How Ambedkar’s Legal Stance Helped Unify India

Context: BR Ambedkar, the Chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution, also played a role in India’s unification.

Ambedkar’s Role in Indian Unification:

• Legally invalidated exclusion of princely states: of Travancore and Nizam of Hyderabad from Indian union and their stance to appeal to the United Nations (UN).
• Represented India’s legal interest at all the three Round Table Conferences (RTC): which were held with the aim of framing the 1935 Government of India Act
  • Dismissed the idea of princely states seeking representation in British Indian Parliament after 1935.
• Acted against the constitutionality of the Cabinet Mission Plan 1946: Ambedkar argued that the Indian government has the prerogative right to advise the Crown about the paramountcy.
  • If the Crown cannot transfer paramountcy, the Crown cannot also abandon it,
  • Denied the Mountbatten’s plan of June 3, 1947, that princely states can join any successor government or become independent.
• Derided the false pride of princely states: He argued that out of the 562 princely states,
  • 454 (princely) states have an area of less than 1,000 square miles; as many as 15 states have territories which in no case reach a square mile,
  • 452 states have a population of less than 1,00,000;
  • 374 states have a revenue of less than Rs 1 lakh;
• Closed the doors for United Nations (UN) intervention: He said the UN would never grant any assistance to an Indian state from external aggression without insisting that the state should first introduce responsible government within its area.
• Recognized unification of Hyderabad as an internal matter of suzerainty: and advised to name operation as “police action” and not an Indian Army intervention.