Ambedkar’s Non-violence PAGE 2

Ambedkar’s Non-violence

PAGE 2

can be interpreted as preserving these possibilities, Ambedkar would have sensed violence in Gandhi’s non-violence. In Ambedkar’s reading, Gandhi’s non-violent tactics entail some form of psychological coercion, the best example involving Ambedkar being Gandhi’s fast unto death that led to the signing of

the

Poona Pact in 1932. And, the consequence of such psychological coercion is that it results in minimising the available possibilities, just like violence would have. In this vein, Ambedkar would argue that Gandhi’s methods destroyed the good ends along with the evil ones through an act of psychological coercion. This is because, in Gandhi’s non-violence, there is less of a differentiation between means and ends unlike in Ambedkar’s. For Gandhi, means justify everything. For Ambedkar, there is room for ends justifying the means employed.

In his last speech at the Constituent Assembly in 1949, after framing the Constitution, Ambedkar said the following,

The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. (Round Table India 2016)

Ambedkar termed these unconstitutional methods the “grammar of anarchy” in this speech. This may be because Ambedkar sensed in this grammar of anarchy an illegitimate expression of violence or psychological coercion.

As Pratap Bhanu Mehta pointed out in one of his essays, Ambedkar sensed in constitutional satyagraha a form of violence, which Mehta termed a “narcissistic belief in one’s own truth without acknowledging the reality of difference” (Mehta 2016). One can locate this unwavering belief in truth in a metaphysics of morality that this truth seeker or satyagrahi is supposed to uphold at all times. In this sense, Mehta is right in reading Ambedkar expressing a radical mode of non-violence, which is different from and in disagreement with Gandhian non-violence rooted in the idea of truth. Ambedkar’s non-violence, in Mehta’s reading, stems from “a courage not to convert the experience of the deepest forms of exploitation in to a call for cathartic violence,” and thus establishing the possibility of committing all modes of revolution or political action in modern India to constitutional modes of engagement (Mehta 2016). Thus, for Ambedkar, non-violent political action should be grounded in constitutional morality and not in personal integrity. This is because, in Ambedkar’s understanding, political conduct should acknowledge the plurality of opinions. Non-violent political conduct is, then, about working together despite fundamental differences, negotiating and coming to a decision that requires compromises from all parties, and nurturing and participating in institutions and traditions that will establish an enabling framework for making new possibilities. One can read in this an echoing of what Ambedkar earlier called the creative use of force, or “force as energy,” as a mode of action that does not denigrate any possibilities. Constitutional morality, for Ambedkar, is this creative and energetic use of non-violent force to create conditions for all possibilities.

References

Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (2016): “B R Ambedkar: The Slayer of All Gods,” Open, 8 April, http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/people/br-ambedkar-slayer-of-all-gods.

Round Table India (2010): “Ambedkar’s 1956 Speech: Buddha or Karl Marx,” http://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content &view=article&id=1174:buddha-or-karl-marxdr-b-r-ambedkar&catid=116&Itemid=128.

— (2012): “Ambedkar’s 1936 Speech: What Path to Salvation?,” http://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6020:what-path-to-salvation&catid=116 &Itemid=128.

— (2016): “Ambedkar’s Speech in the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949,” http://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8876:babasaheb-dr-b-r-ambedkar-s-speech-in-the-constituent-a; ssembly-on-25th-november-1949&catid=116: dr-ambedkar&Itemid=128.