CJP Agitation: We Must Heed Ambedkar's Warning | Opinion

The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), which attempted to storm parliament on July 20, is threatening to resume its agitation on one pretext or the other and is securing the overt and covert support of any parties in the opposition.

Though the agitation on July 20 was ostensibly to secure the resignation of the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the leaders of the CJP do not seem to be satisfied with the exit of the minister and the government's decision to concede two other demands put by them. Obviously emboldened by their initial success, they have been sending ominous signals and holding out fresh threats, obviously to keep the fire burning.

Much of the mischief and backup support is coming from the two communist parties and other parties which are opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who have not been able to dislodge him and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in three parliamentary elections until now and in many state assembly polls including Bihar and West Bengal.

Frustration is creeping up in these parties because of their failure to defeat Modi electorally, and this frustration is leading them towards adoption of undemocratic methods to defeat him. During the Jantar Mantar agitation, one found many cadres of the two communist parties, the Aam Admi Party (AAP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) mingling with the protestors and pretending to be students.

Imagine the frustration of the CPI and CPI(M), the two communist parties which are slowly seeing their decline ever since Modi emerged on the national stage. In 2004, the two parties secured 7.07 per cent votes and 53 seats in the Lok Sabha. In 2024, together they secured 2.25 per cent of the votes and 6 seats! They now seem to be desperate. The same is true of the Congress Party and the Samajwadi Party, who are unable to displace the BJP in a national election.

The hopelessness in the Congress Party is best exemplified by the Dharna offered by Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, in front of the prime minister's residence some days ago. This is clearly unprecedented and shocking. Rahul Gandhi has himself been a resident of the PM's residence when his grandmother, Indira Gandhi and his father, Rajiv Gandhi, were prime ministers, and he is fully aware of the security cover that the prime minister must have.

This act of Rahul Gandhi exemplifies the desperation that has crept into his mind and that of the Congress Party. This is indicative of the lawlessness that has crept into the minds of Congressmen – something that encouraged them to support the attempt of CJP to storm parliament.

The communists, despite their diminishing support, and the Samajwadi Party (the socialists) and the Aam Aadmi Party are secretly hoping that the cockroaches will overthrow a duly elected government through their anarchic agitation in Delhi and elsewhere. One must remember that in the Constituent Assembly, the members of the communist and socialist parties condemned the constitution which was presented by Dr Ambedkar and his colleagues.

They ridiculed it and said India had no future under such a constitution. Indians have proved them wrong. This is what Dr Ambedkar said 77 years ago in response to these communists and socialists: "The condemnation of the Constitution largely comes from two quarters, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party. Why do they condemn the Constitution? Is it because it is really a bad Constitution? I venture to say 'no'."

"The Communist Party wants a Constitution based upon the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They condemn the Constitution because it is based upon parliamentary democracy. The Socialists want two things. The first thing they want is that if they come in power, the Constitution must give them the freedom to nationalise or socialise all private property without payment of compensation. The second thing that the Socialists want is that the Fundamental Rights mentioned in the Constitution must be absolute and without any limitations so that if their party fails to come into power, they would have the unfettered freedom not merely to criticize, but also to overthrow the State," Ambedkar had said.

So, in Dr Ambedkar's assessment, individuals who belong to these two parties are opposed to parliamentary democracy and are ever ready "to overthrow the State". In his concluding remarks, Dr Ambedkar says: "If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgment we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives."

"It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. 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," he said.

With the arrival of the cockroaches and the verbal and physical violence unleashed by them in their bid to storm parliament on July 20, this is the most prophetic statement of Dr Ambedkar. Several cockroaches, many of them young women, resorted to the worst form of abuse while attacking Modi. Their slogans and utterances were so filthy that they are unfit to be published.

Yet, the prime minister has forgiven them and said no police cases must be registered against them. But what is shocking is that CJP "leaders" like Saurav Dass say that showering such filthy abuses on Modi is not a crime; "profanity does not attract a criminal case".

They also argue that this is, after all, "freedom of expression". This response and the CJP's plans fit in with Dr Ambedkar's description of the "grammar of anarchy". And talking about anarchy, who is Saurav Dass? He is the man who has "mad respect" for Umar Khalid, the alleged "mastermind" of the Delhi riots of 2020. He says Umar Khalid in jail is "a permanent blot on India's judiciary".

Some members and sympathisers of the CJP have openly spoken about their desire to effect a regime change through violence and anarchy like in Nepal and Bangladesh. If they take this route and try to overthrow the duly elected Modi government, democracy will derail in India. The Constitution, which they swear by, will be dead and anything can happen after that. And that could mean something which neither the CJP nor Modi's opponents would ever have anticipated.

One only hopes better sense will prevail and those opposed to Modi and the BJP will stay strictly within the parameters of our democratic constitution while they carry on their agitation. Otherwise, the consequences will be terrible.

(Note: The author is a democratic affairs expert and senior columnist. Views expressed in the article are of the author.)