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.
Dr. Ambedkar's final address to the constituent assembly is of huge importance. The concerns he raised decades ago, while pointing towards the newly born republic are yet to be seriously engaged. He cautioned against the “Bhakti in politics” (Pg 1216, BAWS) and its terrible consequences. He was concerned whether political freedom would mean without the social and economic liberties. The written constitution was enacted with fundamental rights, Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP), abolition of untouchability, affirmative action and constitutional remedies. These legal necessities were productive and precautious against the “Grammar of anarchy” (Pg 1215, BAWS). India was liberated from settler colonialism. It gained political equality but at the social-economic level, it escaped modernity while keeping the spirit of feudal, communal and brahmanical continuities. Ambedkar knew the contradictions standing before the republic. The Indian political process was guided by the bureaucratic-administrative apparatus along with reason and unreason. For contemporary reasons and for the plausible questions before the Phule-Ambedkarite movement, Ambedkar's final speech at the constituent assembly is a blueprint to counter the hegemony of caste and capital. Almost a decade before the Ambedkar's final address to the constituent assembly, a German critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin committed suicide while fleeing the Nazi Germany. Before he chose death as a better place than returning to fascist Germany, in his final thesis, he wrote about the angel of history while reflecting on Paul Klee’s painting, Angelus Novelus. Walter Benjamin wrote:
“His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise... This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”
Babasaheb Ambedkar, who authored the most important text of the century, Annihilation of Caste, was Benjamin's angel of history. While standing in the constituent assembly for the last time, he was gazing not at the painting but the future of a republic born from the centuries of wreckage; of graded inequality and communalism. Similar to Benjamin's Angel of History, Ambedkar was critical of others moving towards progress (political equality) while he spent all his years to clear the debris of Indian history and awaken the dead and to restore the principles: liberty, equality and fraternity. Contrary to the optimistic imaginations of an enlightened India, Ambedkar saw the catastrophe of caste remaining still. This essay is an attempt to sneak into that debris of history through its angel – Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Catastrophe of Caste
Against the continuum of historical progress, Benjamin's one single catastrophe is the flashes of emergency. It is the nonlinear progression of historical progress. For Ambedkar, this single catastrophe was graded inequality. A system of hierarchy having “self enclosed units”. These self-enclosed units are “closed door systems”. They are birth based ascriptive identities . Immobility is their oxygen. Caste hierarchy suspended social interactions and social endosmosis and initiated endogamous relation with purity and pollution. Unlike the nationalist leaders and class of people who were rising against imperialism, Ambedkar, on the contrary, saw the rotten core of Indian civilization. Ambedkar saw the unceasing piling of rubble: the broken bodies of the untouchables, the shattered dignity of women, the wreckage of entire communities denied access to wells, temples, and education. The principles of “equality” and “fraternity” were absent. On the social plane, Indian was based on the graded inequality. This meant the privileges for a tiny minority and oppression for the mass of the working laboring people. Ambedkar had many problems before him: imperialism, colonialism, Brahmanism and limits of liberalism. Social reformers before him only attempted to reform Hinduism. Nobody wanted before him ever tried to “awaken the dead”. Ambedkar had this burden on his shoulder. The burden of wreckage of history. Through the Indian constitution, Ambedkar sought to breathe life into those who were beneath the rubble of history. He was not a part of a whole, but a part apart.
The Myth of Progress
Central to Benjamin's metaphor of angel of history is the critique of historicism and “myth of progress”. The storm or march of civilization towards progress certainly troubled the angel of history. This liberal progress of history propelled the angel of history, Ambedkar. While everyone was singing the song of liberation from British imperialism, Ambedkar, similar to the Angel of history, was looking backwards towards the wreckage of caste while his feet lay in the present republic. In his final address, Ambedkar reminded constituent assembly members of ancient Indian Buddhist republics. He said, There was a time when India was studded with republics... This democratic system India lost. Will she lose it a second time? The storm blowing from paradise; the glorification of traditional spiritualism and orthodoxy, had obscured the wreckage of history. The debris of caste inequality is covered with the glorification of the past. Ambedkar's task was to brush history against the grain. He wanted to seize the memory as it flashed before him.
“Babasaheb Ambedkar, who authored the most important text of the century, Annihilation of Caste, was Benjamin's angel of history.”
The Warning against Bhakti
One of the most striking concerns of Ambedkar in his final address was caution against the “Hero-worship” (Pg 1215, BAWS), the greatest threat to the Indian democratic process. This charismatic authority rested in the Indian political process. Ambedkar, during his political life, debunked the myth of “Gandhism”. In an era, when Gandhism was echoed against imperialist aggression, Ambedkar exposed all the myths of his “greatness”. Gandhi experimented with truths, Ambedkar diagnosed the social illness and labored to figure its remedies in his revolutionary text Annihilation of Caste. Ambedkar was aware of European fascism. He feared that India could have its own facism. He wrote,
“This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country, for in India Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship”. (Pg. 1215-1216, BAWS)
Ambedkar knew that fascism is the internal surrender to irrationalism. His warning still haunts the public conscience today, when India seems to have surrendered before the charismatic leadership. Benjamin felt the heat of fascism. Whereas Ambedkar knew the intensity of the fascist forces. Instead of submission, what Ambedkar placed, is similar to Benjamin's tradition of the oppressed. Walter Benjamin argued that tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the state of emergency in which we live in, is not the exception but the rule. Ambedkar knew this closely. The tradition for Dalits was liberation and emancipation. It was to “break from the past” and revive the tradition of Dalits. The state of exception, however, is the rule for the Dalits, but it needs an emergency break.
The Grammar of Anarchy
The questions of constitutionalism and radical politics have always been the contradiction for Dalits. Indian ruling classes, since its inception, have never been humble towards the Dalits. Shattered images from Khairlanji to Una, caste has become another name of violence. To say so, caste hierarchy had always been the violence for the Dalits. The ruling classes are prisons for the Dalits. The nature and character of politics in India is completely different from its character, when Ambedkar was addressing the Congress oligarchy for the final time. Independent India was a product of mass violence. Partition devastated millions of lives. The catastrophe was witnessed by Ambedkar. He was witnessing the rupture from the past. His concerns against Grammar of anarchy were specific to this context when communal violence traveled in the air. Therefore, it becomes a necessity to contextualise Ambedkar's “Grammar of Anarchy” into this social-economic context. Ambedkar knew that a written document could achieve everything. The methods Ambedkar considered were; civil disobedience, non-cooperation and Satyagraha. Ambedkar insisted, “Where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods.” The Angel was aware that a centralized modern state would be capable of countering these rising contradictions. However, Ambedkar didn't mean that he was against any working class resistance, instead, Ambedkar argued for the “constitutional morality” and social endosmosis and eventually liberation towards Manuski. Ambedkar learned from History that the tradition of the oppressed lay in the discontinuum. He acted while debris of history kept piling up. He was not seeking a messianic redemption but a theory as a weapon to overthrow the state of exception.
Conclusion
In his preface to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, Jean Paul Sartre wrote, “Have the courage to read this book... because it will make you ashamed and shame, as Marx said, is a revolutionary sentiment.” Sartre wrote this in the context of the Algerian revolution for the colonizers. Learning from it, the dominant castes in India should have the courage to go through Ambedkar's vast literature, his writings and speeches. Reading Ambedkar would make them ashamed. And as Marx said, shame is a revolutionary sentiment. It is the beginning of a new species. Their caste consciousness and class domination will shatter into nothing. Ambedkar's final address in the constituent assembly is a boomerang and his text Annihilation of Caste is a blueprint for revolution. The Indian constitution was a shelter against the storm flowing from paradise, authored by its Angel of history: Ambedkar. A democratic process requires democratic people. Therefore, the problem is fundamental. It is beneath the rubble of history: graded inequality. Ultimately, the foundation has to be a democratic one, as Ambedkar said, you cannot build anything on the foundation of caste. The foundation remains undemocratic, so does the political process. His insistence for constitutionalism and constitutional morality, and triad – Liberty, equality and fraternity are slow processes of making whole what has been smashed. As Benjamin said, “That things go on, is the greatest catastrophe”. Ambedkar's final warnings are some certainties in times of uncertainty. For Dalits, our lives demand an emergency break. This emergency break is the discontinuum.
References
- Ambedkar, B. R. (1949). Speech to the Constituent Assembly (November 25, 1949). In Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches (Vol. 10, pp. 972–981). Government of Maharashtra.
- Jeffries, S. (2016, August 2). The storm blowing from paradise: Walter Benjamin and Klee’s Angelus Novus. Verso Books.
- Sartre, J.-P. (1961). Preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Marxists Internet Archive.