CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 95 of 120

Correct — A, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. The line comes from his concluding speech to the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949, the day before the Constitution was adopted. Speaking of what would happen when it commenced, he said: 'On the 26th of 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.' The contradiction he named was between the political principle of one person one vote and one vote one value, and a social and economic structure that continued to deny one person one value — and he warned that those who suffered the inequality would eventually blow up the structure of political democracy the Assembly had so laboriously built. The same speech contains his two other famous warnings, against the 'grammar of anarchy' and against hero-worship in politics.

• (b)Jawaharlal Nehru — Nehru's famous Assembly speeches are the Objectives Resolution of December 1946 and the 'tryst with destiny' address of 14–15 August 1947. Both are declarations of arrival; the contradictions passage is a warning about what has not yet been achieved, and it is Ambedkar's.
• (c)Mahatma Gandhi — Gandhi was never a member of the Constituent Assembly and was assassinated on 30 January 1948, nearly two years before the date the quotation speaks of. He could not have said this in that House.
• (d)S. P. Mukherjee — Syama Prasad Mookerjee was a member of the Assembly and of the first Union Cabinet, but the passage belongs to the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, summing up the document he had piloted.

Ambedkar's speech of 25 November 1949 is the closing statement of the Constituent Assembly's work and is treated as the authoritative gloss on what the Constitution was meant to do. It sets out three warnings — abandon the methods of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha now that constitutional methods are open, since they are the grammar of anarchy; do not lay liberty at the feet of a great man; and do not be content with political democracy while social democracy is missing.

Three of the four names can be eliminated on dates and roles alone, which is the fastest route through the item. Gandhi was dead before 26 January 1950 and never sat in the Assembly. Nehru's celebrated speeches in that House are the Objectives Resolution and the independence address, both of which strike an opposite note. Mookerjee spoke often but not as the Drafting Committee's Chairman summing up. The warning about a life of contradictions has stayed in political argument ever since, quoted whenever the gap between formal equality and lived inequality is at issue — so this is one of those exam facts that is also a live reference.

• The passage is from Ambedkar's concluding speech to the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949.
• He described the contradiction as equality in politics alongside inequality in social and economic life.
• He put it as one person one vote and one vote one value in politics, against the continued denial of one person one value in social and economic life.
• The same speech contains the 'grammar of anarchy' warning against unconstitutional methods and the warning against hero-worship.
• Ambedkar chaired the Drafting Committee and was elected to the Constituent Assembly initially from the Bombay Presidency.

• Attributing any famous Constituent Assembly line to Nehru by default; the Objectives Resolution is his, this passage is not.
• Forgetting that Gandhi was neither a member of the Assembly nor alive on 26 January 1950.
• Mixing up 26 November 1949, when the Constitution was adopted, with 26 January 1950, when it commenced.

As a quotation-to-speaker attribution, or as a statements item on what Ambedkar's concluding speech warned against.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In his concluding speech to the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar described civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha, once constitutional methods were open, as

  • (a)the grammar of anarchy
  • (b)the tyranny of the majority
  • (c)the sinews of democracy
  • (d)the last refuge of the citizen

  Answer(a) the grammar of anarchy — his argument being that where a constitutional remedy exists, unconstitutional methods cannot be justified.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  On which date was the Constitution of India adopted by the Constituent Assembly?

  • (a)26 January 1950
  • (b)26 November 1949
  • (c)15 August 1947
  • (d)9 December 1946

  Answer(b) 26 November 1949 — the Constitution was adopted that day and commenced on 26 January 1950.