Comment in 150 words: Ambedkar’s ideas on constitutionalism. (2020, 10 Marks)
Constitutionalism means government limited by law and answerable for its power. For B. R. Ambedkar (Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar), Chairman of the Drafting Committee, limiting power was only half the task. The other half was to use legitimate power to reconstruct an unequal society. His constitutionalism was therefore both liberal and transformative.
Limiting Power
- Enforceable rights. He called Article 32, the right to move the Supreme Court, the very soul of the Constitution and the very heart of it, because rights without remedies are empty.
- Independent judiciary and a division of powers between the organs of the state and between Union and states.
- Responsibility over stability. He defended the parliamentary executive because daily accountability to the legislature mattered more than a fixed term.
Law as an Instrument of Change
In India, society was more oppressive than the state. So the state, bound by the Constitution, had to act against private domination. Article 17 abolishes untouchability, and reservations and the Directive Principles follow the same logic. He made the individual, not the village, the Constitution’s unit, since the village was where caste power was least checked.
Constitutional Morality
Borrowing from the Victorian historian George Grote, he argued that forms work only if citizens accept restraint, respect procedure and settle disputes by argument. On 4 November 1948 he warned that constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment: it must be cultivated through education and practice, because democracy was only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.
Warnings of 25 November 1949
- Once constitutional remedies exist, civil disobedience and satyagraha become the grammar of anarchy.
- Hero-worship in politics leads to dictatorship.
- A constitution’s success depends on the people who work it. Each generation may amend it, and a special majority keeps that power in check.
Relevance and Limits
The Supreme Court has made constitutional morality a working standard, for instance in Navtej Singh Johar (2018) against popular morality and in Government of NCT of Delhi (2018) on federal restraint. Critics call the idea vague enough to license judicial preference. Dalit scholars point to the gap between legal guarantees and weak enforcement, and some argue that his ban on agitation can disarm the unheard.
Conclusion
Ambedkar’s constitutionalism combines limits on power with social purpose. Its lasting insight is that documents cannot create the habits they need. A constitution can supply the organs of the state, but only a democratic society can make them work.