graciously conceded that, “The credit that is given to me does not really belong to me. It belongs partly to Sir BN Rau – the Constitutional Advisor to the Constituent Assembly who prepared a rough draft of the Constitution for the consideration of the Drafting Committee.” He also relented to the wishes of Mahatma Gandhi who opposed separate electorates for “Depressed Classes” in the Communal Award and signed Poona Pact with Madan Mohan Malaviya on September 25, 1932.
The best tribute that Centre must pay to him is to ensure that India becomes a casteless society and so also ensure that there is absolutely no discrimination on ground of caste, creed, religion, sex or region or any other grounds! Nothing on earth can be more unfortunate than this irrefutable fact that even as India is celebrating its 75th “National Republic Day”, we see that Uttar Pradesh which has maximum population more than 25 crores and so also has maximum MPs both in Lok Sabha and in Rajya Sabha and so also has maximum MLAs among all the States and so also has maximum villages more than one lakh and so also has maximum number of pending cases in High Court more than 10 lakh cases and here too more than half of the pending cases are from West UP and so also has maximum pending cases in lower courts about to touch nearly one crore and so also has maximum number of Judges in all courts both in lower and in High Courts and has maximum members in State Bar Council that is the maximum in the world and still has just one High Court Bench and that too so close to Allahabad at Lucknow established in 1948 more than 76 years ago where it was just not needed at all and nowhere else! Many term Allahabad High Court as the biggest High Court in the world still why it has just one Bench only and why so many smaller States like Karnataka whose population is about 4 crore less than UP at 6 crore we see two High Court Bench created in one go by Centre in 2008 at Dharwad and Gulbarga for just 4 and 8 districts only but not a single for 30 districts of West UP with population of more than 10 crores for which even Justice Jaswant Singh Commission in mid 1980s recommended Main High Court Bench at Agra yet not one created and Maharashtra which already had multiple High Court Benches was given one more as recommended at Aurangabad but for UP for which 3 Benches were created not a single was allowed to come up! These bone chilling facts just cannot be swept beneath the carpet! It was in CJI Dr DY Chandrachud’s term as Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court in 2014-15 that lawyers of West UP went on 6 months strike yet we saw that no action was taken on creating Bench even though it is a dire necessity! Why?
It has been more than 14 years since the 230th Report of the Law Commission of India was submitted prepared under the Chairmanship of eminent former Supreme Court Judge Dr AR Lakshmanan but still it has not been most unfortunately implemented in big States like UP, Bihar and Rajasthan. Why the landmark recommendations of Justice Jaswant Singh Commission set up by Centre itself under the Chairmanship of former Supreme Court Judge – Jaswant Singh was implemented most fraudulently by not approving even a single High Court Bench for undivided Uttar Pradesh for whom it recommended maximum three Benches at Agra, Dehradun and Nainital due to which people of hilly areas had to travel thousands of kilometers all the way to Allahabad most cruelly while most partially approving just one Bench recommended for Maharashtra at Aurangabad created most promptly in early 1980s which already had multiple High Court Benches at Nagpur and Panaji and so also at West Bengal in Jalpaiguri for just 6 districts which already had Bench at Port Blair for just 2 lakhs people and so also a Bench approved at Madurai in Tamil Nadu but West UP whose population is more than most of the States in India including Tamil Nadu at 10 crores was not given even a single Bench? This was the real reason why the people of hilly regions of undivided UP agitated for separate Statehood and ultimately Uttarakhand created in 2000 and for which not one Bench was conceded then for same Nainital we saw Centre conceding a separate High Court!
No doubt, implementing the 230th Report of Law Commission of India on creation of more High Court Benches would be undoubtedly the best tribute to Dr BR Ambedkar so that the poor and deprived don’t have to travel very far entailing huge expenses and so also all steps must be now definitely taken to ensure that no one is ever now discriminated on flimsy grounds of religion, region, caste, creed or sex or any other ground whatsoever. This can be ensured by strictly implementing Article 14 of Constitution. It brooks no delay any longer. No denying it!
Sanjeev Sirohi