The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ‘Constitutional, populist democracies inseparable’

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Tuesday, Feb 26, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

‘Constitutional, populist democracies inseparable’

Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: K. RAMESH BABU

sharing views: General K. V. Krishna Rao with Prof. Andre Beteille during a convention in Hyderabad on Monday.

HYDERABAD: B.R. Ambedkar wanted to prepare India to take its place in the forefront of the comity of free and independent nations of the modern world, said Andre Beteille, professor emeritus in Delhi University.

Delivering Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Memorial Lecture on Constitutional Morality at the Administrative Staff College of India here on Monday, Prof. Beteille dwelt at length on the constitutional democracy and populist democracy, and felt that the people of India could never discard either.

Constitutional morality

Dr. Ambedkar was deeply concerned over the question of constitutional morality. Going beyond the constitutional framework into the nature of society, the late leader said in his closing speech of the Constituent Assembly that “Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.”

Prof. Beteille said that it was not possible in a democratic order to insulate completely the domain of law from that of politics. Stating that Dr. Ambdekar himself had expressed anxiety about the prospects of democracy, he said that its continued existence after 60 years had come to be taken for granted.

It was increasingly becoming common for elected representatives in India to claim supremacy for Parliament over the other organs of the State on the ground that it was closer to the people by virtue of its class composition than the other two organs. However, he said, it wasn’t true always.

He said Dr. Ambedkar appealed against the politics of mobilisation in the altered conditions created by the Constitution.

He had conceded that such politics might have been necessary to bring about a change of regime, but that it could no longer be justified under the new regime.

He also spoke at length on the circumstances that led to emergency, the politics of mobilisation by Jayaprakash Narayan (his defiance of Constitution was at best half-hearted), and how Indira Gandhi retained the “residual attachment to the Constitution”.

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