New Delhi: Three Supreme Court lawyers have written to the Chief Justice of India stating that there are no statues of Dr B.R. Ambedkar – the father of the constitution and India’s first law minister – on the Supreme Court premises.
The lawyers, under the umbrella of the Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Lawyers for Social Justice which was formed in 2014, noted that while lawyers and judges quote Dr Ambedkar often, getting symbols to honour him on the premises has been an uphill task.
The lawyers noted that inside the Supreme Court, there are two statues, of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak and of Mahatma Gandhi, “but there is no statue of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar who is not only revered as emancipator of crores of downtrodden/marginalised people of India but Father of Indian Constitution and First Law Minister of India.”
The signatories to the letter are advocates Pratik Bombarde, Jitendra Kumar and Abhishek Kumar.
“Sometimes we Ambedkarite lawyers fail to understand [how] every year on 26th November, all the dignitaries quote Dr. Ambedkar in their respective speeches but no one raises this issue of installation of his statue inside Supreme Court,” they said.
“In fact, history tells us that, in 70s under the leadership of Dadasaheb Gaikwad, we Ambedkarites had to struggle for installation of his statue inside the parliament. And we are now struggling since many years for installation of statue of Babasaheb inside Supreme Court,” they wrote.
The struggle to get a portrait of Dr. Ambedkar installed was an uphill one, they say.
“Our constant endeavour and demand for installation of photograph/portrait was accepted by the then president of SCBA [Supreme Court Bar Association], Mr. [Dushyant] Dave, Senior Advocate, and the present portrait hanging in Library 1 came to be installed in the year 2015 on the occasion of 125th Birth Anniversary of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. It took 65 years to install his portrait,” they wrote.
Floral tributes have since been given to Dr. Ambedkar at this portrait on the occasions of his birth and death anniversaries.
The first time permission was granted by the Supreme Court administration to celebrate Dr. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary inside the designated High Security Zone was in 2018.
“The reason for writing this representation to your lordship is that, every year when we all Ambedkarite lawyers gather for such occasions, because of limited space in the Library-1, inconvenience gets caused to other members of the Bar. Time and Again we have raised this issue with SCBA and Supreme Court Administration, but no one pays any heed to our request,” the lawyers wrote.
Thus, they said, the decision was taken to pursue the demand for the installation of a statue of Dr. Ambedkar inside Supreme Court lawns either by the Supreme Court of India administration or by the government of India.
The lawyers quoted Dr. Ambedkar from his 1946 address to the Constituent Assembly:
“Let us leave aside slogans, let us leave aside words which frighten people. Let us even make a concession to the prejudices of our opponents, bring them in, so that they may willingly join with us on marching upon that mad, which as I said, if we walk long enough, must necessarily lead us to unity”