Tharoor said Ambedkar would have rejected the idea that political leadership should be inherited.
New Delhi:
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said it is a fairly safe assumption that BR Ambedkar “rejected” the idea and was “quite critical” of the idea that political leadership should be inherited rather than by election or other forms of merit. must pass through.
Mr Tharoor, who is pitted against party ally Mallikarjun Kharge in the Congress’ presidential election, was speaking at the launch of his new book “Ambedkar: A Life” at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.
The Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram said of Ambedkar, “For someone who was never convinced by the logic of the caste system, he would not have accepted the family inheritance theory in politics or anywhere else.” “… although he (Ambedkar) has not written about it, I can tell you that it is a fairly safe notion that he would have rejected and would have been quite critical of the idea that political leadership must pass through inheritance. not elections or other forms of merit,” Mr Tharoor said, when asked about Ambedkar’s views on state parties concentrating power in the hands of the respective first families.
The book released, moderated by the author himself, featured former Supreme Court judge Justice (Retd) Madan B Lokur, former Rajya Sabha MP Bhalchandra Mungekar and lawyer Karuna Nandi as panelists talking about the life and times of Ambedkar .
Praising Ambedkar for the remarkable work done by him in drafting the Constitution, Justice (retd) Lokur highlighted how much work was done “alone” by Ambedkar as other members of the drafting committee gave him were not able to. Help needed for the job.
“One person died, one person was sent to America on a mission, two others were given other duties elsewhere in India. So he was left alone to do that. And he did a remarkable job, Not because he just cared about everything, but also because he consulted a lot of people,” said Justice (retd) Lokur, who currently serves as a judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji.
The drafting committee of the constitution had seven members- BR Ambedkar, Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer, N Gopalaswami, KM Munshi, Mohammed Sadulla, BL Mitter and DP Khaitan.
Ambedkar was elected as the chairman of the drafting committee during their first meeting on 30 August 1947.
“… Yes, there were some drafts that did exist. The Government of India Act of 1935, which formed some sort of basis, and Sir Benegal Rao also worked on the Constitution before going to the International Court of Justice. The nuts and bolts were written by Ambedkar,” he explained.
Published by Aleph, “Ambedkar: A Life” claims to provide readers with a new and in-depth understanding of the father of the Indian Constitution.
Talking about the book, Mr. Tharoor said that there are undoubtedly dramas and tribulations in the life of Ambedkar – the son of an untouchable subedar in the cantonment town of Mhow – but much more “the result is the weight of his writings, speeches and interventions. Public debate of its time”.
“… it is the story of a man’s rise of thought, illustrated with extensive quotations from his writings and speeches, not that of a man of physical adventure,” he wrote at the beginning of his book.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)