Jai Bhim: My Judgements in the Light of Ambedkar

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was endowed with a sense of being outraged. For someone steeped in the learning and practice of law the capacity to feel outraged does something very distinct it becomes a scalding weapon in the otherwise cold arsenal of reason logic codes procedures precedents and dicta. Ambedkar placed his legal training as cold ore is in the furnace of a smeltery to produce the fiery ingots of a renascent vision which then became the Constitution of India. How can one keep the provisions of that text and the laws that have crowded around it from turning cold again? The pages of this slender volume speak of how in India the land of Ambedkar the Buddha Gandhi Mahavira Periyar E.V. Ramasamy and Thiruvalluvar so much happens in human relationships that must cause outrage but does not. But the pages do so with a distinct message of hope. Outrage and hope? Is that not something of a contradiction? Not so if we study the achievements of Dr Ambedkar and of his thought-partner Justice Chandru. The law in India is not a code as much as it is a philosophy of redressal remedy and reparation. And at its best redemption.