Vol. 17, Part III · pages 501–505

138 CONDITIONS PRECEDENT FOR THE SUCCESSFUL WORKING OF DEMOCRACY Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was invited by the Members of the Poona District Law Library on 22nd December 1952 for : (i) Unveiling the portrait of late Shri L. R. Gokhale. (ii) For declaring open the collections of books donated by Shri A. B. Sethna and Shri H. V. Tulpule, two senior members of the Bar and preserved as separate sections in the Law Library. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Mrs. S. Ambedkar were kind enough to accept this invitation. Shri P. C. Bhat, District and Sessions Judge, Poona who as the President of the Poona District Law Library presided over the function. Sangeet Kalanidhi Master Krishnarao Fulambrikar sang a welcome song in honour of Dr. and Mrs. Ambedkar. The welcome song was composed by one of our brother pleaders Shri S. G. Bhat. The Vice-President Shri K. S. Choubal delivered a welcome speech. Shri V. B. Gogate, Hon. Secretary read the report of the Library. Shri B. D. Bal requested Dr. B. R. Ambedkar to unveil the portrait of the late Shri L. R. Gokhale and to declare open the sections of the books donated by Shri A. B. Sethna and H. V. Tulpule. Then Dr. B.R. Ambedkar unveiled the portrait of late Shri L. R. Gokhale and also declared open the said sections. On that occasion President Shri P. C. Bhat observed as follows : “Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the Bench and the Bar. I have a pleasant function to perform and that is to request the Chief Guest to speak a few words on the subject of today. You will kindly excuse me for not making a long speech because of my illhealth. I now request the Chief Guest to address us on the subject.”

473CONDITIONS.................OF DEMOCRACY Dr. Ambedkar’s Address Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, When the invitation came, I wrote to your Secretary that I would very much like to know what are the subjects in which the members of this District Library are interested, because I may come here and speak on a subject in which they may have no interest. If so, the visit would be of no value either to you or to me. He was kind enough to send me a list of four subjects. He said “You can select anyone of them.” I was in a hurry to reply to him and could not convey to him my actual decision as to what subject I would select. But I told him in a general way that I would select one of the four and if I did not select one of the four, I will not travel beyond the ambit of the four which he had prescribed. The one subject which attracted me which he had mentioned was Parliamentary Democracy, and I thought that that was a subject on which I might speak. The subject which I have selected is not Parliamentary Democracy, but something which is very closely associated with Parliamentary Democracy and which from my point of view, and I believe from the point of view of the country, is a very important subject. Now, the subject which I am going to speak to you this evening is according to my wording of the subject: “Conditions Precedent for the Successful Working of Democracy.” What are the conditions precedent which must exist in order that the democratic form of Government may continue to work without any kind of hindrance. That is the subject on which I propose to make a few observations. Setting for the Subject Now, before I actually deal with the subject-matter I propose to make a few preliminary observations in order to provide, what I call, a setting for the subject. The first preliminary observation I propose to make is this that democracy is always changing its form. We speak of democracy, but democracy is not always the same. The Greeks spoke of Athenian Democracy. But as everyone knows, the Athenian Democracy was as different from our modern democracy as chalk is from cheese. The Athenian Democracy consisted of people

474 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES 50 per cent of whom were slaves. Only 50 per cent were free. The 50 per cent who formed slaves had no place in the Government at all. Surely our democracy is quite different from the Athenian Democracy. The second thing to which I would like to draw your attention by a preliminary observation is that even in the same country democracy is not always the same. You take the history of England. Nobody can say that the English Democracy before the English Revolution of 1688 was the same as the English Democracy which came after the revolution of 1688. Nor can anyone say that the English Democracy as existed between 1688 and 1832 when the first Reform Bill was passed, is the same as the democracy that developed after the passing of the Act of 1832. Democracy keeps on changing its form. The third thing that I would like to draw your attention is that democracy not only undergoes changes in form; democracy always undergoes changes in purposes. You take the ancient English Democracy. What was the purpose of that democracy? It was to curb the King, to prevent the King from exercising what we now in law call his prerogative rights. The King even went to the extent of saying that although parliament may be there, as an enactment making body, “I as a King have got the prerogative to make the law and my law shall prevail.” It was this kind of autocracy of the King which made democracy to come into being. Today what is the purpose of the democracy? The purpose of modern democracy is not so much to put a curb on an autocratic King but to bring about the welfare of the people. That is a distinct change in the purpose of democracy. You will therefore see that in the title which I have given to my subject, I have deliberately used the words “conditions precedent for the success of modem democracy.” Democracy Defined Again what do we mean by democracy? Let us have a clear understanding before I proceed to my subject. Democracy has been defined, as you know, by various people, writers of political science and philosophers, sociologists and so on. I take only two for the

475CONDITIONS.................OF DEMOCRACY purpose of illustrating my point. I do not know whether any of you is acquainted with that famous book by Walter Bagehot on the English Constitution, the first modern attempt to give a clear picture of democracy. If you refer to that book of Walter Bagehot, his definition of democracy is “government by discussion.” That is how he defines democracy. Take another illustration that is of Abraham Lincoln. In his famous Getisburg speech which he made after the conquest of the Southern States, he defined democracy as “A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Well, many other definitions could be added in order to give an idea what people mean by democracy. Personally for myself, I define democracy in a different way, in a much more concrete way, I think. My definition of democracy is “a form and a method of government whereby revolutionary changes in the eonomic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed.” That is my definition of democracy. If democracy can enable those who are running it to bring about fundamental changes in the social and economic life of the people and the people accept those changes without resorting to bloodshed, then I say that there is democracy. That is the real test. It is perhaps the severest test. But when you are judging the quality of a material, you must put it to the severest test. And this is how I propose to define democracy at any rate so far as today’s address is concerned. Now, how can such a democracy be successful? This is the main subject matter of my address. Now, unfortunately there are no dogmas laid down by any of the authors who have written about this subject of democracy which can give us any idea in concrete, as to what are the conditions precedent according to their judgement to make democracy a success. One has to read history and as a result of reading history to find out the break-down period in democracy’s life in the different parts of the world where it had functioned and come to one’s own conclusion. Condition No. I The first condition which I think is a condition precedent for the successful working of the democracy is that there must be no glaring inequalities in the society. There must not be an oppressed class. There must not be a suppressed class. There must not be a class which has got all the privileges and a class which has got all

476 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the burdens to carry. Such a thing, such a division, such an organization of a society has within itself the germs of a bloody revolution, and perhaps it would be impossible for the democracy to cure them. Lincoln once said, although people have not understood his meaning, in the same Gatisburg’s speech that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” He was of course referring to the conflict between the Southern States and the Northern States. He said, “If you of the Southern States and we of the Northern States are divided, we shall not be able to stand together when a foreign enemy comes.” That was probably the meaning that he wanted to convey when he said that the house divided cannot stand. But I think that phrase of his or sentence of his is pregnant with much deeper meaning and it means, as I understand it, that the deep cleavages between class and class are going to be one of the greatest hindrances in the success of democracy. Because in democracy what happens? In democracy, everybody, even the oppressed, the suppressed, those who are deprived of their rights and those who carry the burden, they have the right to vote in the same way as those who have all the privileges, and probably those who are privileged are fewer than those who are unprivileged and since we adopt a majority rule as the rule of decision, it is quite possible that if the privileged few will not willingly and voluntarily surrender their privileges, then the distance between them and the lower orders will destroy democracy and bring into existence something quite different. There is, therefore, no doubt in my mind that if you examine the history of democracy in various parts of the world, you will find that one of the causes for the breakdown of democracy is the existence of these social cleavages. Condition No. II The second thing which a successful working of democracy requires is the existence of opposition. Now, I have seen many people not only in this country but in England condemning the party system. I was just recently reading, just before I came, a small little book published by the Hansard Society on the party system in England and here is one whole chapter devoted to this question whether the party system is a good system and should be tolerated. There is a variety of views. Now, it seems to me that all