January 26 and Ambedkar: The Unfinished Promise of the Indian Republic

Every year on January 26, India commemorates the adoption of its Constitution with ceremonial grandeur parades, patriotic speeches, and ritual invocations of nationalism. Yet, beneath these annual spectacles lies a deeper constitutional question that Dr. B.R. Ambedkar repeatedly warned against, can political democracy survive without social democracy? Can democracy be possible through the grammar of anarchy? Can democracy survive hero-worship in politics? As India marks another Republic Day, revisiting Ambedkar’s vision is not merely an act of remembrance but an urgent constitutional necessity. To grasp their relevance, we must recall democratic seriousness with which the constitution was framed, an ethos increasingly eroded in contemporary politics.

To translate Ambedkar’s vision into reality the constituent assembly undertook an exhaustive process of drafting a constitution that would guarantee equality and justice for all. For the first time in India’s history people were recognised as equal individuals and citizens beyond caste, religion and inherited social status. This historic transformation was the result of an extraordinary democratic exercise. In constituent assembly 7635 amendments were tabled and 2473 amendments actually moved in the house, reflecting intense debate and deliberation.

Despite accusations that the process was slow, a comparative perspective of India’s constitutional achievement shows that India’s drafting timeline was remarkably efficient.  While the American convention took four months to write its constitution with seven article, Constitutional convention of Canada took two years and five months to complete its constitution with 147 articles, Australian Constitutional Convention took nine years to complete its constitution with 128 articles, South Africa convention took one year labour to complete its constitution with 153 section, while Drafting committee took two years and eleven months and 18 days with 395 articles. India has not taken more time than the Canadian convention and much less than the Austrian convention to accomplish in a short time. The process reflected the seriousness of building a constitutional democracy for an immensely diverse society. Beyond its length and detail, the constitution provides the organs of State such as Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the state depend are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instrument to carry out their wish and their politics. But drafting a detailed constitution was the first step, its effectiveness ultimately depends on how citizens and political actors uphold it.

For Ambedkar, the constitution was not just a legal document but a disciplined method of resolving social and political conflict, its success depended not only on constitutional design but collective commitment to constitutional means. If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form but also in fact, the first thing we must do is to hold fast to the constitutional method of achieving our social and economic objective. It means we must abandon grammar of anarchy such as bloody methods of revolution, romanticisation of violence, and extra constitutional methods till constitutional methods are available. The present Naxalite movement in India is rooted in Indian Marxism-Leninism-Maoism strongly belief in armed revolution where marginalized suffer from loss of life, caught between State & Maoist, Displacement, militarization of Daily life, meanwhile Left leadership remain often urban, educated, upper caste background. The condemnation of the constitution largely was from Communist Party, simply because it is based on parliamentary democracy and not based upon the principle of dictatorship. These methods are nothing but the grammar of anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned the better for India.

If the grammar of anarchy threatens democracy from outside, the hero-worship corrodes it from within. In India the Bhakti or Devotion or hero-worship plays a part in its politics unequaled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of other countries in the world. In today’s India’s Bhakti politics transformed democratic citizenship into unquestioning loyalty to the government. This culture weakens parliament, sideline institutions and turns criticism of state power into an act of anti-nationalism. As Ambedkar has warned “Bhakti in religion may be a rod to salvation of the soul, but in politics Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship”. There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men but there are limits to gratefulness. The sooner we recognise this danger the better for the survival of Indian democracy and the future of India itself.

Such political devotion thrives where democratic equality and social dignity remain unevenly realized. What we must do is not to be content with mere political democracy.  A system that guarantees universal suffrage but tolerates social hierarchy, discrimination and exclusion risks reducing democracy to a procedural formality. Social democracy is a way of life which recognisesliberty, equality, fraternity as the principle of life. Raising majoritarianism, caste prejudices, religious intolerance towards dissent have weakened the fraternity and restricted liberty in social and public life. As Ambedkar foresaw when liberty, equality and fraternity are denied, social democracy remains only formal and increasingly fragile. Only by building social democracy can India give real meaning to its political democracy.

As India commemorates another Republic Day, the real challenges lie not in the absence of a constitution but in the erosion of constitutional morality. Ambedkar warned that democracy cannot survive if constitutional forms are preserved while constitutional values are hollowed out. The danger today lies in replacing democratic participation with blind loyalty, constitutional method with coercion and social justice with symbolic nationalism. If the Republic Day is to endure, India must move beyond the ritual celebration of January 26 and recognise without delay the evil that pushes us from government by the people to government for the people. Recommitting ourselves to Ambedkar’s unfinished project, deepening social democracy rooted in liberty, equality and fraternity is the only way to give lasting meaning to the promise of the Indian Republic.

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This article is written by Sanjaya Suna, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Politics and International Studies, Pondicherry Central University, Puducherry.