Ambedkar and the Constitution of India: A Deweyan Experiment

Abstract

This essay explores democratic ethos championed by Dewey in context of Indian constitution. Ambedkar, Chairman of Drafting Committee of Indian Constitution, studied with Dewey at Columbia University during 1913-16, and often credits Dewey for a lasting impression on his thinking. I focus on two examples of Ambedkar's efforts to exercise democratic experimentalism. The first is provision in Indian Constitution dealing with remedial treatment for disadvantaged citizens, variously called 'positive discrimination and compensatory discrimination'. The second is attempted passage of Hindu Code Bill in 1951 for comprehensive reform to clarify, standardize and streamline Hindu personal law. The Indian Constitution can be taken as a location where Deweyan robust sense of democracy is reflected in its aim for an inclusive, associated public space, in no small measure due to Ambedkar's Deweyan experiment.Mrs. Savita Ambedkar tells a touching story of Ambedkar happily imitating John Dewey's distinctive classroom mannerisms - thirty years after Ambedkar sat in Dewey's classes. It is impossible to find in Ambedkar's life story any hint of a living gum or a personality which dominated him, but here at least is a suggestion that he was fond of both Dewey philosopher and Dewey man.- Zelliot (2001,84)1. IntroductionThis paper explores theme of democratic experimentalism in context of Indian constitution - an important location given that India is most populous democracy of world today - through Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's involvement with it. From perspective of present volume, this exploration offers an important opportunity since Dewey's own writing on democracy has been argued to be somewhat thin in terms of clear delineation of its institutional implications. Further, as Simon points out in his essay in this volume, even in much of literature on Dewey's liberalism, the institutional implications of his work remain elusive (p. 5). What makes this project relevant is also fact that it allows us to explore democratic ethos championed by Dewey in context of Indian constitution. This is because Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Chairman of Drafting Committee of Indian Constitution, studied with Dewey at Columbia University between 1913 and 1916 and often credits latter for having a lasting impression on his thinking.Given that Dewey's influence on Ambedkar's general thinking has remained understudied, my focusing only on context of Indian Constitution might seem misguided. I believe, however, that such a focus has two advantages. Such a focus would allow us to assess Mukherjee's claim that American neopragmatists like Stanley Fish, were they to pay attention to this student of Dewey's [viz., Ambedkar], would need to revise their contention that 'if pragmatism is true it has nothing to say to us; no politics follows from it or blocked by it; no morality attaches to it or is enjoined by it' (Mukheijee 2009, 348). If we are able to find a sustained engagement with ethos of pragmatism and Deweyan democratic experimentalism in at least some aspects of Indian Constitution, then that would seem to provide clear evidence for pragmatism's institutional and political impact. Further, those who have tried to explore Deweyan influences in Ambedkar's general thinking seem to have focused simply on those passages in Ambedkar's writings where he is referring to and/or acknowledging Dewey or explicitly drawing from his ideas. This approach has limited these scholars, Kadam and Mukheijee, for example, look at Dewey's Democracy and Education exclusively since most of Ambedkar's explicit and implicit Dewey quotes come from this work. I think this might limit us and therefore keep us from exploring Ambedkar's Deweyan influences to their fullest extent. This has also encouraged some of these Ambedkar scholars to argue how Dewey provided a 'different lens' - different from that of Orientalism - through which Ambedkar came to see world (Mukheijee 2009, 345). …