The first question an honest journalist should ask him would be, "Sir, how do you reconcile your (long-standing) admiration for Golwalkar on the one hand with your (new-found) respect and regard for Ambedkar and Gandhi on the other?"

This is how famous author Ram Chandra Guha concluded his article dated 17^th September 2016 in the newspaper “the Telegraph”. Ram Chandra Guha in his contentions against Shri Golwalkar raised issue of non-conformist approach of Shri Golwalkar towards Constitution of India.Shri Golwalkar in several paragraphs of “Bunch of Thoughts” a compendium of his speeches delivered on several occasions, flagged his concerns about Indian Constitution. However, it is matter of the fact that he is not a standalone person who criticizes the Constitution of India. The point to be driven home is that Shri Golwalkar not even in single instance talk of denigrating a Constitution and his criticism was always a modest and parliamentary in nature however, he has been deliberately painted as enemy of Constitution and cornered as threat to the democracy. In this article author shall endeavor to establish that Dr. Ambedkar himself criticized the constitution on several occasions and went to the extent that he would wish to burn it.

Constitution of any nation cannot be a work of single person; it is always a collective effort hence nothing mentioned in the constitution should be portrayed as either success or failure of single individual. Our intellectuals commit the same mistake while quoting any provision of Constitution and attributing thereto to Dr. Ambedkar. Dr. Ambedkar himself captured this phenomenon in his last speech in Constituent assembly dated 25^th November 1949.

“The credit that is given to me does not really belong to me. It belongs partly to Sir B. N. Rau, the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly who prepared a rough draft of the Constitution for the consideration of the Drafting Committee. A part of the credit must go to the members of the Drafting Committee who, as I have said, have sat for 141 days and without whose ingenuity to devise new formulae and capacity to tolerate and to accommodate different points of view, the task of framing the Constitution could not have come to so successful a conclusion. Much greater share of the credit must go to Mr. S. N. Mukherjee, the Chief Draftsman of the Constitution. His ability to put the most intricate proposals in the simplest and clearest legal form can rarely be equaled, nor his capacity for hard work. He has been an acquisition to the Assembly. Without his help, this Assembly would have taken many more years to finalize the Constitution. I must not omit to mention the members of the staff working under Mr. Mukherjee, for, I know how hard they have worked and how long they have toiled, sometimes even beyond midnight. I want to thank them all for their effort and their co-operation” (speeches and writings of Dr. Ambedkar Vol.13 published by Ministry of External Affairs).

It is therefore an obvious to garner that Dr. Ambedkar’s entire ideology has not been reflected in Constitution and he had several differences with the Constitution.

“The Quint” published an article on Dr. Ambedkar in commemoration of his birth upcoming anniversary on 13^th April 2018 under title “Why Dr. Ambedkar did not like India’s Constitution” which states that Dr. Ambedkar while delivering his speech in Rajya Sabha in 1953 blurted out the following when questioned by member about his views on gubernatorial powers -

“We lawyers defend many things. People always keep on saying to me, ‘Oh! you are the maker of the Constitution.’ My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will.”

Dr. Ambedkar stated it on record that he was made to accept certain things which were against his will.

Christopher Jaffrelot in his article published by Indian Express on 26 December 2015 narrates as to why Dr. Ambedkar “wanted to burn the Constitution” by quoting Dr. Ambedkar himself where he states “We built a temple for a god to come in and reside, but before the god could be installed, if the devil had taken possession of it, what else could we do except destroy the temple?

In his famous interview to BBC in Dr. Ambedkar raised some serious issues about democracy and parliamentary system in India.

In the light of abovesaid thoughts of Dr. Ambedkar we can conclude that Dr.Ambedkar also had serious reservations about Parliamentary Democratic system in India and Indian Constitution which he himself drafted under majoritarian pressure.

Now we should turn to Golwakar Guruji and his thoughts about the Constitution of India in his Bunch of Thoughts Guruji states as follows:

“the framers of our present Constitution also were not firmly rooted in the conviction of a single homogeneous nationhood is evident from the federal structure of our Constitution. Our country is now described as a Union of States. Those that were merely provinces in the former set-up are now given the status of States, with many exclusive powers. In fact, it was the fragmentation of our single national life in the past into so many exclusive political units that sowed the seeds of national disintegration and defeat. The present federal structure has in it the same seeds of disruption”

Shri Guruji expressively favored unitary structure of the Indian Constitution given the circumstances in India for which he offered following explanation

“Towards this end the most important and effective step will be to bury deep for good all talk of a federal structure of our country’s Constitution, to sweep away the existence of all ‘autonomous’ or semi-autonomous ‘states’ within the one State viz., Bharat and proclaim ‘One Country, One State, One Legislature, One Executive’ with no trace of fragmentational, regional, sectarian, linguistic or other types of pride being given a scope for playing havoc with our integrated harmony. Let the Constitution be re-examined and re-drafted, so as to establish this Unitary form of Government and thus effectively disprove the mischievous propaganda indulged in by the British and so unwittingly imbibed by the present leaders, about our being just a juxtaposition of so many distinct ‘ethnic groups’ or ‘nationalities’ happening to live side by side and grouped together by the accident of geographical contiguity and one uniform supreme foreign domination. Let us be grateful to the makers of the present Constitution as also to the worthy members of the S.R.C. for the services rendered but let us not allow the nation to become a house divided against itself and heading towards destruction by falling to pieces. Let our present leaders of the affairs of the state take courage in both hands, take a realistic view of things, envisage the dangers of disruption staring us in the face, face the misguided opposition of such ill-informed people as may happen to stoop to such opposition and, with a firm hand, change the present ill-conceived federal structure to the only correct form of government, the unitary one”.

Guruji unequivocally said that “let us be thankful to makers of present constitution” however put across a solution for the political integration of nation in true spirit. Shri Guruji and Dr. Ambedkar had been on same page as far as the fissiparous tendencies in Indian society were concerned. Guruji advocated Unitary form of Government merely to nip in the bud all sectarian, linguistic and other types of prides. It is appropriate to quote here Dr. Ambedkar’s speech in Constituent assembly on 25^th November 1949 wherein he expressed fear in following words

“But my mind is so full of the future of our country that I feel I ought to take this occasion to give expression to some of my reflections thereon. On 26th January 1950, India will be an independent country (Cheers). What would happen to her independence? Will she maintain her independence or will she lose it again? This is the first thought that comes to my mind. It is not that India was never an independent country. The point is that she once lost the independence she had. Will she lose it a second time? It is this thought which makes me most anxious for the future. What perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once before lost her independence, but she lost it by the infidelity and treachery of some of her own people. In the invasion of Sind by Mohammed-Bin-Kasim, the military commanders of King Dahar accepted bribes from the agents of Mohammed-Bin-Kasim and refused to fight on the side of their King. It was Jaichand who invited Mahommed Ghori to invade India and fight against Prithvi Raj and promised him the help of himself and the Solanki Kings. When Shivaji was fighting for the liberation of Hindus, the other Maratha noblemen and the Rajput Kings were fighting the battle on the side of Moghul Emperors. When the British were trying to destroy the Sikh Rulers, Gulab Singh, their principal commander sat silent and did not help to save the Sikh Kingdom. In 1857, when a large part of India had declared a war of independence against the British, the Sikhs stood and watched the event as silent spectators. Will history repeat itself? It is this thought which fills me with anxiety. This anxiety is deepened by the realization of the fact that in addition to our old enemies in the form of castes and creeds we are going to have many political parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Will Indians place the country above their creed or will they place creed above country? I do not know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost forever”

Coming to oft-repeated part from Bunch of Thoughts which is used by critics as tool to suggest that Shri Guruji was against the Constitution of India. Guruji states in Bunch of Thoughts as follows;

“Our Constitution too is just a cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing together of various articles from various Constitutions of Western countries. It has absolutely nothing, which can be called our own. Is there a single word of reference in its guiding principles as to what our national mission is and what our keynote in life is? No! Some lame principles from the United Nations Charter or from the Charter of the now defunct League of Nations and some features form the American and British Constitutions have been just brought together in a mere hotchpotch”

Shri Guruji was not the only person who was discontent with the blind copycat of western principals in Indian Constitution, Mahatma Gandhi the “Father of the Nation” was also of same opinion and therefore with his blessings in the form of Foreword to the Gandhian Constitution penned by Shiman Narayan Agarwal “Bhartiaya” ideas of Constitution had been placed before India for consideration. The Systems like Panchayati Raj which denote the true spirit of Bhartiya Democracy had been given short shrift by Dr. Ambedkar and therefore Panchayati Raj has merely been captured in the policy guidelines to the state. It is therefore wrong to allege that Guruji was against the constitution on the contrary, he wished it to be more on “Bhartiya tatva” which would reflect soul and mind of Indian people.

In conclusion, we would like to firmly assert that Shri Guruji like Dr. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi was concerned about the prosperity and inclusiveness of this nation. He had conviction that India is nation since ancient times and its edifice is Dharma. He wanted to nurture Samskriti at any cost. He was equally concerned with the caste, creed, language and other prides which were posing threat to the unity and fraternity of Nation. He therefore, proposed various means to make India once again a “Jagat Guru” and therefore, he notwithstanding his firm opinion about Indian Constitution never proposed any unconstitutional means to jettison it.