Ambedkar: Why Indian Labour is Determined to Win the War

Notice what he does not do. He does not attack the Quit India movement by name at this point, and he does not deny that the opposition exists. He states it as a fact to be explained, and then spends the whole speech explaining it.

And the disclaimer he makes at once. Labour has secured gains during the war, security through legislation and conditions of welfare enforced on employers, and more will follow. But, he says, if labour is determined to accelerate the war effort, "it is not simply because of the lure of these immediate gains. There arc other and stronger reasons which are at the base of this determination."

Why that disclaimer is the hinge of the speech. He is answering, before anybody makes it, the obvious charge: that labour supports the war because the government has bought it. He concedes the gains and then says the reason lies elsewhere, and the rest of the broadcast is that elsewhere.

What labour wants: fair conditions of life

The first substantive section, and the source of the speech's most quoted material.

Labour is not content with securing merely fair conditions of work. What Labour wants is fair conditions of life.

He then defines the three terms of the French revolutionary formula in his own way, and the definitions are the part to learn.

Liberty. Not merely the negative idea of the absence of restraint, and not confined to the right to vote. Labour's conception is positive and involves government by the people, and he adds a sharp qualification: government by the people does not mean parliamentary democracy, because "Parliamentary Democracy is a form of Government in which the function of the people has come to be to vote for their masters and leave them to rule." Liberty also includes the right to equal opportunity and the duty of the State to provide the fullest facilities for growth to every individual according to his needs.

Equality. The abolition of privileges of every kind, "in law, in the civil service, in the Army, in taxation, in trade and in industry: in fact the abolition of all processes which lead to inequality."

Fraternity. An all-pervading sense of human brotherhood, unifying all classes and all nations, with peace on earth and goodwill towards man as its motto.

How to use these in an answer. Quote the definition of liberty in particular, because the criticism of parliamentary democracy inside it is unexpected and shows the candidate has read the speech rather than a summary. And note that the same three words, liberty, equality and fraternity, are the ones Ambedkar would later place at the centre of the Constitution's Preamble and of his final speech to the Constituent Assembly.

The Nazi order, and the argument about race

The structure of the argument. These three things are labour's ideals, and they constitute the New Order. The New Order cannot be established if the Allies lose. If the Allies fail there will still be a new order, but it will be the Nazi order, "an Order in which liberty will be found to be suppressed, equality denied, and fraternity expurgated as a pernicious doctrine."

Then the part addressed specifically to Indians, and this is what MU asked about in February 2026. He says the most important part of the Nazi order is the creed of racial gradation. The Nazis regard the German race as the race of supermen, place the other white races below them, and give the last place to the brown races, in which Indians are included. And, he says, they have declared that the brown races shall be the serfs of the German and white races, without education and without liberty, political or economic.

The evidence he offers. That the fury with which Hitler denounced the British government in Mein Kampf for having given Indians education and political liberty is well known.

The conclusion he draws. "The Nazi ideology is a direct menace to the liberty and freedom of Indians." Given that fact, there is the strongest reason why Indians should come forward to fight Nazism.

Why the argument is well made. It is addressed to the self-interest of the audience rather than to abstract virtue, and it turns the nationalist objection round: a person who wants Indian freedom has more reason to fight Nazism than anybody, because Nazism is explicitly committed to denying it.

A worked answer

Question. MU's own, February 2026: "What is Dr. Ambedkar's attitude to Hitler and his ideology?" Six marks, a short note.

A model answer. Ambedkar treats Nazism not as a distant European quarrel but as a direct threat to Indians, and he argues the point from the content of the ideology itself rather than from loyalty to Britain. The most important part of the Nazi order, he says, is the creed of racial gradation: the Nazis hold the German race to be a race of supermen, place the other white races below it, and assign the last place in the gradation to the brown races, among which they include Indians. He adds that the Nazis have declared that the brown races shall be the serfs of the German and white races, denied education and denied liberty, both political and economic. As evidence that this is not speculation, he points to the fury with which Hitler denounced the British government in Mein Kampf for having given Indians education and political liberty. His conclusion is stated flatly: the Nazi ideology is a direct menace to the liberty and freedom of Indians, and given that fact there is the strongest reason why Indians should come forward to fight it. The attitude is therefore neither neutral nor merely dutiful but actively hostile, and the hostility rests on an Indian interest: a movement whose declared programme is the permanent servitude of brown people cannot be a matter of indifference to a country demanding its own freedom.

Why it scores. It gives the doctrine, the gradation, the specific consequence for Indians, the evidence from Mein Kampf, and the conclusion, and it ends by naming what kind of argument Ambedkar is making.

Quick revision

Dr B.R. Ambedkar, 1891 to 1956, born a Mahar, educated at Columbia and the London School of Economics, called to the bar at Gray's Inn, later chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution and first Law Minister of India.

Speaking as Labour Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, an office held from July 1942 to October 1946.

Broadcast from the Bombay station of All India Radio, published in Indian Information on 1 January 1943.

The context: the war going badly in Asia, and the Quit India movement under way since August 1942 with Congress leaders in prison.

The opening: labour is co-operating in the war effort in the midst of a surge of non-co-operation, and the reason is not the immediate gains.

Fair conditions of life, not merely of work: liberty defined positively and against parliamentary democracy; equality as the abolition of all privilege; fraternity as human brotherhood across classes and nations.

The Nazi order: racial gradation, brown races last and to be serfs, Hitler's denunciation of Britain in Mein Kampf for educating Indians, and therefore a direct menace to Indian freedom.

Test yourself

1. In what capacity was Ambedkar speaking, and when? As Labour Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, the office he held from July 1942 to October 1946. The broadcast was made from the Bombay station of All India Radio and published in Indian Information on 1 January 1943.

2. Why does the occasion matter? Because the Quit India movement had begun in August 1942, weeks after he took office, and Congress leaders were in prison. He is a member of the wartime government explaining on government radio why one section of the country is co-operating while much of it is not, and every argument in the speech is shaped by that position.

3. How does he define liberty? Positively, not merely as the absence of restraint and not confined to the right to vote. It involves government by the people, which he says is not the same as parliamentary democracy, since under that form the function of the people has become to vote for their masters and leave them to rule. It also includes equal opportunity and a duty on the State to provide the fullest facilities for growth to each individual according to his needs.

4. What is his answer to the charge that labour has simply been bought? He concedes the gains at once, security through legislation and welfare conditions enforced on employers, and says that labour's determination is not simply because of the lure of these immediate gains, and that other and stronger reasons lie at the base of it. The rest of the speech supplies those reasons.

5. Why, on his argument, should an Indian nationalist in particular oppose Nazism? Because the Nazi creed of racial gradation places the brown races last and declares that they shall be serfs of the German and white races, without education or liberty, and because Hitler denounced Britain in Mein Kampf precisely for giving Indians education and political liberty. A person who wants Indian freedom therefore has the strongest of all reasons to fight it.