viii DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Dr. Ambedkar had faith in the Constitution that he helped to fashion for India. “I feel”, he said, “that it is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is, that Man was vile.” His faith in the future of India and in the people of India was profound. He told the Constituent Assembly, “I know to-day we are divided politically, socially and economically. We are a group of warring camps, and I may even go to the extent of confessing that I am probably one of the leaders of such a camp. But, Sir, with all this, I am quite convinced that given time and circumstances nothing in the world will prevent this country from becoming one.” Dr. Ambedkar emerges from this Volume not only as a man of immense erudition and foresight, but one who had faith in the people of India and in the future of India under a political system which is at once strictly constitutional and socially and economically progressive.
New Delhi, (K. R. NARAYANAN) April 5, 1994 Vice-President of India