Dr. Rajkumar Singh
After the adoption of our Constitution, large scale social and economic changes have taken place. India after attaining independence by a series of social welfare legislations based on the mandate of our Constitution proved that law could be active and dynamic. No longer was the State seen as standing to one side of the society and performing the role of a night watchman, but as a manager of social and economic interests. The State has become the centre of political and economic power and source and distributor of basic legal rights and material standards. Society is constantly in motion, economies strengthen and fail technology moves on, new social institutions emerge, even there is fundamental alteration of the structure of society. In the process the Courts have taken recourse to these provisions often, in their crusade to bring justice to the poor. Through innovative and creative strategies, they have expanded the scope of the Fundamental Rights, in order to render justice to women, children, bounded labourers and other oppressed sections of society.
Base of social justice expanded
The founding fathers of our Constitution stressed on the positive/constructive aspect of political freedom and creation of a new social order, based on the doctrine of socio-economic justice. As a step further, several measures have been taken from the beginning, to create more favourable social conditions for the millions of downtrodden. First of all, the Constitution had been amended when experience with its working made such change necessary. In 1950 itself, arising out of the Supreme Court decision in the State of Madras vs. Champakam Dorairajan, clause (4) was added to Article 15, dealing with prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, etc. The new clause said that nothing in Article 15, nor in clause 2 of Article 29, nothing in either shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the SCs and STs. Similarly, when it was found, on the basis of ten years’ progress in respect of the conditions of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and also Anglo-Indians, that the reservation of seats for the former and the provision for nomination in respect of the latter, for a period of ten years prescribed in Constitution of 1950 was inadequate, a clause in the 8th amendment, passed in 1960, extended both to 20 years. In many other ways best possible was done to improve the conditions of the weaker sections of the community. Politically too, these weaker sections of the community have been able to make their influence felt as, for example, in the composition of Cabinets both at the Centre and in the States.
Nature of State
In the years following independence of the country, India planned for a welfare State and attempted several welfare schemes in general. Especially for Jawaharlal Nehru, the ideal was to be not only all-round national economic development, with its associated characteristics of a more general social progress, but also more specifically, the improvement of the lot of the poorer sections of the population and of the rural areas which Gandhiji had always emphasised. The Harijans, in particular, are in most areas in a social situation for which there is no parallel in the world. Gandhi realised that, if our national movement was to become a mass movement, these sections of our society which constitute the large majority of our population have also to be brought into it. And they will not come into it unless the historic injustices, negative and positive, things undone and things done, are rectified, and even more important, they feel that they are being rectified and justice done to them at last. In this connection two important protective legislations in operation for people belonging to SCs are the Protection of Civil Rights 1955 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. However, despite these constitutional position, atrocities and crimes on members of SCs, especially the women, continue to occur in all parts of the country in varying degrees. As per the National Crime Records Bureau Report 2005, the crimes against SCs in the last few years were mainly atrocities followed by hurt and rape.
Gandhi and Ambedkar: similarities and differences
Earlier with the rise of Gandhi who combined the fight for independence with a radical social reform agenda through his constructive programme, these concerns acquired a new dimension in coming years. The Gandhi-Ambedkar debate on the best way to tackle the old caste divisions in the Indian Society provides good evidence of this. The two opposite frameworks of Gandhi and Ambedkar in advancing the cause of group rights find an echo in the contemporary India. Ambedkar’s basic contention against the Congress under Gandhi’s leadership was that the Congress claim of representing the entire population of India was false as the Muslims, except for once during the Khilafat agitation and the untouchables have stood outside the movement. Individuals in the movement under Gandhi’s leadership joined only for personal gains. The overwhelming majority of the untouchables, asserted Ambedkar, stayed out of the freedom movement for some valid reasons. He thought that the Gandhian movement for India’s independence was both unnecessary and unjustified. Ambedkar’s position was nullified by the election results of 1937 in which the Congress did extremely well in the seats reserved for Harijans. However, they both-Gandhi and Ambedkar, fought to eradicate India’s internal apartheid manifested in the pernicious caste practice of untouchability and was committed to a vision of modernised India free of caste and colonial oppression. Both were champions of untouchables or dalits, both considered untouchability the most shameful smear on the Indian social fabric and both thought that social reform in India ought to precede political freedom. Both were also highly charismatic national leaders who carried the masses with them. But the two- Gandhi and Ambedkar held different opinions on many issues including the social justice.
Unlike Gandhi, Ambedkar’s concept of social justice was influenced by the Western liberal ideas and the conditions that prevailed in the Indian society. His stay in America for three years (1913-16) and in England for two years (1920-22) enabled him to come into direct contact with the ideas of liberal thinkers. He had also personal experience of the curse of untouchability which prevailed in the Indian society. Naturally, it became the first concern of his life to fight against it at all levels, social, economic and political in order to establish in India a society based on social justice. Thus, Ambedkar’s circumstances forced him to be a revolutionary and simultaneously put his foot in the door of the establishment whenever he got a chance to. But Dr. Ambedkar’s vision did not end at the horizon of Dalit Power; rather, he envisaged an India liberated from caste consciousness, a futuristic society no longer trapped in the feudal binaries of master and slave, privilege and privation. |
