The Constitution of India and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

It is a matter of great pleasure as well as pride to reproduce in this book the three historic speeches delivered by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar before the Constituent Assembly of India respectively on (1) Tuesday 17 December 1946 (2) Thursday 4 November 1948 and (3) Friday 25 November 1949.Summing up Dr. Ambedkar's thoughts on the Constitution he had said that the Constitution was workable flexible and strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time. Indeed if I may say so if things go wrong under the new Constitution the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that man was vile.Sounding a trumpet of caution Dr. Ambedkar had expected that the people 'must hold fast to constitutional methods to achieve their social and economic objectives if they wished to maintain democracy not merely in form but also in fact!In the present scenario it is highly imperative and even more relevant for us to pay heed to what Dr. Ambedkar had then advised us if we are to preserve the core values of the Constitution and democracy.Every generation must revisit Dr. Ambedkar's thoughts and try to reach to the essence of his reflections expressed in these speeches before the Constituent Assembly.