The Necessary Conditions for Democracy

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW DECember 14, 2013 vol xlviii no 50 111

The Necessary Conditions for Democracy B R Ambedkar on Nationalism, Minorities and Pakistan

Shabnum Tejani

Shabnum Tejani ([email protected]) is with SOAS, University of London.

B R Ambedkar’s significance and continuing legacy has

been examined largely within the context of dalit

emancipation. Yet, his central philosophical concern was

how to bring about democracy in a society so riven by

caste hierarchy and communal division. His detailed

consideration of the case for Pakistan was seen by many

at the time as contradicting the goals of Indian

nationalism. However, his support for Pakistan fits within

his philosophy of democracy. This paper presents a close

reading of Ambedkar’s positions on nationalism,

Pakistan, and the protection of minorities. While he saw

Pakistan as a logical extension of a demand for

protection against the “tyranny of the majority”, it

considers why he believed Muslims were not simply one

among many of India’s minorities.

A s part of the pantheon of Indian nationalist intellectuals, B R Ambedkar has received strikingly little attention.1 The signifi cance of Ambedkar as a historical fi gure and

of his continuing legacy has been examined largely within the context of dalit emancipation. Scholars have studied his role as a leader and advocate of Maharashtra’s dalits (Gokhale 1993; Omvedt 1994; Zelliott 1996); his support of constitutional safe-guards for India’s dalit communities (Verma 1999; Jaffrelot 2008; Rao 2009); and his central role in drafting India’s Con-stitution and the Hindu Code Bill (Austin 1966; Newbigin 2013). Ambedkar wrote extensively about the institution of caste and its effect on Indian society, particularly its negative impact on the possibility and conditions for creating democ-racy and a shared sense of national belonging. His clash with M K Gandhi over separate electorates for untouchables in 1932, his disagreements with the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha’s nationalism, and his ultimate conversion to Buddhism as a way to escape caste hierarchy have all been well examined (Gore 1993; Fuchs 2001; Omvedt 1994; Viswanathan 1998). However, his writings on the subjects of nationalism, linguistic states, communalism, and Pakistan have been largely ignored (exceptions include Aloysis 2007; Sarangi 2006; Teltumbde 2003). Yet his work on caste intersects with this broader com-plex of ideas in important ways. Indeed, Ambedkar’s central concern was the question of how to transform India into a po-litical community for which the annihilation of caste was a necessary condition, but not the only goal. I maintain that one cannot understand his contribution as a nationalist thinker without understanding the intersection of these ideas.

In his important work, Pakistan or the Partition of India (1990 [1946]; henceforth Ambedkar 1946), Ambedkar argued the case for the creation of Pakistan, and for this was seen as fundamentally contradicting the goals of nationalism (Aloysis 2007; Gaikwad 1998; Shourie 1997). His support of Pakistan was pragmatic and represented his thinking about how to bring about a viable political community in India. He advo-cated the reorganisation of states along linguistic lines and constitutional reservations for dalits, both positions that should be understood alongside his support for Pakistan as a way to facilitate the establishment of democracy. Ambedkar argued that populations should be transferred between lin-guistic states and between Hindustan and Pakistan as a way to secure a national sentiment of belonging among Indians. This would create the homogeneous populations that he believed democracy required. In the context of the 20th century that

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DECember 14, 2013 vol xlviii no 50 EPW Economic & Political Weekly112

witnessed a mid-century holocaust and late-century ethnic cleansing, an argument for cultural and ethnic homogeneity makes for disturbing reading. Ambedkar has been widely un-derstood as the quintessential liberal politician, using the tools of the law and the institutions of the state to effect social change. However, he found quite anti-liberal solutions to en-gender his ideal of an egalitarian democratic society.

This paper considers the apparent contradiction between Ambedkar’s liberalism and his understanding of the necessary conditions for democracy. It examines his position on how mi-norities should be protected within what he saw as India’s hier-archical and communalised social structure, his philosophy of nationality, and the importance of a federation of linguistic states. Finally, it refl ects on his arguments for Pakistan and why he believed the Muslim community was a nation deserv-ing a separate territory rather than a minority requiring pro-tection, as it had been until 1940. This, I maintain, reveals an intriguing perspective on Ambedkar’s politics, not born of the pragmatism one has grown to expect. It is a perspective that can be rationalised within the frame of his political philosophy of democracy but simultaneously reveals a deep element of prejudice embedded within the logic of his argument.

Majorities and Minorities in a Communal Society

The highest aim of a society, Ambedkar believed, was the “growth of personality” (Ambedkar 1989 [1919]: 251; hence-forth Ambedkar 1919).2 Society’s duty was to enable each indi-vidual “to assume any role he is capable of assuming provided it is socially desirable”. For Ambedkar, democracy was the po-litical form best suited to bringing about the kind of just soci-ety he envisioned. But governments required people to take on different social roles, he argued, which tended “to develop the personality of the few at the cost of the many”, something that was antithetical to democracy (Ambedkar 1919: 251). Through-out his writings, he sought to establish how democracy might look in India. It would have to look quite different than in the West, he insisted, because the very nature of Indian society went against the individual – it was a society constituted by its communities.

Colonial offi cials had always maintained that India was not one nation but many, composed of distinct sects, religions, races, and tribes. Nationalists had sought to counter this, argu-ing that there was a cultural and geographic unity to India that made its people one. Ambedkar cautioned the advocates of Indian independence that social divisions could not be so easily brushed aside. Democracy was to create the condition for people to live in a community. However, he said, “men live in a community by virtue of the things they have in common …aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge, a common under-standing” (Ambedkar 1919: 248-49). This “like-mindedness”, as he called it, was crucial to creating a community of any kind. People did not become like-minded simply by living in proximity, nor did they lose this shared sensibility through dis-tance. Rather, people developed shared qualities and values by their participation in a group. A political union made up of many different groups brought confl ict between them precisely

because of their separate and distinctive values. However, those that allowed the reworking of established ideas created the possibility for a new like-mindedness to develop that was “representative of the interests, aims and aspirations of all the various groups”. Communication and participation between groups, Ambedkar believed, was “essential for a harmonious life, social or political”, but in India there was no such partici-pation. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, and Jews, each had their own like-mindedness, isolating them from the others, and it was this isolation that was “the chief evil” (Ambedkar 1919: 249). Moreover, the Hindus were further divi ded by caste. Castes had their own like-mindedness and were so divided from each other as to make the term “Hindu” practically meaning-less. The most profound fault line lay between those he called “touchable” Hindus and the untouchables.

It was on the basis of this perspective that Ambedkar made the argument to the reforms committee in 1919 for a separate electorate for untouchables. The divisions of Indian society, he argued, were at odds with a democratic system of government. For where a democracy had a formula of one person, one vote, with the majority opinion carrying the day, in India, people’s political sympathies were determined by their community rather than by secular concerns (Ambedkar 1919: 250). Thus, he asked, how could one know if an elected candidate would represent the interests of all the members of his territorial con-stituency rather than simply those of his community? Moreo-ver, in an election, if two candidates belonging to different groups claimed to represent the same issue, a voter would mark the ballot of the person belonging to his community rather than any other. In the event this was a large body of vot-ers, it would, time and again, ensure the election of its own candidate. Ambedkar argued that in India the communalisa-tion of society meant that democracy left minority groups vul-nerable. Just as the newly conceived Muslim League had ar-gued in 1906 for separate electorates on the basis that only someone from the Muslim community could properly repre-sent the interests of Muslims, so Ambedkar made the same ar-gument for untouchables. The democratic formula left minori-ties “without any chance of personal representation” (Ambed-kar 1919: 251). For a government to be “popular”, it had to be not only for the people, but by the people. Thus, separate elec-torates for untouchables were necessary to ensure their per-sonal representation.

Ambedkar was an advocate of separate electorates for mi-norities more broadly. He believed that although electorates should be structured to refl ect the communal divisions in India, their effect would not perpetuate these divisions, but, in bringing people who would not normally meet into public service, it would foster a new like-mindedness – “if the Hindus become resocialised with regard to their attitude towards Mohammedans, Christians, etc, and the Mohammedans, Chris-tians, etc, become resocialised with regard to their attitudes towards the Hindus, or the touchable Hindus with regard to the untouchables, caste and divisions will vanish” (Ambedkar 1919: 266-67). Importantly, the communal electorate was a way to protect the voice of minorities institutionally. For

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Ambedkar, the protection of the minority was the crux of how democracy could work in India, and how a set of shared political values could develop. The minority question was the fault line on which the emergence of a national sensibility sat, for it held a mirror up to how the democratic majority was constituted.

In “States and Minorities” (1989 [1947]; henceforth Ambed-kar 1947), a memorandum submitted to the constituent assem-bly in 1947, Ambedkar outlined proposals for constitutional safeguards for the scheduled castes (SCs). Minority safeguards were required, he wrote, because unlike in the British system of government where the majority was constituted by political opinion, “in India the majority is a communal majority” (Ambedkar 1947: 413). In Britain, the majority party was under no obligation to include a member of the minority party in the cabinet. However, if this were to happen in India, the conse-quences for minorities would be far reaching, especially for the untouchables. India would be ruled by an exclusive class that could run the administration according to its own ideas, violating every principle of just government – “Such a state of affairs could not be called democracy. It will have to be called imperialism” (Ambedkar 1947: 413).

The communal majority, Ambedkar stressed, were Hindus. Untouchables faced an alarming situation as Hindus domi-nated the entire administration and those in the bureaucracy were as prejudiced against dalits as anyone outside it. This dominance of public life would continue after independence and so what promise did swaraj hold for untouchables? None, in Ambedkar’s opinion. “Swaraj would aggravate the suffer-ings of the untouchables for in addition to a hostile adminis-tration, there will be an indifferent Legislature and a callous Executive. …Under Swaraj the untouchables will have no way of escape from the destiny of degradation which Hindus and Hinduism have fi xed for them” (Ambedkar 1947: 414; Aloysis 2007: 179).

Ambedkar, like other representatives of minority communi-ties at the constituent assembly, advocated separate elector-ates as the method for safeguarding their interests after inde-pendence. Opposition in the assembly to continue separate electorates for minorities – Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, SC or scheduled tribes (ST) – was overwhelming as such electorates were seen to have fostered communalism and ultimately partition. Independence required a unity of purpose, many argued; people had to pull together rather than apart. The constituent assembly voted in April 1947 to abolish separate electorates. Instead, reservations for minorities were made in joint electorates. However, the assembly was generally more amenable to reservations for SCs and STs as they were seen to be a temporary measure to “uplift” the so-called “backward classes”. Opposition to separate recognition of minority religious communities continued, with members arguing that they would undermine national unity. Reservations were thus acceptable if they recognised a community’s inequality, not their identity per se.3

On the point that reservations undermined national unity, Ambedkar was scathing. Electorates had “nothing to do with

the religious or communal nexus”, they were “but a mechanism to enable a minority to return its true representative to the Legislature” (Ambedkar 1947: 424). Moreover, who decided what constituted nationalism, he asked. Minorities who argued for recognition did so precisely on the grounds that public life and political power had been monopolised by a majority that was also Hindu and upper caste. Reservations would ensure their voices were not drowned out by the majority and, by legitimising their citizenship, inculcate national unity. He believed the opposition to such aspirations spoke of something more pernicious.

Unfortunately for the minorities in India, Indian Nationalism has de-veloped a new doctrine which may be called the Divine Right of the Majority to rule the minorities according to the wishes of the majority. Any claim for the sharing of power by the minority is called commu-nalism while the monopolising of the whole power by the majority is called Nationalism. Guided by such a political philosophy the majority is not prepared to allow the minorities to share political power nor is it willing to respect any convention made in that behalf as is evident from their repudiation of the obligation (to include representatives of the minorities in the cabinet) contained in the … Government of India Act of 1935 (Ambedkar 1947: 427-28, parenthesis in original).

Ambedkar thus argued that the nationalism forwarded by Congress and Gandhi, as well as the Hindu Mahasabha, was really the communalism of the majority.

Nationalism

In Pakistan or the Partition of India, originally published as Thoughts on Pakistan in 1941, a year after the Lahore Resolu-tion or the so-called “Pakistan demand”, Ambedkar considered at length what made a nation. The “Hindu politicians”, as he called the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha, were so caught up in the task of persuading the British that India was a nation that they had not stopped to ask themselves whether this was indeed true. They took entirely for granted the link between nationalism and self-government but the two were not neces-sarily connected. Anyone who questioned this consensus was immediately castigated as a stooge of the British but question it they must, for the Muslim League had recently asserted that Muslims were a separate nation in India.

What, then, did it mean to be a nation? “Nationality is a so-cial feeling. It is a feeling of corporate sentiment of oneness which makes those who are charged with it feel that they are kith and kin” (Ambedkar 1946: 31). It is a feeling simultane-ously of inclusion, “a feeling of fellowship”, and exclusion, “anti-fellowship”. Its ties are so strong that they supersede class differences and separate “those who are not of their kind”. Nationality, for Ambedkar, also involved a deep emo-tional tie, “a longing not to belong to any other group” (Ambed-kar 1946: 31). What would be the conditions for such a senti-ment? A shared race, culture and language may provide the basis for a patriotism that was particularly Indian. In arguing against Pakistan, Indian nationalists sought to show that there existed such a commonality between Hindus and Muslims – there was little to distinguish the Punjabi Hindu from the Pun-jabi Muslim, they argued. Likewise, the “Madras Musalman and the Madras Hindu” were racially closer than the “Madras

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brahmin and the Punjab brahmin” (Ambedkar 1946: 31-32). Linguistically too, Muslims spoke Urdu in towns, but in mofus-sil areas spoke the language of that region. Culturally, many Hindus and Muslims shared the same rites and ceremonies and had lived side by side for centuries.

However, while all this was true, the question remained – did the Hindus and Muslims compose one nation? Had a shared race, language and culture “fostered in them a feeling that they long to belong to each other?” (Ambedkar 1946: 33). Ambedkar maintained that they had not. Quoting from Ernest Renan’s essay on nationality, he wrote that race should not be confused with nation – “human history is essentially different from zoology”, in which race tended to lose its importance (Ambedkar 1946: 34). The example of Switzerland refl ected the same about language; the variety of languages spoken there had not undermined “the will of Switzerland to be united.” Rather, Renan pointed to the importance of “a com-mon possession of a rich heritage of memories” and “actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to preserve … the undivided inheritance which has been handed down” (Ambed-kar 1946: 33-35). Did Hindus and Muslims have any such his-torical memory which they shared “as matters of pride or as matters of sorrow?”

Again, Ambedkar answered in the negative. “There was no common cycle of participation for a common achievement. Their past is a past of mutual destruction, a past of mutual ani-mosities, both in the political as well as in the religious fi elds” (Ambedkar 1946: 33-35). Hindus held up the deeds of Prithvi-raj and Shivaji whom they remembered for having protected India against Muslims. Muslims, on the other hand, remem-bered rulers like Muhammad Bin Qasim and Aurangzeb. There was no common historical memory, according to Ambedkar, thus “the things that divide are far more vital than the things which unite” (Ambedkar 1946: 36). Equally, “forgetfulness” of past divisions was as important as remembering what was common to forge a national identity. Yet Ambedkar believed that this would be impossible for the two communities as their pasts were tied to their religion and to hope that either would give up their religion was “to hope in vain” (Ambedkar 1946: 37). For nationality to exist there needed to be more than a common race, language or culture. There needed to be a “spir-itual essence”, a tie of kinship. Above all, it required “the will to live as a nation” (Ambedkar 1946: 39).

Linguistic States and Democracy

If the resolution of the minority question lay at the heart of democracy in India, then the constituent political unit for this democracy was the linguistic state. Writing in 1948 in support of Maharashtra’s recognition as a linguistic state, Ambedkar acknowledged the various potential problems associated with linguistic provinces – they could result in many smaller natio-nalities emerging, each with the possibility of asserting its own aspirations for separation. The creation of linguistic states could undermine the relationship between centre and province, for each state would be administered in a different language, leading to deadlock in the legislature and executive.

However, Ambedkar’s support for the reorganisation of states along linguistic lines came from the belief that they would create “social homogeneity” and thus “make democracy work better” (“Maharashtra as a Linguistic Province,” 1989 [1948]: 102-3; henceforth Ambedkar 1948). History had shown, he argued, that to function well, democracy needed a homoge-neous society. A heterogeneous society would be divided from within. In a democratic framework this would surely lead to inequities, “cases of discrimination, neglect, partiality, sup-pression of the interests of one group at the hands of another group which happens to capture political power” (Ambedkar 1948: 103). A homogeneous society was better suited to demo-cracy for there would be no social hostilities to encourage an abuse of power by a single group (Ambedkar 1948: 103).

The case of Bombay demonstrated how “mixed” states failed the cause of democracy. The intense animosity between Guja-ratis and Maharashtrians was explicable “not because there is any natural antipathy between the two” but because “they are put in juxtaposition and forced to take part in a common cycle of participation, such as Government” (“Thoughts on Lingui stic States,” Ambedkar 1989 [1955]: 144; henceforth Ambedkar 1955). Likewise, the “Tamils hate Andhras and Andhras hate Tamils”, for the same reason. Certainly, multilingual and multi cultural states existed elsewhere. However, in India, multi-lingual provinces existed unnaturally, created fi rst under the British and continued by the Congress and Jawaharlal Nehru. But once this dominance came to an end, “the State of Bombay will fi nd itself engaged in civil war”. Linguistic states would “make easy the way to democracy and to remove racial and cultural tension” (Ambedkar 1955: 144-45).

Let us contrast Ambedkar’s position on linguistic states with his ideas about nationality discussed above. A shared race, lan-guage, or culture was not enough, he argued earlier, to create the bonds of kith and kin required for nationalism. Yet, in his discussion of linguistic provinces, he argued that the social ho-mogeneity necessary for democracy was brought about pre-cisely by a shared language and culture – “Now the homogene-ity of a people depends upon their having a belief in a common origin, in the possession of a common language and literature, in their pride in a common historic tradition, community of social customs, etc.” Culture was held in language, he argued. Thus a shared language refl ected shared values and went a long way to creating “fellow-feeling” (Ambedkar 1955: 143-45).

Yet, populations were not homogeneous and Ambedkar’s proposition raises a number of questions, foremost among them, how was this homogeneity to be brought about and what would happen to the linguistic, religious, and caste minorities in such states? He argued for population transfers. “The sub-jects of the State must be so distributed as to form a single hom ogeneous group. …Each Province must be homogeneous in its population if democracy…is to be successful. …Each Province must be a linguistic unit if it is to be fi tted to work a democratic constitution” (Ambedkar 1948: 103). Ambedkar’s argument to transfer populations between states to engineer ethnic and linguistic homogeneity is at odds with any formu-lation of liberal government. His position comes from his

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understanding of India as a society fundamentally divided communally. Multilingualism had succeeded in Switzerland and Canada, but it would not work in India for, he wrote, the genius of India, unlike that of Switzerland, is to divide (Ambed-kar 1955: 144).

He made the same argument after Independence as he did in 1919 before the Southborough Committee: that it was the peculiar composition of structured social difference that made democracy in India so hard to create. India’s communal char-acter meant that there would always be one group that became a dominant class and sought to subordinate those weaker in number and social position. The only way around this was to move people out of one region into another where there was a closer social congruence (Ambedkar 1948: 123-24).

Ambedkar’s solution was to have “one state, one language”. Each state should be a linguistic unit, but to avoid the pitfall of creating further nationalisms, the regional language could not be the offi cial language of the state, which had to be Hindi. Thus the administrative unit should be the linguistic state but the administrative language should be shared across the nation (Ambedkar 1955: 145-46). Ambedkar was arguing neither for the self-determination of linguistic groups, nor for a formula-tion of one language, one state (Ambedkar 1955: 165). Rather, it was the shared language that would make such states viable. His idea was that a “people speaking one language may be cut up into many States as is done in other parts of the world”. Thus he drew up a plan for Maharashtra to be divided into three. The number of states a linguistic community could be divided into would depend on four factors – fi rst, on adminis-trative effi ciency; second, on the requirements of different areas; third, on the opinion within each area; and fourth, on the relative size of majority and minority (Ambedkar 1955: 165). Indeed, it was this last point that would have the greatest bearing on the size of the states. Ambedkar returned once again to the crux of the democratic problem as he saw it – how to acco mmodate the minorities.

That linguistic states, even after population transfers, would contain minorities was to be expected – “in every area there will always be one community which by its numbers happens to be a dominant community” and which, by virtue of this “be-comes a sole heir to all political power which the area gets” (Ambedkar 1948: 123). Among Marathi-speaking people, the Marathas were the dominant class. In Gujarat, in some parts the Anavil brahmins were dominant, in others, the Patidars (Ambedkar 1948: 123-24). Everywhere across India the caste system continued. Indeed, Ambedkar argued, caste thrived under democracy;, it was paradoxical that democracy appeared to reinforce caste’s graded inequality. In democratic states, the majority carried the day and in India, Ambedkar maintained, this majority was Hindu (Ambedkar 1955: 167-69). “The Con-gress always wins”, he wrote. “Congress always puts up candi-dates which belong to castes which are in the majority. ...It is by exploiting the caste system that the Congress wins.” How could one ensure that linguistic states would not simply exac-erbate the problems of dalits under democracy? There were two ways to safeguard against communal tyranny – fi rst, to

have smaller states. In a small state, the relative size of the majority to minority was smaller. The larger the state, the more dilute the presence of the minority and the more vulner-able its position. Second, to rely on constitutional provisions in the legislature through reservations – the Constitution would be the ultimate safeguard for minorities in the states (Ambed-kar 1955: 168-69).

On Pakistan and Partition

Ambedkar’s support of Partition was seen by many as a be-trayal of the nationalist cause. Yet, his position on Pakistan was not incompatible with his political philosophy on demo-cracy and nationalism more broadly, stemming from and ex-tending his perspective on the protection of minorities. In his representation to the Southborough Committee in 1919, Ambedkar had argued that the various communities of India – Hindus, Christians, Parsis, and Jews – were marked by a “complete freedom of communication from within” and “their members … [were] perfectly like-minded with respect to one another” (Ambedkar 1919: 249). Muslims, then, formed a “per-fectly like-minded” community. He explained regional cultural differences and Muslims who followed Hindu rites and cus-toms by “incomplete conversions” (Ambedkar 1946: 33). The majority of Muslims in India were descended from Hindu con-verts, and so it was inevitable that “great sections of the Mus-lim community here and there reveal their Hindu origin in their religious and social life” (Ambedkar 1946: 33).

Signifi cantly, Ambedkar saw these shared cultures as a point of commonality between Hindus and Muslims, but not a point of difference among Muslims – it did not, to his mind, disrupt the “like-mindedness” that existed. Interestingly, he made no mention at all of sectarian differences between Muslims, Shia and Sunni in particular, and how that may have interrupted their communal solidarity.

For Ambedkar, Muslim aspirations for Pakistan were justi-fi ed because they were a nation calling for a home and any at-tempt to deny the force of this nationalism, he believed, would be destructive to the state (Ambedkar 1946: 194). Undoubt-edly, this call for a nation had come very late in the day. It was not until 1940 that Muhammad Ali Jinnah presented the two nation theory and the Lahore Resolution. Until this point, the politics of the Muslim League had been about the constitu-tional recognition of their position as a minority. Their case was akin to the other minorities in India, all of whom main-tained that in any constitutional settlement their position should be recognised through separate electorates. Indeed, Muslims had been the fi rst communal minority to articulate the case for separate electorates in 1906. It was this argument that framed all further discussions on minority protection un-til Independence.

The Round Table conferences in London in 1931-32 were a signifi cant moment when minorities came together to discuss a communal settlement. They argued that separate electorates were the best way to ensure their citizenship in the nation. This moment is remembered for Gandhi’s “fast unto death” when faced with the prospect of dalits being made a permanent

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minority, outside the community of Hindus. Yet there were many others involved – Sikhs, Anglo-Indians, Christians, Eu-ropean commercial communities, and Muslims. Neither of the Muslim representatives, Jinnah or Muhammad Shafi , made the argument during these meetings that Muslims were a na-tion; they were still a “minority”. Yet in 1930, the Muslim League had called for a grouping of “north-west Muslim states”, in the words of Muhammad Iqbal. Iqbal argued that with a transfer of power imminent, the Muslim-majority prov-inces should be granted regional autonomy within India to bolster the position of the Muslim community.

Ambedkar explained the shift in the League’s argument from constitutional reservations by separate electorates to ter-ritorial reservations through a grouping of provinces within the context of different forms of federalism.

The Muslims had an interest which … coloured their whole vision. …That …was their interest as a minority. They knew only one means of protecting themselves against the Hindu majority. That was to ask for reservation of seats with separate electorates and weightage in repre-sentation. In 1930 they discovered that there was another and a more effi cacious method of protecting the Muslim minorities. That was to carve out new Provinces in which Muslims would be in a majority and Hindus in a minority as a counterblast to Provinces with Hindus as a majority and Muslims as a minority (Ambedkar (1989 [1939]: 349-50; henceforth Ambedkar 1939).

This system of balancing provinces was to ensure that mino-rities – Muslims in Hindu provinces and Hindus in Muslim provinces – were protected. It would be another decade before the Lahore Resolution was made.

The transition from minority to nation was one that Ambedkar seemed fully to understand. In the introduction to Pakistan or the Partition of India he drew out the connection between the two,

The right of nationalism to freedom from an aggressive foreign impe-rialism and the right of a minority to freedom from an aggressive ma-jority’s nationalism are not two different things; nor does the former stand on a more sacred footing than the latter. They are merely two aspects of the struggle for freedom and as such equal in their moral import (1946: 10-11).

Ambedkar had campaigned for the recognition of untoucha-bles as a minority and supported separate electorates for all minority communities, including Muslims. He maintained that the distinction between a community and a nation was very thin. States were composite – they had a diversity of people with different traditions and religious codes “forming a conge-ries of loosely associated groups” (Ambedkar 1946: 335). Thus, “a group may mistakenly call itself a community even when it has in it the elements of being a nation”. Muslims of India had developed their national consciousness late in the day but, he wrote, a community may have “all the elements which go to make a nation without having a fully developed nationalism”. Muslims had begun their path of political self-realisation with the argument that they were a minority needing safeguards. And, Ambedkar maintained, whether a minority was a com-munity or a nation was of little consequence when it came to the question of its protection – “the safeguards for the protection of a minor nation cannot be very different from the safeguards necessary for the protection of a minor community” for the

fundamental concerns of each are its protection “against the tyranny of the majority” (Ambedkar 1946: 335).

Ambedkar warned that there was a danger to national unity if the distinct identity of the constituent political unit of the state was allowed to grow. In his discussion on linguistic states, for instance, he opposed regional languages being made into offi cial languages, for the state with its own language “may easily develop into an independent nationality…and the road between an independent nationality and an independent State is very narrow” (Ambedkar 1955: 145). With multiple offi cial languages, a Maha-rashtrian, Tamil, or Gujarati would only be Indian in a geographical sense, “he cannot be an Indian in the real sense of the word” (Ambedkar 1955: 145-46). Likewise, the geographical unity that Hindus said existed with Muslims was inadequate. Muslims were arguing for a confederation, auto nomous provinces within a loose national framework. But this would not unify Indians into one nation. A confederation was simply “an aggre-gate of communities, and will therefore vanish so soon as the communities which compose it separate themselves from one another. …With the individual citizen it has nothing to do, no right of taxing him, or judging him, or making laws for him” (Ambedkar 1939: 316). His point was that if a regional identity or a religious identity were allowed to rival that of the nation, it would encourage nationalism and, eventually, secession.

Muslims as a Nation

What, then, had turned the Muslim community into a nation? Was it by virtue of their constitutional recognition? Did each minority community have the potential to become a nation? By the logic of his argument, Ambedkar should answer in the affi rmative. Yet, he argued that there was an important dis-tinction between a community and a nation – “a community, however different from and however opposed to other com-munities, major or minor, is one with the rest in the matter of the ultimate destiny of all” (Ambedkar 1946: 335-36). A nation “is not only different from other components of the state but it believes in and cherishes a different destiny totally anta-gonistic to the destiny entertained by other component elements in the state”. This explained why, despite their differ-ences, “the Untouchables, the Christians, and the Parsis are in relation to the Hindus only communities and why the Muslims are a nation”. The effect of having a nation within a nation was ultimately destructive – “it cannot but have the effect of rend-ing the State in fragments”. However, and this is signifi cant in Ambedkar’s confi guration of the minority, when demanding protection from the majority there was no difference between the two – “a community is entitled to claim the same rights and safeguards as a nation can” (Ambedkar 1946: 335-36).

In calling themselves a community, Ambedkar believed Muslims had been mistaken. For Ambedkar, the Muslim com-munity was fundamentally different in nature than other communities. Moreover, there was no basis on which Hindus and Muslims could come together. There was little physical contact, let alone a shared cultural and emotional life – “Hin-dus and Muslims live in separate worlds of their own”, he wrote. They meet to trade or murder but not befriend each

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other (Ambedkar 1946: 343). What accounted for this differ-ence? In his words, Muslims were converted from Hindu stock, and racially and culturally very similar. It was the culture and politics of Islam itself that set them apart. Islam had created stagnation among Muslims. Its customs, for instance, purdah, created a system of segregation of women. They were confi ned to one room and no male could appear in their presence. To leave, even to pray, a Muslim woman had to wear a burka. A covered woman was anathema to Ambedkar’s idea of freedom and he railed against Islam’s “evils” as he called them,

These burka woman walking in the streets is one of the most hideous sights one can witness. Such seclusion cannot but have its deteriorat-ing effects upon the physical constitution of Muslim women. They are usually victims to anaemia, tuberculosis and pyorrhoea. Their bodies are deformed, with their backs bent, bones protruded, hands and feet crooked. Ribs, joints and nearly all their bones ache. …Purdah de-prives Muslim women of mental and moral nourishment (Ambedkar 1946: 230-31).

Purdah did not only create ill-health among Muslim women, it also fed into a narrow-mindedness. Their segregation meant that they could not develop wider interests and became in-volved only “in petty family quarrels” (Ambedkar 1946: 231). The seclusion came from a suspicion of the sexual appetites of both sexes and a desire to control them. Yet a society that was based on the isolation of the sexes from each other would no doubt produce “an unhealthy tendency towards sexual ex-cesses and unnatural and other morbid habits and ways” (Ambedkar 1946: 231). Ambedkar acknowledged that purdah also existed among Hindus, but he felt it went deeper in Mus-lim society and removing it would involve a serious confl ict with religious authority (Ambedkar 1946: 232).

Muslims had also stagnated in their political life, Ambedkar believed. Indeed, “Muslims have no interest in politics as such. Their predominant interest is religion” (Ambedkar 1946: 232). This was evidenced by the lack of a political programme or even a social reform agenda from their leaders. Muslim candidates in an election did not fi ght on issues for “all that the constituency wants from the candidate is that he should agree to replace the old lamps of the masjid…, to supply a new carpet for the masjid because the old one is torn, or to repair the masjid because it has become dilapidated”. Muslim politics, he argued, had no concern for secular affairs. Politicians had nothing to say about “the differences between rich and poor, capital and labour, landlord and tenant, priest and layman, reason and superstition”. They recognised “only one difference, namely that existing between Hindus and Muslims” (Ambedkar 1946: 232).

Ambedkar explained this resistance to social reform not by an inherent conservatism among Muslims but by their position as a minority (Ambedkar 1946: 235). The surrounding envi-ronment was predominantly Hindu and, fearing a loss of iden-tity, Muslims sought to preserve every aspect of religious prac-tice with little regard to its worth. Moreover, fearing political marginalisation, they fought to maintain legislative seats and posts in government service and closed ranks against Hindus. Thus “poor Muslims will not join the poor Hindus to get justice from the rich”, because to do so they may fi nd themselves opposing a Muslim landlord, against whom they would not

dare to turn for fear of challenging a co-religionist (Ambedkar 1946: 236).

Swaraj and the Politics of Independence

Ambedkar wrote that he understood Muslim fear of the Hindu majority but suggested that the path to an independent nation was not the only solution. Muslims could have joined with the “many lower orders in the Hindu society whose economic, political and social needs are the same as those of the majority of the Muslims” (Ambedkar 1946: 359). They would have been ready to make common cause with Muslims as against upper caste Hindus who had denied their rights for centuries. How-ever, the damage seemed to have already been done. Pakistan, Ambedkar now believed, was the solution to the problem of Indian nationalism. Pakistan would free Hindus and Muslims from each other. A separate constitution would enable each society to address matters of “urgent social importance”. Rather than this unending tussle for power, they could attend to improving the lives of ordinary people “which after all is the main object of this fi ght for Swaraj” (Ambedkar 1946: 248).

Ambedkar’s understanding of independence was at odds with that of politicians of the Congress or the Hindu Maha-sabha for whom unity was paramount, both territorial as well as communal. Their vehement opposition to separate elector-ates for untouchables, greater than for any other minority community, refl ected a concern that with reservations for all minorities, the majority would be whittled away to such an extent that it would itself be rendered simply one community among others. In the balance of numbers, nationalists required untouchables to be Hindus (Tejani 2007: ch 5; Dirks 2001: part 4). Similarly, the Muslim demand for reservations and the crea-tion of Muslim majority provinces was seen as fracturing national unity and undermining the claim to swaraj. However, for Ambedkar, freedom was not synonymous with unity. Swaraj represented the realisation of self-determination. Each individual and each community needed to be able to live in dignity, free of oppression. The problems between Hindus and Muslims in India were such that “it appears that an integral India is incompatible with an independent India” (Ambedkar 1946: 338). The efforts it would take to secure this union would be monumental and perhaps territorial integrity was not “an ideal worth fi ghting for”. Even if India was to remain undivided, “it will never be an organic whole”. It would be two countries forcibly joined in “an artifi cial union” (Ambedkar 1946: 339).

A forced union would require Hindus and Muslims to come to an agreement as to how power would be shared. For a con-stitution to be acceptable it had to fulfi l certain sentimental attachments on both sides – “a constitution which runs coun-ter to the strong sentiments of a determined section is to court disaster if not invite rebellion” (Ambedkar 1946: 365). What would Hindus do if the new Constitution provided all the nec-essary safeguards for Muslims but they said they did not want to live under Hindu rule? Would they bring out the bayonets to enforce submission? (Ambedkar 1946: 366) Were the Hindus willing to conquer Muslims for the sake of freedom, he asked. “Political unity is worth nothing, if it is not the expression of

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real union” (Ambedkar 1946: 189). This was not swaraj. If unity was to bring about profound suspicion, Ambedkar wrote, “I prefer the Freedom of India to the Unity of India” (Ambed-kar 1946: 367).

The fundamental question remained – would Pakistan solve the minority question? Muslim nationalism had emerged as an extension of the demand for their protection as a minority. The League demanded an undivided Punjab and Bengal. But if the boundaries of Punjab and Bengal remained unchanged, they would retain their “mixed” status, with all the attendant problems (Ambedkar 1946: 113). However, “if Pakistan is made a single uni-fi ed ethnic state, the evils [of a mixed state] will automatically vanish”. Pakistan would have no need of separate electorates be-cause “in such a homogeneous Pakistan, there will be no majori-ties to rule and no minorities to be protected …there will be no majority of one community to hold, in its possession, a minority of an opposing community” (Ambedkar 1946: 113).

A homogeneous Pakistan could be created, Ambedkar ar-gued, by an exchange of population. The natural segregation of Hindus and Muslims in Punjab and Bengal meant that rela-tively few people would have to move. In Sind and the North West Frontier Province, Hindus were scattered through the districts, but a concerted effort at transferring people would be worthwhile. Interestingly, where, in his case for linguistic states Ambedkar argued that minorities and vulnerable com-munities, particularly low castes and untouchables, would be protected by constitutional safeguards, here he argued that they would not work. “Experience showed [in the case of Euro-pean states] that safeguards did not save the minorities” (Ambedkar 1946: 115). India would do well to look at the examples of Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria who sought to solve the minority problem by moving people to bring about homo-geneous states. Close to 20 million people were moved. India could do the same (Ambedkar 1946: 115).4

What of the Muslim minorities remaining within India? Pa-kistan had been Jinnah’s strategy to protect Muslims in minor-ity provinces. It was ironic that Pakistan would be established in the majority provinces whose people had shown little inter-est in the idea, and would not help the cause of Muslims in minority provinces. Nor had it solved the communal problem in India (Ambedkar 1946: 361). Unlike Pakistan, which should

become a homogeneous state, India would always remain “composite” (Ambedkar 1946: 117). Muslims lived all across India and it would be almost impossible to make India homo-geneous. However, without a certain religious uniformity, “the problem of majority vs minority will remain in Hindustan as before and will continue to produce disharmony in the body politic.” Without Pakistan, the Muslim population was about 20% of India’s population. After Pakistan and a transfer of population, the proportion of Muslims would be so diminished that Ambedkar believed that although Pakistan did not eradi-cate the communal problem in India, “it substantially reduces its proportion and makes it of minor signifi cance and much easier of peaceful solution” (Ambedkar 1946: 118). In his discussion on linguistic states, Ambedkar advocated smaller states to increase the relative strength of minorities vis-à-vis majorities. Yet, in the case of Pakistan he took the opposite view. He supported a solution which would drastically reduce the proportion of Muslims in India, making them more, rather than less, vulnerable to social marginalisation.

Marking the Exception

The question we must ask here is why Ambedkar saw the case of Muslims in such a different light. He believed the demand for a nation was a logical outcome of Muslims’ position as a minority. Yet he also saw Muslims on a fundamentally differ-ent path than other Indians. Their allegiance could never be to India, he argued, as their community demanded otherwise. Ambedkar had a deep ambivalence to the politics of the Mus-lim League. He was often exasperated by what he believed was an incessant demand for concessions and an aggressive will to power (Ambedkar 1946: 249-70). However, he also believed it represented a nationalism that would not be refused. Swaraj could not be brought about by forcing people to live together. Perhaps the most puzzling if not disturbing proposition Ambedkar presented was the ethnic homogeneity of Pakistan to ensure its success. He did not anticipate the challenge of Bangladesh, and in light of Sindhi, Baluchi and Bengali nationalisms post-independence, the belief that Islam was enough to create a lasting unity now appears naïve.

Moreover, as Simeon has noted, such arguments for the eth-nic basis of nationalism dovetailed dangerously with histories

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of communalism in modern India, providing fertile ground for the particular form that fascism has taken in the Indian context (2013). Ambedkar also glossed over the question of the minorities that would, inevitably, remain in the federa-tion of linguistic states he argued should be created. As Sarangi (2006) asked, whose language would be taken as the standard form? Language can be used to divide as much as unite, by religion as well as caste, as historians of language movements in the modern period have shown (Isaka 2006; Mitchell 2009; Orsini 2002). And when used as a cultural bond as in the sons of the soil movement in Maharashtra, what would prevent cultural affi nities around language from turning into a more dangerous form of exclusion? (Blom-Hansen 1999).

Yet, Ambedkar seemed to believe that regional and linguis-tic identities were not fundamental fault lines along which a nation would fracture, as long as they were not encouraged. Religion, and Islam in particular, was. For all his efforts at

systematic argument, carefully considering the future of the Muslim minority in India, Ambedkar seemed to have a deep resistance to Islam. After his famous declaration in 1936 that he would not die a Hindu, he embarked on a study of religions to consider which new faith to embrace. He rejected the doc-trinal orthodoxy of Abrahamic religions and saw a greater po-tential for radical social transformation in Buddhism (Fuchs 2001). Signifi cantly, he concluded, Islam and Christianity orig-inated outside India and were thus not properly Indian reli-gions (Queen 1996; Viswanathan 1998). It is striking that Ambedkar justifi ed his conversion to Buddhism not only for what he saw as its secular ethics, but also for its connection to a home-grown civilisational complex. Islam and Christianity could not be considered indigenous to India. Perhaps it was Ambedkar’s belief in the alien nature of Islam in India, as well as India’s very own genius to divide, that allowed him to argue Indian Muslims were a community with their own destiny rather than a minority in need of protection.

Notes

1 In contrast with nationalists such as M K Gan-dhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, there are very few critical biographies of Ambedkar; those that exist have tended to be hagiographical in tone. An exception is Keer (1971 [1954]).

2 While the date refers to the year this work was fi rst published, the page numbers here and in subsequent citations refer to the 21 volumes of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches brought out by the Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, from 1979 on-wards.

3 I have explored this argument elsewhere: Tejani (2013). The debate on minority protection in the constituent assembly has been discussed by Bajpai (2010).

4 Simeon (2013) has noted how curious it was for Ambedkar to take the example of Greece and Turkey as successful attempts to create relative ethnic homogeneity in states carved out of the Ottoman empire, especially when there was much evidence at the time to the contrary. The only explanation, he argues, was the power of the idea of the nation state at mid-century.

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The Necessary Conditions for Democracy

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