Ambedkar's resignation from Nehru Cabinet is being debated in 2024 with a new zeal :::: But many key ministers Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, John Matthai and H Mahatab had also quit his team in 1950

A man 'destroyed by his ambition' is often applied to Alexander !! 

In the case of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister while he was hardly destroyed and his legacy thrived in Indian politics -- now in circa 2024 all sorts of debates are on.  

Amid the echoes of the past -- it may be worth recall that key figures of the Nehru cabinet -- 

Industry Minister Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Finance Minister John Matthai, Minister of Food and Agriculture Jairamdas Daulatram and also Harekrushna Mahatab and Minister of Relief and Rehabilitation K C Neogy, all left Nehru's interim Cabinet in 1950.

B R Ambedkar had resigned only next year -- 1951.

Ambedkar being sworn in as Minister 

Essentially, Ambedkar quit the Union cabinet owing to a number of issues vide differences over priorities; analysts say the Hindu Code Bill acted as the trigger. At a later stage, 

--- reacting to Nehru implementing parts of the Hindu Code Bill, Ambedkar said, "He [Nehru] will be remembered also for the great interest he took and the trouble he took over the question of Hindu law reform. 

I am happy that he saw that reform in a very large measure carried out, perhaps not in the form of that monumental tome that he had himself drafted, but in separate bits".  

But it has be noted that the stir caused by the Hindu Code Bill in the political sphere was unprecedented.

The Hindu Code Bill was meant to bring equality in Hindu society consistent with the Constitution. 

The Bill proposed several reforms in Hindu family laws, such as granting of equal inheritance rights to widows, sons, and daughters; prohibiting polygamy for Hindu men; providing women with the right to seek divorce; eliminating the birthright to property and legalising widow remarriage. 

It also sought to end practices like marriages within the same caste.

"To leave inequality between class and class, between sex and sex, which is the soul of Hindu society, untouched and to go on passing legislation relating to economic problems is to make a farce of our Constitution and to build a palace on a dung heap. This is the significance I attached to the Hindu Code," Ambedkar was quoted as saying in Collected Works of Babasaheb Dr Ambedkar.

This was released by the Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment.

Syama Prasad Mukherjee 

Although Nehru supported the bill initially, saying, "I will die or swim with the Hindu Code Bill", Ambedkar soon found his proposed legislation had been put on the back burner.  

HOW HINDU CODE BILL TRIGGERED AMBEDKAR'S RESIGNATION

The Constituent Assembly referred the Hindu Code Bill to a Select Committee in April 1948.

"The response to the motion to send the Bill to a select committee was far from enthusiastic," academic Chitra Sinha noted in her book Debating Patriarchy: The Hindu Code Bill Controversy in India.

After the Constitution was finalised in November 1949 and came into effect in January 1950, the Hincu Code Bill lapsed. Ambedkar reintroduced the bill in Parliament in 1951, again with Nehru's backing.

However, the Bill faced significant resistance both inside and outside Parliament. Some sections of the Congress resisted too. They questioned why the bill was restricted to Hindus and not extended to all communities.

"While the correspondence between the two is crucial to the understanding of the process of communicative action in the legislature, it also revealed that even within the Congress Party, as also in other political parties, a unified feminist consciousness failed to emerge," wrote Sinha.

Questions were also raised about the legitimacy of the Interim Cabinet and the Constituent Assembly, as they were not directly elected by the people. Critics argued whether such a body had the authority to implement a massive overhaul of personal laws like the Hindu Code Bill.

Syama Prasad Mukherjee opposed the bill within Parliament, citing cultural and religious concerns. 

"The stir caused by the Bill in the political sphere was unprecedented, though there has been almost no detailed historical account of the event. 

On one side of the spectrum were liberals like Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar. On the other side, ranged a very powerful segment of the legislature, including Rajendra Prasad and Acharya JB Kripalani within the Congress Party, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and other leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha," wrote Chitra Sinha.

Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who was also part of the Nehru Cabinet as Minister of Industries had already resigned in December 1950.

Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad founder Karpatri Maharaj too led demonstrations supported by organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

"The All India Hindu Code Bill Virodha Samiti published a book, Hindu Code Bill: Praman Ki Kasauti Par in Hindi by Swami Karpatriji Maharaj, refuting the government propaganda about the Bill and expressed that the Hindu Code Bill was diametrically opposed to the ideology of the Sanatan Dharma," Sinha wrote.

Karpatriji Maharaj even challenged Ambedkar to have a public debate on the Bill.

WHY NEHRU WAS FORCED TO SHELVE HINDU CODE BILL

When the debate on the Hindu Code Bill finally commenced in Parliament, Congress permitted its members to vote freely without issuing a party whip. This led to prolonged and unproductive speeches by members, consuming valuable time.

"You should take things easy as there is opposition inside and outside to the Hindu Code Bill, the Cabinet has decided that it should be taken up at the beginning of September 1951," Nehru wrote to Ambedkar.

Meanwhile, the time for India’s first election in the winter of 1951–1952 was fast approaching, and Jawaharlal Nehru was preparing to seek the people’s mandate. The Prime Minister must have been wary and mindful of the Hindu majority's sentiments that might have been stirred due to protests against the Hindu Code Bill.

Ultimately, due to the constraints, Ambedkar's Hindu Code Bill was set aside. 

This decision deeply upset Ambedkar, who believed that passing the Hindu Code Bill would bring him greater joy than the Constitution itself.

Feeling disillusioned, Ambedkar submitted his resignation to President Rajendra Prasad in September 1951.

"I will now deal with a matter which has led me finally to come to the decision that I should resign. It is the treatment which was accorded to the Hindu Code. The Bill was introduced in this House on the 11th April 1947. After a life of four years, it was killed and died unwept and unsung...," Ambedkar said in Parliament while resigning.

Interestingly, Ambedkar's resignation letter is now missing from official records, according to a report in The Hindu, leaving only fragmented accounts from media reports and government sources.

The President's Secretariat informed the Central Information Commission (CIC), which is mandated with furnishing RTI appeal responses, in writing that an extensive search in the Constitutional Affairs Section had failed to locate the document, The Hindu reported in 2023.