EN/Volume_06 - Page 12

Grammar of Anarchy

We must hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-co-operation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was some justification for unconstitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives. But where constitutional methods are open there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned the better for us.

—Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

in the Constituent Assembly

on 25th November 1949