Fraternity: Constitutional Norms and Human Need

There's no dearth of references to a sense of kinship beyond one's family

or tribe in ancient Indian texts. We know from anecdotes in the Ramayana

and Mahabharata, the Upanishads and epigraphic sources like Ashoka's 12th

Major Rock Edict, that our ancestors were no strangers to an expansive

understanding of fraternity. Therefore, although the earliest adoption of

fraternity as state motto happened in 18th-century France, the West cannot

claim to have taught fraternity to India. Even so, it took our freedom struggle

and the writing of the Constitution for it to become an integral value

governing our lives.

While the idea of fraternity was implicit in the Motilal Nehru Constitutional

Draft of 1928 and the 1931 Karachi Resolution of the Indian National

Congress, the National Movement's commitment to it was questioned by

leaders like Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar because the Movement appeared to

prioritize the anti-colonial struggle over social reform to eliminate caste

inequality. Dr Ambedkar, who had suffered caste oppression, knew that there

couldn't be a democratic future if caste wasn't done away with. However, his

antagonism with Mahatma Gandhi, the pre-eminent leader of the National

Movement, is often amplified. This monograph argues, instead, that not only

did both hold each other in high regard, it was due to Ambedkar's steadfast

opposition to caste that, through Gandhi, modern Indian society learnt to take

its first steps towards embodying fraternity, even as it fought the Raj.

Rajmohan Gandhi, one of India's leading and most admired thinkers, moves

easily from ancient India to modern Europe to an intimate portrait of the epic

face-off between Gandhi and Ambedkar which led to the Poona Pact of 1932.

This engaging monograph should be read by everyone invested in upholding

the constitutional norm of fraternity in our increasingly divided country.