DR. BHIMRAO AMBEDKAR

Architect of the Indian Constitution

• Dr Ambedkar was appointed the Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee. The text prepared by Ambedkar provided constitutional guarantees and protections for a wide range of civil liberties for individual citizens, including freedom of religion, the abolition of untouchability and outlawing all forms of discrimination.
• His most important contributions were in areas of fundamental rights, strong central government and protection of minorities.

1. Fundamental Rights:

• According to Ambedkar, the most significant feature of the fundamental rights is that these rights are made justiciable.  For him, Article 32 was the most important article of the constitution and thus, he referred to it“soul of the Constitution and very heart of it”.

2. Parliamentary Democracy

• DR AMBEDKAR was a strong advocate of the parliamentary form of government right from the inception of the Government of India Act of 1935. 
• Dr Ambedkar was a strong advocate of the federal structure of the Union and States based on the principles of a strong Centre and independent States. 
• Dr Ambedkar also did great service to the nation by proposing the institution of a unified judicial system and common All India Services with a view to strengthen national unity and integrity.

3. Protective Discrimination/Reservation

• THE real contribution of Ambedkar is reflected in the protective discrimination scheme or the reservation policy of the government envisaged under some provisions of Part III and many of Part IV dealing with the constitutional mandate to ameliorate the condition of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the other backward classes.
• Provisions like Article 17 prohibiting untouchability, Article 30 dealing with the protection of minorities are some of the notable examples.

4. State Socialism

• Dr Ambedkar advocated his economic doctrine of “state socialism” in the draft Constitution.
• He proposed state ownership of agriculture with a collectivized method of cultivation and a modified form of state socialism in the field of industry.
• Due to strong opposition in the Constitution Assembly, he could not incorporate his scheme of state socialism under the fundamental rights as a part of the Constitution.

Dr. Ambedkar’s drafting of the Indian constitution has enabled the abolition of untouchability and the outlawing of all forms of discriminations. Because of all this distinguishes contribution Dr. Ambedkar can be rightly called an architect of the Indian Constitution. Dr. Ambedkar dream of the creation of an egalitarian social order still remains an unfulfilled wishful thinking despite the extended period of reservation for SCs and STs.