Dr Ambedkar's Views on Decentralisation

Because he wanted the individual as the unit. If the village is the unit, its internal arrangements are its own affair, and the person the arrangements exclude has no standing. If the individual is the unit, the excluded person holds rights that the village cannot override, and can enforce them against the village.

Because he trusted enforceable law more than local goodwill. This is the same objection he made to trusteeship at chapter 750, and it is his most consistent position: a remedy that depends on the good intentions of those who benefit from an arrangement leaves them in charge of it.

And because he was arguing about a real institution rather than an ideal one. Gandhi described what a village might become. Ambedkar described what villages were.

The larger argument: political democracy needs social democracy

The village passage belongs to a bigger claim, and an answer that gives both is much stronger.

In the same speech Ambedkar said that on 26 January 1950 we are going to enter into a life of contradictions: in politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality; in politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value, and in social and economic life we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? If we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril.

He set out what social democracy means: liberty, equality and fraternity as principles of life, not as separate items but as a union, since liberty without equality produces the supremacy of the few over the many, equality without liberty kills individual initiative, and without fraternity liberty and equality would require a constable to enforce them.

This is the connection to chapter 830. Ambedkar's list of the conditions essential for the success of democracy is social democracy, and his warning is that political forms cannot survive a society organised on graded inequality.

Where he did agree with decentralisation

Ambedkar was not an opponent of local government as such, and an answer that presents him as one is inaccurate.

His objection was to the village as the constitutional unit, and to the assumption that a small unit is a free one.

He accepted local administration subject to the two things he insisted on everywhere: enforceable individual rights, so that the excluded person can proceed against the local body; and safeguards for those whom local majorities would exclude, which is why reservation appears at every level of Indian government.

And the Constitution took both positions. Article 40 was adopted as a Directive Principle, so the village entered the text; and the individual remained the unit of Part III, with rights enforceable against every authority including a panchayat. Chapter 890 shows how that compromise was arrived at, and chapters 900 and 940 show that when panchayats were finally given constitutional status in 1993, reservation for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and women was written into the same amendment. That is Ambedkar's condition being satisfied forty years later.

A worked example

A Gram Panchayat resolves that a common well in the village will be used only by residents of certain streets, on the ground that this is the long established arrangement and that the village should manage its own affairs.

On Gram Swaraj as a principle of authority, the village decides its own matters and this is a village matter.

On Ambedkar's principle, the resolution is void. The individual is the unit; the excluded villagers hold rights that the panchayat cannot override; untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden; and the excluded person may proceed against the panchayat in a court that is not composed of their neighbours.

Notice which argument the Constitution adopted. Not by rejecting local government, which article 40 and Part IX establish, but by placing enforceable individual rights above it. The panchayat exists and it cannot do this.

That is the reconciliation, and it is the answer to MU's topic: India adopted Gandhi's institution and Ambedkar's condition.

Distinctions that carry marks

What Ambedkar's position is NOT

It is not opposition to local government. It is opposition to the village as the constitutional unit and to the assumption that small units are free.

It is not centralisation for its own sake. He wanted a level of government that the excluded could appeal to, which requires that it be above the one excluding them.

It is not hostility to villagers. He was describing an institution and a social order, and his own words locate the fault in the plane on which the village survived rather than in the people.

And it did not lose. The Constitution adopted the individual as the unit, and when the village finally received constitutional status in 1993 it came with reservation, guaranteed elections and enforceable rights attached.

Quick revision

1. The passage: mere survival has no value, the question is on what plane they have survived; these village republics have been the ruination of India; what is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism; and he was glad the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted the individual as its unit.
2. The argument: for the excluded, the village is where exclusion is administered; closeness is not freedom; the individual as the unit gives the excluded person standing against the village; and enforceable law is surer than local goodwill.
3. The larger claim: on 26 January 1950 we enter a life of contradictions, equality in politics and inequality in social and economic life, one man one vote against the denial of one man one value, and continuing to deny it puts political democracy in peril.
4. Social democracy is liberty, equality and fraternity as a union: liberty without equality produces the supremacy of the few, equality without liberty kills initiative, and without fraternity both would need a constable.
5. He was not against local government, only against the village as the unit and against assuming small units are free; he required enforceable rights and safeguards at every level.
6. The reconciliation: India adopted Gandhi's institution in article 40 and Part IX, and Ambedkar's condition in Part III and in the reservation written into the 73rd Amendment.

Test yourself

1. State Ambedkar's view of the village in his own terms, and the argument behind it. That mere survival has no value and the question is on what plane the village communities survived, which was a low and selfish one; that these village republics have been the ruination of India; that the village is a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism; and that he was glad the Draft Constitution had discarded the village and adopted the individual as its unit. The argument is that survival is not a merit, that what survived was a particular social order, and that admiring the survival means admiring the order.

2. Why does Ambedkar's objection follow from the position of the excluded? Because for those excluded by caste the village was where the exclusion was administered, deciding which well, which street, which land, which occupation and which temple were open to them. A distant government is remote and can be appealed to; neighbours are neither. Gandhi's case for the village is that participation is real at that scale, and Ambedkar's reply is that domination is equally real at that scale and far harder to escape, since the dominated person cannot leave, cannot appeal to anybody outside, and cannot be anonymous.

3. Why did he insist on the individual as the unit? Because if the village is the unit its internal arrangements are its own affair and the person those arrangements exclude has no standing to complain. If the individual is the unit, the excluded person holds rights the village cannot override and can enforce them against the village in a forum not composed of their neighbours. It is the same reasoning he applied to trusteeship: a remedy depending on the goodwill of those who benefit from an arrangement leaves them in control of it.

4. What did Ambedkar mean by a life of contradictions? That from 26 January 1950 India would have equality in politics and inequality in social and economic life, recognising one man one vote and one vote one value while continuing, by reason of its social and economic structure, to deny one man one value. He asked how long the contradiction could last and warned that continuing to deny equality in social and economic life would put political democracy in peril. Social democracy, which he defined as liberty, equality and fraternity held together as a union, was his condition for the survival of the political forms.

5. How did the Constitution reconcile Gandhi and Ambedkar? By adopting Gandhi's institution and Ambedkar's condition. Article 40 directs the State to organise village panchayats and endow them with powers enabling them to function as units of self-government, and Part IX gave panchayats constitutional status in 1993. But the individual remained the unit of Part III, with rights enforceable against every authority including a panchayat, so that a village resolution excluding a group from a common well is void whatever the village decides. And when panchayats received constitutional status, reservation for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and women was written into the same amendment, which is Ambedkar's safeguard supplied forty years after he demanded it.