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The following excerpt is drawn from the article "Squandered Heritage" by A.G. Noorani in Frontline, Vol. 32, No. 12, June 13-26, 2015.
It rightfully asserts that the constitution that governs a people should match the temperament of the people. Rather than pass an evaluation of the temperament that Balfour lays out in the following words, it will be more helpful to notice the wide disparity between that temper and the one that is perceptible from a reading of the present political dialogue as garnered from the mainstream media. It is also worthwhile to compare Balfour's description with the day to day experiences that all of us undergo, at least as far as habitation in the major cities of India is concerned.
It was formidable intellectual equipment that Ambedkar brought to bear on his tasks in the Constituent Assemly from 1946. He understood better than most what was demanded of its members and, later, of those who worked it. In 1943 he approvingly quoted these wise words of Balfour: "If we would find the true basis of the long-drawn process which has gradually converted medieval monarchy into a modern democracy, the process by which so much has been changed and so little destroyed, we must study temperament and character rather than intellect and theory. This is a truth which those who recommend the wholesale adoption of British institutions in strange lands might remember with advantage. Such an experiment can hardly be without its dangers. Constitutions are easily copied; temperaments are not and if it should happen that the borrowed Constitution and the native temperament fail to correspond, the misfit may have serious results. It matters little what other gifts a people may possess if they are wanting in these which, from this point of view, are of most importance. If, for example,
1) they have no capacity for grading their loyalties as well as for being moved by them;
2) if they have no natural inclination to liberty and no natural respect for law;
3) if they lack good humour and tolerate foul play;
4) if they know not how to compromise or when;
5) if they have not that distrust of extreme conclusions which is sometimes misdescribed as want of logic;
6) if corruption does not repel them;
7) and if their division tend to be either too numerous or too profound,
the successful workings of the British institutions may be difficult or impossible. It may indeed be least possible where the arts of parliamentary persuasion and the dexterities of party management are brought to their highest perfection." The strategems available in the parliamentary system are used without respect for their true spirit.
From the same article, "
However, as Gladstone said, the British Constitution "presumes more boldly than any other, the good faith of those who work it". As a parliamentary committee said, the "understandings and habits of mind" by which the Constitution functions are "bound up with the growth of mutual confidence between the great parties of the State, transcending the political differences of the hour". The Constitution is rooted in a national consensus. It works on the understanding that the system is more important than the immediate political gain. Public opinion acts as a referee.
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