Dr. Ambedkar’s Resignation Speech
Most of us know Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s ideological fights with Gandhi. Not many, however, would know the kind of issues he had with Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. The modernist Pt. Nehru had turned so conservative after India’s freedom – or he was a conservative throughout his life that Dr. Ambedkar could no more remain his co-traveller and had to resign from his Cabinet on September 27, 1951. Reproduced [Ambedkar’s Writings, Vol. 14, Part Two, pages.1317-1327] is the full text of his speech on his resignation
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Dr Ambedkar at a Constituent Assembly meeting.
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Text of the Resignation
The House I am sure knows, unofficially if not
officially, that I have ceased to be a member of the Cabinet. I tendered
my resignation on Thursday, the 27th September to the Prime Minister and asked
him to relieve me immediately. The Prime Minister was good enough to
accept the same on the very next day. If I have continued to be a
Minister after Friday, the 28th, it is because the Prime Minister had requested
me to continue till the end of the Session — a request to which I was, in
obedience to constitutional convention, bound to assent.
Our Rules of Procedure permit a Minister who has
resigned his office, to make a personal statement in explanation of his
resignation. Many members of Cabinet have resigned during my tenure of
office. There has been however no uniform practice in the matter of
Ministers who have resigned making a statement. Some have gone without
making a statement and others have gone after making a statement.
For a few days I was hesitant what course to follow. After taking all
circumstances into consideration I came to the conclusion that making of a
statement was not merely necessary, but it was a duty which a member who has
resigned owes to the House.
The House has no opportunity to know how the
Cabinet works from within, whether there is harmony or whether there is a
conflict, for the simple reason that there is a joint responsibility under
which a member who is in a minority is not entitled to disclose his differences.
Consequently, the House continues to think that there is no conflict among
members of Cabinet even when as a matter of fact a conflict exists. It
is, therefore, a duty of a retiring Minister to make a statement informing
the House why he wants to go and why he is not able to continue to take further
joint responsibility.
Secondly, if a Minister goes without making a
statement, people may suspect that there is something wrong with the
conduct of the Minister, either in his public capacity or in his private
capacity. No Minister should, I think, leave room for such suspicion and
the only safe way out is a statement.
Thirdly, we have our newspapers. They have
their age-old bias in favour of some and against others. Their judgements
are seldom based on merits. Whenever they find an empty space, they
are prone to fill the vacuum by supplying grounds for resignation which are not
the real grounds but which put those whom they favour in a better light and
those not in their favour in a bad light. Some such thing I see has
happened even in my case. It is for these reasons that I decided to make a
statement before going out.
It is now 4 years, 1 month and 26 days since I was
called by the Prime Minister to accept the office of Law Minister in his Cabinet.
The offer came as a great surprise to me. I was in the opposite camp and
had already been condemned as unworthy of association when the interim
Government was formed in August 1946. I was left to speculate as to what
could have happened to bring about this change in the attitude of the Prime
Minister. I had my doubts. I did not know how I could carry on with
those who have never been my friends. I had doubts as to whether I could,
as a Law Member, maintain the standard of legal knowledge and acumen which had
been maintained by those who had preceded me as Law Ministers of the Government
of India. But I kept my doubts at rest and accepted the offer of the
Prime Minister on the ground that I should not deny my cooperation when it was
asked for in the building up of our nation. The quality of my performance
as a Member of the Cabinet and as Law Minister, I must leave it to others to
judge.
I will now refer to matters which have led me to
sever my connection with my colleagues. The urge to go has been growing
from long past due to variety of reasons.
I will first refer to matters purely of a personal
character and which are the least of the grounds which have led me to tender my
resignation. As a result of my being a Member of the Viceroy’s Executive
Council, I knew the Law Ministry to be administratively of no importance.
It gave no opportunity for shaping the policy of the Government of India.
We used to call it an empty soap box only good for old lawyers to play
with. When the Prime Minister made me the offer, I told him that besides
being a lawyer by my education and experience, I was competent to run any
administrative Department and that in the old Viceroy’s Executive Council, I
held two administrative portfolios, that of Labour and C.P.W.D., where a great
deal of planning projects were dealt with by me and would like to have
some administrative portfolio. The Prime Minister agreed and said he
would give me in addition to Law the Planning Department which, he said, was
intending to create. Unfortunately the Planning Department came very late
in the day and when it did come, I was left out. During my time, there
have been many transfers of portfolios from one Minister to another. I
thought I might be considered for any one of them. But I have always been
left out of consideration. Many Ministers have been given two or three
portfolios so that they have been overburdened. Others like me have wanted
more work. I have not even been considered for holding a portfolio
temporarily when a Minister in charge has gone abroad for a few days. It
is difficult to understand what the principle is underlying the distribution of
Government work among Ministers which the Prime Minister follows. Is it
capacity? Is it trust? Is it friendship? Is it
pliability? I was not even appointed to be a member of main Committees of
the Cabinet such as Foreign Affairs Committee, or the Defence Committee.
When the Economics Affairs Committee was formed, I expected, in
view of the fact that I was primarily a student of Economics and Finance, to be
appointed to this Committee. But I was left out. I was appointed to
it by the Cabinet, when the Prime Minister had gone to England. But
when he returned, in one of his many essays in the reconstruction of the
cabinet, he left me out. In a subsequent reconstruction my name was added
to the Committee, but that was as a result of my protest.
The Prime Minister, I am sure, will agree that I
have never complained to him in this connection. I have never been a party to
the game of power politics inside the cabinet or the game of snatching
portfolios which goes on when there is a vacancy. I believe in service,
service in the post which the Prime Minister, who as the head of the Cabinet,
thought fit to assign to me. It would have, however, been quite unhuman
for me not to have felt that a wrong was being done to me.
I will now refer to another matter that had made me
dissatisfied with the Government. It relates to the treatment accorded to
the Backward Classes and the Scheduled Castes. I was very sorry that the
Constitution did not embody any safeguards for the Backward Classes. It
was left to be done by the Executive Government on the basis of the
recommendations of a Commission to be appointed by the President. More
than a year has elapsed since we passed the Constitution. But the
Government has not even thought of appointing the Commission. The year
1946 during which I was out of office, was a year of great anxiety to me, and
to the leading members of the Scheduled Castes. The British had realised
from the commitments they had made in the matter of constitutional safeguards
for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Castes had no knowing as to what the
Constituent Assembly would do in that behalf. In this period of anxiety,
I had prepared a report* on the condition of the Scheduled Castes for
submission to the United Nations. But I did not submit it. I felt that it
would be better to wait until the Constituent Assembly and the future
Parliament was given a chance to deal with the matter. The provisions
made in the Constitution for safeguarding the position of the Scheduled Castes
were not to my satisfaction. However, I accepted them for what they were
worth, hoping that Government will show some determination to make them
effective. What is the Scheduled Castes today? So far as I see, it
is the same as before. The same old tyranny, the same old oppression, the
same old discrimination which existed before, exists now and perhaps in a worst
form. I can refer to hundreds of cases where people from the Scheduled
Casts round about Delhi and adjoining places have come to me with their tales
of woes against the Caste Hindus and against the Police who have refused to
register their complaints and render them any help. I have been wondering
whether there is any other parallel in the world to the condition of Scheduled
Castes in India. I cannot find any. And yet why is no relief
granted to the Scheduled Castes? Compare the concern the Government shows
over safeguarding the Muslims. The Prime Minister’s whole time and
attention is devoted for the protection of the Muslims. I yield to none,
not even to the Prime Minister, in my desire to give the Muslims of India the
utmost protection wherever and whenever they stand in need of it. But
what I want to know is, are the Muslims the only people who need
protection? Are the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Indian
Christians not in need of protection? What concern has he shown for these
communities? So far as I know, none and yet these are the communities
which need far more care and attention than the Muslims.
I could not contain within myself the indignation I
have felt over the neglect of the Scheduled Castes by the Government and on one
occasion, I gave vent to my feelings at a public meeting of the Scheduled
Castes. A question was asked, from the Hon’ble the Home Minister, whether
my charge that the Scheduled Castes had not benefited by the rule which
guaranteed to them 12 ½ per cent representation was true. In answer to
the question the Hon’ble the Home Minister was pleased to say that my charge
was baseless. Subsequently for some reason – it may be for satisfying the
qualms of his conscience – he, I am informed, sent round a circular to the
various Departments of the Government of India asking them to report how many
Scheduled Caste candidates had been recently recruited in Government
service. I am informed that most Departments in reply said “NIL’ or
nearly nil. If my information is correct, I need make no commentary on
the answer given by the Hon’ble the Home Minister.
From my yearly childhood I have dedicated myself to
the upliftment of the Scheduled Castes among whom I was born. It is not
that there were no temptations in my way. If I had considered my own
interest I could have been anything I wanted to be and if I had joined the
Congress would have reached to the highest place in that organization.
But as I said, I had dedicated myself to the upliftment of Scheduled Castes and
I have followed the adage that it is better to be narrow-minded if you wish to
be enthusiastic about a cause which you wish to accomplish. You can
therefore, well imagine what pain it has caused me to see that the cause of the
Scheduled Castes has been relegated to the limbo of nothing.
The third matter which has given me cause, not
merely for dissatisfaction but for actual anxiety and even worry, is the
foreign policy of the country. Any one, who has followed the course of
our foreign policy and along with it the attitude of other countries towards
India, could not fail to realize the sudden change that has taken place in
their attitude towards us. On 15th of August, 1947 when we began our life
as an independent country, there was no country which wished us ill. Every country
in the world was our friend. Today, after four years, all our friends
have deserted us. We have no friends left. We have alienated
ourselves. We are pursuing a lonely furrow with no one even to second our
resolutions in the U.N.O. When I think of our foreign policy, I am
reminded of what Bismarck and Bernard Shaw have said. Bismark has said
that “politics is not a game of realizing the ideal. Politics is the game
of the possible.” Bernard Shaw not very long ago said that good ideals
are good but one must not forget that it is often dangerous to be too
good. Our foreign policy is in complete opposition to these words of
wisdom uttered by two of the world’s greatest men.
How dangerous it has been to us this policy of
doing the impossible and of being too good is illustrated by the great drain on
our resources made by our military expenditure, by the difficulty of getting
food for our starving millions and by difficulty of getting aid for the
industrialization of our country.
Out of 350 crores of rupees of revenue we raise
annually, we spend about Rs180 crores of rupees on the Army. It is a
colossal expenditure which has hardly any parallel. This colossal
expenditure is the direct result of our foreign policy. We have to foot
the whole of our Bill for our defence ourselves because we have no friends on
which we can depend for help in any emergency that may arise. I have been
wondering whether this is the right sort of foreign policy.
Our quarrel with Pakistan is a part of our foreign
policy about which I feel deeply dissatisfied. There are two grounds
which have disturbed our relations with Pakistan – one is Kashmir and the other
is the condition of our people in East Bengal. I felt that we should be
more deeply concerned with East Bengal where the condition of our people seems
from all the newspapers intolerable than with Kashmir. Notwithstanding
this we have been staking out all on the Kashmir issue. Even then I feel
we have been fighting on an unreal issue. The issue on which we have been
fighting most of the time is, who is in the right and who is in the
wrong. The real issue to my mind is not who is right but what is
right. Taking that to be the main question, my view has always been that
the right solution is to partition Kashmir. Give the Hindu and Buddhist
part to India and the Muslim part to Pakistan as we did in the case of
India. We are really not concerned with the Muslim part of Kashmir.
It is a matter between the Muslims of Kashmir and Pakistan. They may decide
the issue as they like. Or if you like, divide into three parts; the
Cease fire zone, the Valley and the Jammu-Ladhak Region and have a plebiscite
only in the Valley. What I am afraid of is that in the proposed
plebiscite, which is to be an overall plebiscite, the Hindus and Buddhists of
Kashmir are likely to be dragged into Pakistan against their wishes and we may
have to face same problems as we are facing today in East Bengal.
I will now refer to the Fourth matter which has a
good deal to do with my resignation. The Cabinet has become a merely
recording and registration office of decisions already arrived at by
Committees. As I have said, the Cabinet now works by Committees.
There is a Defence Committee. There is a Foreign Committee. All
important matters relating to Defence are disposed of by the Defence
Committee. The same members of the Cabinet are appointed by them. I
am not a member of either of these Committees. They work behind an iron
curtain. Others who are not members have only to take joint responsibility
without any opportunity of taking part in the shaping of policy. This is
an impossible position.
I will now deal with a matter which has led me
finally to come to the decision that I should resign. It is the treatment
which was accorded to the Hindu Code. The Bill was introduced in this
House on the 11th April, 1947. After a life of four years, it was killed
and died unwept and unsung, after 4 clauses of it were passed. While it
was before the House, it lived by fits and starts. For full one year, the
Government did not feel it necessary to refer it to a Select Committee.
It was referred to the Select Committee on 9th April 1948. The Report was
presented to the House on 12th August, 1948. The motion for the
consideration of the Report was made by me on 31st August 1948. It was
merely for making the motion that the Bill was kept on the Agenda. The
discussion of the motion was not allowed to take place until the February
Session of the year 1949. Even then it was not allowed to have a continuous
discussion. It was distributed over 10 months, 4 days in February, 1 day
in March and 2 days in April 1949. After this, one day was given to the
Bill in December, 1949, namely the 19th December, on which day the House
adopted my motion that the Bill as reported by the Select Committee be taken
into consideration. No time was given to the Bill in the year 1950.
Next time the Bill came before the House was on 5th February, 1951 when the
clause by clause consideration of the Bill was taken. Only three days
5th, 6th and 7th February were given to the Bill and left there to rot.
This being the last sessions of the present
Parliament, Cabinet had to consider whether Hindu Code Bill should be got
through before this Parliament ended or whether it should be left over to the
new Parliament. The Cabinet unanimously decided that it should be put
through in this Parliament. So the Bill was put on the Agenda and was
taken up on the 17th September 1951 for further clause by clause consideration.
As the discussion was going on, the Prime Minister put forth a new proposal,
namely, that the Bill as a whole may not be got through within the time
available and that it was desirable to get a part of it enacted into law rather
than allow the whole of it to go to waste. It was a great wrentch to
me. But I agreed, for, as the proverb says “it is better to save a part
when the whole is likely to be lost”. The Prime Minister suggested that
we should select the Marriage and Divorce part. The Bill in its truncated
form went on. After two or three days of the discussion of the Bill the
Prime Minister came up with another proposal. This time his proposal was
to drop the whole Bill even the Marriage and Divorce portion. This came
to me as a great shock – a bolt from the blue. I was stunned and could
not say anything. I am not prepared to accept that the dropping of this
truncated Bill was due to want of time. I am sure that the truncated bill
was dropped because other and more powerful members of the Cabinet wanted precedence
for their Bills. I am unable to understand how the Bananas and Aligarh
University Bills, how the Press Bill could have been given precedence over the
Hindu Code even in its attenuated form? It is not that there was no law
on the Statute Book to govern the Aligarh University or the Benares
University. It is not that these Universities would have gone to wreck
and ruins if the Bills had not been passed in this Session. It is not
that the Press Bill was urgent. There is already a law on the Statute
Book and the Bill could have waited. I got the impress that the Prime
Minister, although sincere, had not the earnestness and determination required
to get the Hindi Code Bill through.
In regard to this Bill, I have been made to go
through the greatest mental torture. The aid of Party Machinery was
denied to me. The Prime Minister gave freedom of Vote, an unusual thing
in the history of the Party. I did not mind it. But I expected two
things. I expected a party whip as to time limit on speeches and
instruction to the Chief whip to move closure when sufficient debate had taken
place. A whip on time limit on speeches would have got the Bill through.
When freedom of voting was given there could have been no objection to have
given a whip for time limit on speeches. But such a whip was never
issued. The conduct of the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, who is
also the Chief Whip of the Party in connection with the Hindu Code, to say the
least, has been most extraordinary. He has been the deadliest opponent of the
Code and has never been present to aid me by moving a closure motion. For
days and hours filibustering has gone on a single clause. But the Chief
Whip, whose duty it is to economise Government time and push on Government
business, has been systematically absent when the Hindu Code has been under
consideration in the House. I have never seen a case of a Chief Whip so
disloyal to the Prime Minister and a Prime Minister so loyal to a disloyal
Whip. Notwithstanding this unconstitutional behaviour, the Chief Whip is
really a darling of the Prime Minister. For notwithstanding his
disloyalty he got a Promotion in the Party organization. It is impossible
to carry on in such circumstances.
It has been said that the Bill had to be dropped
because the Opposition was strong. How strong was the Opposition?
This Bill has been discussed several times in the Party and was carried to
division by the opponents. Every time the opponents were routed.
The last time when the Bill was taken up in the Party Meeting out of 120 only
20 were found to be against it. When the Bill was taken in the Party for
discussion, 44 clauses were passed in about 3 ½ hours’ time. This shows
how much opposition there was to the Bill within the Party. In the House
itself, there have been divisions on three clauses of the Bill – 2, 3 and
5. Every time there has been an overwhelming majority in favour even on
clause 4 which is the soul of the Hindu Code.
I was, therefore, quite unable to accept the Prime
Minister’s decision to abandon the Bill on the ground of time. I have
been obliged to give this elaborate explanation for my resignation because some
people have suggested that I am going because of my illness. I wish to
repudiate any such suggestion. I am the last man to abandon my duty
because of illness.
It may be said that my resignation is out of time
and that if I was dissatisfied with the Foreign Policy of the Government and
the treatment accorded to Backward Classes and the Scheduled Castes I should
have gone earlier. The charge may sound as true. But I had reasons
which held me back. In the first place, most of the time I have been a
Member of the Cabinet; I have been busy with the framing of the Constitution.
It absorbed all my attention till 26th January 1950 and thereafter I was
concerned with the People’s Representation Bill and the Delimitation
Orders. I had hardly any time to attend to our Foreign Affairs. I
did not think it right to go away leaving this work unfinished.
In the second place, I thought it necessary to stay
on, for the sake of the Hindu Code. In the opinion of some, it may be
wrong for me to have held on for the sake of the Hindu Code. I took a
different view. The Hindu Code was the greatest social reform measure
ever undertaken by the legislature in this country. No law passed by the Indian
Legislature in the past or likely to be passed in the future can be compared to
it in point of its significance.
To leave inequality between class and class,
between sex and sex, which is the soul of Hindu Society untouched and to go on
passing legislation relating to economic problems is to make a farce of our
Constitution and to build a palace on a dung heap. This is the
significance I attached to the Hindu Code. It is for its sake that I
stayed on notwithstanding my differences. So if I have committed a wrong,
it is in the hope of doing some good. Had I no ground for such a hope,
for overcoming the obstructionist tactics of the opponents? I would like
in this connection to refer only to three of the statements made by the Prime
Minister on the floor of the House.
On 28th November, 1949, the Prime Minister gave the
following assurance. He said:
“What is more, the Government is committed to this
thing (Hindu Code). It is going through with it.”
“Government would proceed with that. It is
for this House to accept a measure, but if a Government takes an important
measure, and the House rejects it, the House rejects that Government and the
Government goes and another Government comes in its place. It should be
clearly understood that this is one of the important measures to which the
Government attaches importance and on which it will stand or fall.”
Again on 19th December, 1949, the Prime Minister
said:
“I do not wish the House to think in the slightest
degree that we consider that this Hindu Code Bill is not of importance, because
we do attach the greatest important to it, as I said, not because of any
particular clause or anything, but because of the basic approach to this vast
problem in problems, economic and social. We have achieved political
freedom in this country, political independence. That is a stage in the
journey, and there are other stages, economic, social and other and if society
is to advance, there must be this integrated advance on all fronts.”
On the 26th September, 1951, the Prime Minister
said:
“It is not necessary for me to assure the House of
the desire of Government to proceed with this measure in so far as we can
proceed with it within possibilities, and so far as we are concerned we
consider this matter as adjourned till such time as the next opportunity – I
hope it will be in this Parliament – offers itself.”
This was after the Prime Minister had announced the
dropping of the Bill. Who could not have believed in these pronouncements
of the Prime Minister? If I did not think that there could be a
difference between the promises and performances of the Prime Minister the
fault is certainly not mine. My exit from the Cabinet may not be a matter
of much concern to anybody in this Country. But I must be true to myself
and that can be only by going out. Before I do so, I wish to thank my
colleagues for the kindness and courtesy they have shown to me during my
membership of the Cabinet. While I am not resigning from my membership of
Parliament, I also wish to express my gratitude to Members of Parliament for
having shown great tolerance towards me.
10th
October 1951
New Delhi B.R. Ambedkar
