Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
On our 69th Independence Day we greet our National Flag and our countrymen, even though benefit of independence has never reached the majority.
The situation is so bleak that in his customary address to the nation last evening, President Pranab Mukherjee had to say that the “benefits of growth must reach the poorest of the poor much before they land in the bank accounts of the richest of the rich”. The same Pranab Mukherjee was the most aggressive partner of Manmohan Singh in consolidating rich man’s rule in India. What a blatant hypocrisy!
He has quoted Dr. Ambedkar to say that for the sorry state of affairs of the country, the people are responsible. I quote him:
“It is time to recall what Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, said while making his closing speech in the Constituent Assembly in November 1949 and I quote:
“The working of a constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the constitution. The constitution can provide only the organs of state, such as the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the state depends are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics. Who can say how the people of India and their parties will behave?”
It is well on records of the Constituent Assembly that overwhelming majority of the propertied class had made it a capitalist constitution, In the guise of fundamental rights, it had given the guarantee to the rich to enjoy full freedom to accumulate wealth. Concentration of wealth in hands of the few people who were owners of properties was to widen the gap between the rich and the poor forcing the poor to distress sale of labor, land and its products to the rich, whereby the rich was to be richer and the poor, poorer. Ambedkar had confessed this and Rajendra Prasad and Nehru and Patel and all who were with the propertied class had tried to hush it up. The Constituent Assembly debates carry details of how the Constitution was made a capitalist constitution in reality with meretricious concern for the poor with shrewd attempts to mislead them with provision of Directive Principles too passive to direct the governance.
In admitting this mischief as a “contradiction” inherent in the Constitution, Dr. Ambedkar had hoped that the elected body of representatives of the people will correct the wrong, as otherwise, the economic “inequality” will render the independence meaningless and lead to destruction of the democracy ultimately.
President Mukherjee has deliberately omitted the most relevant statement of Dr. Ambedkar, lest the mischief he had played against India in collaboration with Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi by subjecting the country to “economy of inequality” gets the reason to be reviewed.
Dr. Ambedkar had said, “On 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradiction. In politics, we will have equality and in social and economic rights we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote, one value. In our social and economic rights we shall by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny one man one value” Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol.XI, p.979).
He had made it clear that unless this contradiction, created by granting fundamental right on property to individuals is done away with after the first election under the Constitution, the hard earned independence will be lost.
“We must remove the contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up”, he had declared (Ibid).
President Mukherjee has deliberately omitted this statement of Dr. Ambedkar, because the economy of “inequality” which he, as cabinet colleague of Manmohan Singh had collaborated with the ever to be condemned American stooge to push India into a climate where “benefits of growth” instead of reaching “the poorest of the poor” would “land in the bank accounts of the richest of the rich”.
We have heard today Prime Minister Modi who addressed the nation for around two hours. But removal of “inequality” which is killing India to such extent that in the words of the President, “The Parliament has been converted into an arena of combat rather than debate”, was not a matter of concern for the PM. When in the eve of Independence Day, the President had expressly desired that the government should see that “benefits of growth must reach the poorest of the poor much before they land in the bank accounts of the richest of the rich”, Modi was duty bound to tell the nation as to why the President had come to say this. He was duty bound to elaborate his reaction to what the President has said. But in his entire speech, he did not utter a single word on it.
Better, not to take into accounts Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He does not bother about anything other than projecting his father’s name. “Biju Pucca Ghar” was his main projection even under the Triranga. He uses people’s wretched poverty to opiate them for votes and this technique helps him win elections even without knowing the language of the people. Other than projecting his father, the only announcement he made to catch attention was a proposal to generate three lakh jobs in the manufacturing sector by 2019-20. Jobs in manufacturing sector helps Industries to prosper on the surplus value of labor, which further promulgates economic “inequality” and widens the gap between the rich and the poor and worsens the “contradiction”, spelt out by Dr. Ambedkar.
This is all in the name of development. Hypocrisy! Thy name is plutocracy!
But, our people, as we watch, are determined to quash this hypocrisy. They know their independence has been hijacked by the rich, the industries, the land grabbers, the fellows that have occupied their State. A few pictures taken at various times on the Gandhi Marg in Bhubaneswar, before the Assembly and the Secretariat, are just a few instances of how the new phase of struggle for independence is evolving. Let the pictures say:
