The Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court Shri Govind Mathur on Tuesday expressed his views on the birth anniversary of Bharat Ratna Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
He recollected the memories of the eve of India’s Independence on 15th August, 1947, when Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru addressing the Constituent Assembly said that “future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity”.
He said that there was a need of dynamic and visionary path of development which could only be given through a constitution and for that the drafting committee was appointed by the Constituent Assembly on 29th August, 1947. The Chief Justice further made a remark “Son of Indian Soil” for the Bharat Ratna, Dr B.R. Ambedkar who became the President of the Drafting Committee on 29th August, 1947 and subsequently the draft constitution was placed before the Constituent Assembly and after 2 years of due deliberations on 26th November, 1949 the draft was adopted, enacted and gave the most important socio-economic and political document “The Constitution”.
The efforts of all the members of the Drafting Committee were appreciated by the Chief Justice. He referred to the words of Dr Rajendra Prasad who was the first president of independent India which says “We never did a better thing than having Dr Ambedkar on the Drafting Committee and selecting him as its chairman”. He mentioned about the special convocation held by the Columbia University which conferred LLD degree on Dr Ambedkar with a citation that reads: The Degree is being conferred in recognition of the work done by him in connection of the drafting the Indian Constitution” and Dr Ambedkar was hailed by the University as “One of India’s leading citizen, a great social reformer and vigilant upholder of human rights”.
“The Constitution of India is not a simple law book or testament for do’s and don’ts, but a well finished path for socio-economic and political progress of India as a nation and as a federal society of its citizens with adequate freedom to all the stakeholders to protect and promote their healthy traditions and values” said the Chief Justice.
He qouted Dr B.R. Ambedkar’ speech, which is read as: –
“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. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this 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”.
The Chief Justice through his message spoke about the protection and promoting values of the Constitution. He emphasized upon the ideology of Dr B.R. Ambedkar which shows desire of open and free mind. On 129th Birth Anniversary of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the Chief Justice paid tribute to the values of Dr B.R Ambedkar which we have adopted in our constitution.He further described the jewels of our system of governance as sovereignty, socialism, secularism, democracy and republican form of state committed to justice-socio-economic and political; liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; equality of status and of opportunity; and the fraternity among all the citizens assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation.
He made an appeal to the nation through his message that being citizen of India, to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and being member of the judicial fraternity, the responsibility lies in higher degree on our shoulders to ensure promotion and protection of all constitutional ideals and values. The values are not meant to be adhered by state only, but these must be the way of our life and in day to day activities of every citizen.
While concluding, he shared his views on the concept of equality which is a treasure in our multi class society. He said that the greatest tribute we could pay to the maker of the constitution is while having a genuine equality in every sphere of social, economic and political arena of Indian citizens. On the pious day of 14th April, the Chief Justice expects from every citizen of India to fight against sense of communalism, casteism, regionalism, gender bias and close mind view of socio-political issues.
-India Legal Bureau