Ambedkar: the Argument, Nationalism and the New Social Order

Labour and nationalism

The nationalists make two charges: that labour's attitude is inconsistent with and injurious to Indian nationalism, and that labour is willing to fight without securing assurances about India's independence.

His answer on nationalism, and this is the passage MU is most likely to set.

Labour is not prepared to make a fetish of nationalism. If nationalism means the worship of the ancient past, the discarding of everything that is not local in origin and colour, then Labour cannot accept nationalism as its creed.

He follows it with two sentences that a student should be able to quote or paraphrase closely. That labour "cannot allow the living faith of the dead to become the dead faith of the living". And that it will not allow the ever expanding spirit of man to be strangled by the hand of a past which has no meaning for the present and no hope for the future, nor cramped in a narrow jacket of local particularism. Labour must be ready to borrow in order to repair, transform and recreate the body politic, and if nationalism stands in the way of that rebuilding, labour must deny nationalism.

The positive statement. "Labour's creed is internationalism." Labour is interested in nationalism only because the machinery of democracy, representative parliaments, responsible executives, constitutional conventions, works better in a community united by national sentiment. Nationalism is therefore a means and not an end.

How to read the passage fairly. He is not attacking the demand for Indian freedom. He is attacking a particular content given to nationalism: the worship of the ancient past and the refusal of anything foreign in origin. A man who had spent his life arguing that Indian society's own traditions were the chief obstacle to the equality of its lowest castes had a reason for that suspicion which was not borrowed from the British.

And the criticism a student may fairly make. That the argument was extremely convenient for a member of the wartime government, and that a person in his office had every incentive to find nationalism a fetish. An honest answer states both the reason and the convenience, and says which it thinks weighs more.

Independence: a wrong approach

His answer on the second nationalist charge is the sharpest thinking in the speech.

The distinction. Independence, he says, does not by itself determine the form of government or the organisation of society. "External independence is quite compatible with internal slavery." The worth of independence depends on the kind of government and the kind of society that is built up, and "There is not much value in independence if the form of government and the order of society are to be those against which the world is fighting today."

The slogan he proposes instead. "Labour thinks that more emphasis ought to have been placed on New India and less on 'Quit India'." A vision of a new order in a new India, he says, would have a greater appeal than independence alone, and would have prevented the embarrassing questions being asked, "namely, freedom for what and freedom for whom."

Why those five words matter. "Freedom for what and freedom for whom" is the question Ambedkar put to the national movement all his life, and it is the whole of his position in one clause: independence that leaves the internal order untouched changes the rulers and not the ruled.

His second answer. That making immediate independence a condition of supporting the war could only be justified if there were a sudden conspiracy to rob India of her right to freedom, and there is no evidence of one, and no such conspiracy could succeed anyway. "If India's independence is in the balance, it is because of disunity among Indians. The enemies of India's independence are Indians and no others."

The new social order, and the close

The formula that gives the speech its most quoted line.

Labour is aware that the only compensation for the cost of this war is the establishment of a New Order in which liberty, equality, and fraternity will not be mere slogans but will become facts of life.

And the condition attached to it.

Without success in the war there can be no self-government and self-determination for India. Without victory in the war, independence will be idle twaddle. This is the reason why Labour is determined to win this war.

The two features that make this war different, in his account. First, it is not merely a war for the division of the world's territory among the most powerful nations, as previous wars were, but a conflict of ideologies about the forms and systems of government under which humanity is to live. Second, it is not merely a war but also a revolution, one which demands a fundamental change in the terms of associated life, a replanning of society. In that sense, he says, it is a people's war, "and if it is not, it could and should be made into a people's war."

The warning from history. Efforts to establish a new order have been frustrated before "because democracy, after it was brought into being, was left in Tory hand." If the world takes care that this mistake is not repeated, the world can be made safe for democracy.

The claim to leadership, which is how he ends. The country needs a lead, and labour can give it, because correct leadership requires idealism and free thought. Idealism is possible for the aristocracy, though free thought is not; both are possible for labour; and neither is possible for the middle class, which lacks the liberality of the aristocracy and the hunger for a new order on which the labouring classes live. Labour's lead to India, he concludes, "is to get into the fight and be united. The fruits of victory will be independence and a New Social Order."

The rhetoric: how the speech is built

A question may ask you to analyse the speech as a piece of writing, and MU's own note under Module 3 asks for analysis "with respect to its themes, character analysis and language".

It is built on objections. After the opening, almost every section begins with somebody else's position, states it fairly, and answers it. That is the structure of an argument rather than of an appeal, and it suits a speaker who knows his audience disagrees with him.

It concedes early and often. Labour has secured gains. It is true that wars have devastated civilisation. There is perhaps room for the pessimism. Each concession buys credibility for the refusal that follows.

It defines its terms. Liberty, equality, fraternity, self-government, self-determination, matter of state: he stops to define each. This is a lawyer's habit and an economist's, and it is what makes the speech quotable.

Its sentences are short and its paragraphs are declarative. There is very little imagery. The two figures that do appear stand out for that reason: the living faith of the dead becoming the dead faith of the living, and the narrow jacket of local particularism.

It repeats a single formula. Liberty, equality and fraternity appear at the start as definitions and at the end as facts of life. The speech is framed by them.

A worked answer

Question. "Discuss Ambedkar's attitude to nationalism in this broadcast."

Paragraph one, the position. Ambedkar does not reject the demand for Indian independence. He rejects a particular content given to nationalism, and he subordinates nationalism to something he thinks more important, namely the social order that independence will produce.

Paragraph two, what he says. Labour is not prepared to make a fetish of nationalism. If nationalism means the worship of the ancient past and the discarding of everything not local in origin and colour, labour cannot accept it as a creed, because it will not let the living faith of the dead become the dead faith of the living, or the spirit of man be cramped in a narrow jacket of local particularism. Labour's creed, he says, is internationalism, and it is interested in nationalism only because parliaments, responsible executives and constitutional conventions work better in a community united by national sentiment. Nationalism is a means and not an end.

Paragraph three, the argument about independence. He then distinguishes external independence from internal freedom: independence does not by itself settle the form of government or the order of society, and external independence is quite compatible with internal slavery. There is not much value in independence, he says, if the form of government and the order of society are to be those the world is then fighting against. He proposes that more emphasis should have been placed on New India and less on Quit India, and asks the question that runs through his whole public life, freedom for what and freedom for whom.

Paragraph four, judging it. The position has a serious foundation. A man who had spent his life showing that Indian society's own traditions were the chief obstacle to the equality of its lowest castes had reason to distrust a nationalism defined as reverence for the past, and his question about freedom for whom was answered, five years later, by the Constitution he helped to draft.

Paragraph five, the objection. It must also be said that the argument was convenient. He held office under the wartime government, made the broadcast on government radio while the leaders of the Quit India movement were in prison, and a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council had every professional reason to find nationalism a fetish. The best answer states both, and concludes that the argument survives the convenience because Ambedkar had been making it before he took office and went on making it after he left.

Quick revision

Four objections answered: those indifferent to a Nazi victory, dismissed as embittered politicians whose motto is all or nothing; the pacifists, answered by the claim that peace obtained by surrender is suicide and that war is abolished by winning it and making a just peace; the pessimists, answered by a call for vigilance and victory over the Old Order wherever found; and the nationalists.

On nationalism: no fetish of it; the living faith of the dead must not become the dead faith of the living; labour's creed is internationalism; nationalism is a means, not an end.

On independence: external independence is compatible with internal slavery; more emphasis on New India and less on Quit India; freedom for what and freedom for whom; the enemies of India's independence are Indians and no others.

The formula: the only compensation for the cost of the war is a New Order in which liberty, equality and fraternity are facts of life and not slogans; without victory, independence will be idle twaddle.

Two features of this war: a conflict of ideologies rather than of territory, and a revolution demanding a replanning of society, therefore a people's war.

The rhetoric: built on objections, concedes early, defines its terms, short declarative sentences, two memorable figures, and framed by the three words.

Test yourself

1. What does Ambedkar mean by refusing to make a fetish of nationalism? That he will not treat nationalism as an object of worship or as an end in itself. If it means reverence for the ancient past and the rejection of everything not local in origin, labour cannot accept it, because that would let the living faith of the dead become the dead faith of the living and confine the spirit of man in a narrow jacket of local particularism.

2. Give his answer to the pacifists. He accepts that wars have devastated civilisation, but denies that refusing to fight abolishes them. Peace obtained by surrender to violence is not peace but suicide. War is abolished by two things only, winning it and making a just peace, since the origin of war lies in the vile peace that victors impose on the vanquished; so a pacifist should be active both during the war and when the terms of peace are settled.

3. Explain "external independence is quite compatible with internal slavery". That a country may be free of foreign rule and still leave its own people unequal and unfree, because independence settles who governs and not how society is ordered. This is why he says there is little value in independence if the resulting order is the kind the world was then fighting against.

4. What does he propose instead of the slogan Quit India? New India. He argues that a vision of a new order in a new India would appeal more strongly than independence by itself, and would forestall the questions being asked, freedom for what and freedom for whom.

5. Name two features of the speech's style with an example of each. It is built on objections, each stated fairly before it is answered, as with the pacifists whose premise he concedes before refusing their conclusion. And it defines its terms rather than assuming them, as when he stops to give positive definitions of liberty, equality and fraternity before using the three words as the measure of the New Order.