On the eve of the moving of the Draft Constitution in 1949, Dr. Ambedkar expressed his insurmountable fear over the existing inequalities in Indian society. He observed:
“On 26th Jan 1950 we are going to enter a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man and one vote, one value. In our social and economic life we shall by reason of our social and economic structure continue to deny the principle of one man, one value.”
Dr. Ambedkar was well aware of the discrimination faced by Dalits due to the institutionalised caste system. He said: “On the social plane, we have an India based on the principles of graded inequality, which means elevation of some and degradation of others. On the economic plane, we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty.”
Dr. Ambedkar's observations were true, made on the basis of some of his own painful experiences, when way back in 1918 in spite of attaining high educational qualifications he was not allowed to drink water from a pot ‘reserved' for the high caste professorial staff at Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai. Dr. Ambedkar realised then that education had not succeeded in bringing out the desired attitudinal change in most of the “upper” caste people towards Dalits. “Upper caste” in village or city even with the highest degrees shared the same mindset when issues of Dalits emerged.
