19 08 2012 Sunday LESSON 681 FREE ONLINE eNālāndā Research and Practice UNIVERSITY
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OUTLOOK B+ve of Ambedkar the Awakened One With Awareness
Opinion
Lit-Again Paths
Ambedkar’s Buddhism is a radical, rational reading of the traditional for our times
Young
Bhim Ambedkar met the Buddha for the first time at a party in Bombay.
As the only untouchable student at Elphinstone High School, Ambedkar
caused a stir when he passed his matriculation exam in 1907. A
graduation party was organised by Krishna Arjun ‘Dada’ Keluskar, author,
activist and principal of nearby Wilson High School. Keluskar had seen
Ambedkar reading alone in the Churni Road Garden and finally asked him
who he was. The boy, born of Mahar parents in an army camp, explained
that upper-caste students at Elphinstone bullied him and that he
retreated to the park with a book. The teacher recognised the boy’s
promise and began helping him with his studies.
At the party, Keluskar gave him a copy of his Life of the Buddha,
written in Marathi for the Baroda Sayajirao Oriental Series. Sayajirao
provided Ambedkar financial aid, employment and finally full support to
attend Columbia University, where Ambedkar earned his first doctorate
and discovered that a society could be organised around the notions of
liberty, equality and fraternity.
More than the influence of early mentors and institutions, it was the
life and teachings of the Buddha, first presented in Keluskar’s slim
volume, that made the most impact. After the party, he recalled years
later, “I…was greatly impressed and moved by it.” In the following
decades, as he launched the untouchable civil rights movement,
represented his community in the negotiations with the British and the
Congress, served as the first law minister and principal draftsman of
the Constitution, Ambedkar never forgot the vision of personal striving
and social transformation he first encountered in the person of the
Buddha.
Who was the Buddha that impressed Ambedkar so much? Ambedkar
reflected deeply on this, and declared in 1950 that Buddhism was the
only religion that could meet the requirements of the modern
world—wisdom, compassion, and social justice. And we know that in the
last, illness-ridden five years of his life, he devoted his remaining
energy to the study of Buddhism.
The fruit of Ambedkar’s final labours is The Buddha and His Dhamma,
a daring interpretation of traditional teachings. Venerated by
ex-untouchables and millions practising ‘Navayana’ Buddhism, it tells
the story of the earthly Buddha and summarises his teachings. This
manifesto brings out the social teachings that Ambedkar believed were
suppressed by misunderstanding and distortion. Gautama’s welcoming all
to his new religious community is there. But so is Ambedkar’s critique
of four famous items in the traditional presentation of Buddhism.
Ambedkar doubted that a 29-year-old prince would have abandoned his
duties after seeing a sick person, an old person, a corpse and a sadhu.
The Four Noble Truths “are a great stumbling block”, attributing all
human suffering to desire and craving. Are the poor to be blamed for
craving food? Traditional notions of karma and rebirth clearly pose a
contradiction of the core teaching of no-self (anatta) and another
justification for the caste system, in which low-birth results from bad
behaviour in a past life—again blaming victims of social exploitation.
Finally, should not the clergy serve society, or should they only study
and meditate? These questions “must be decided not so much in the
interest of doctrinal consistency but in the interest of the future of
Buddhism”.
Ambedkar’s Buddha is based on meticulous study of the Pali record as
well as scores of modern commentaries he collected. And this Buddha is a
path-giver (marga-data), not a rescuer (moksha-data); he is
all-compassionate (maha-karunika); and he is opposed to superstition and
speculation. He is awakened by definition—rational, practical, and
rooted in present realities. But he is also engaged—committed to social
change and justice, and, if necessary, non-violent social revolution.
This is the Buddha that has inspired a new generation of socially
engaged Buddhists across the world.
Was this the Buddha young Bhim met at his graduation party? Or has the Buddha of old found new voices in a dangerous new world?
(Christopher Queen teaches Buddhism and Social Change and World Religions at Harvard University.)
Alternative Media
Songsters From The Mudhouse
SC/ST bards, bhajan mandalis and pamphleteers, largely
from Maharashtra, have kept alive the image, the life story and the
genius of Ambedkar
Bhima, your thought is like the shade of the peepal tree.—Wamandada Kardak (1922-2004)
In the last few years, every
December 6, TV channels have been covering the annual gathering of
thousands of followers of Dr B.R. Ambedkar at Chaitya Bhoomi in Mumbai.
The middle class deems these events irrational or emotional and
criticises them for causing traffic jams and littering—opinions that
strangely resonate among social scientists. Most people do not reckon
that the prolonged Ganesh Chaturthi affairs are also a nuisance. Many
intellectuals, barring a few, see these gatherings of the Dalit public
as a process of the ‘deification’ of Ambedkar or the ‘manipulation’ of
the masses by the Dalit leadership. It is also common to see Ambedkar’s
‘rationality’ contrasted with the ‘irrationality’ of these gatherings,
suggesting that Dalits are not carrying forward Ambedkar’s true legacy.
In fact, much before Ambedkar belatedly emerged as a national icon in
the 1990s, much before the Bharat Ratna, and well before Mandal, it is
these annual gatherings that kept alive Ambedkar’s life story and work.
This was well before the emergence of Dalit literature and before the
writings and speeches of Ambedkar gained currency.
The key dates in the Ambedkarite calendar are: December 6 (Ambedkar’s
death anniversary), observed at Chaitya Bhoomi, Mumbai; October 14 (the
day he converted to Buddhism), observed in Nagpur; January 1 (the day
in 1818 when Peshwa Bajirao II, the Brahmin ruler of Pune, was defeated
by the British with support from Mahar soldiers), observed at Kranti
Stambh, Bhima-Koregaon; December 25 (the day Ambedkar and his follower
burnt a copy of Manusmriti), observed at Mahad; and, of course, April
14, Ambedkar’s birth anniversary.
Posters on sale. (Photograph by Amit Haralkar)
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annual gatherings spawn hundreds of stalls selling a wide range of
items: brassware from Moradabad, Jai Bhim caps, statues, posters,
calendars, prints of Ambedkar, statues of Buddha, lockets, watches,
ribbons and night lamps with images of Ambedkar. Many stalls sell the
Ambedkarite calendar/almanac published by Dalit political organisations
or publishing houses. These calendars are visually distinct, with covers
in different styles, establishing a historical legacy from Buddha,
Phule and Shahu Maharaj down to Ambedkar. Each of these calendars is a
documentation of history, marking each day as a day in the history of
Ambedkar’s life and struggles. At a time when the story of Ambedkar and
the Dalit movement were kept out of textbooks, these calendars played an
important role in cataloging and interpreting the history of Ambedkar’s
movement.
At these gatherings, two kinds of stalls—bookstalls and stalls put up
by gayan parties, or singing troupes, selling cassettes and now audio
CDs—predominate. Booklets and music have been the two media that have
carried forth the life and work of Ambedkar.
Following the Dalit Panthers movement of the 1970s and later, the
movement to rename Marathwada University as Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
Marathwada University, several small publishers dedicated to producing
literature by and on Ambedkar emerged across Maharashtra. Many of these
booklets introduce readers to the Ambedkarite perspective on
contemporary issues. The books do not necessarily become individual
possessions but circulate among members of the extended family, local
Buddha Viharas and friends.
Ujwala Dheewar, a 21-year-old interviewed at Chaitya Bhoomi, says she gifts copies of Ambedkar’s The Buddha and His Dhamma
to friends to mark important occasions. She buys the book in bulk at
these gatherings. Anantrao Ahire, an 80-year-old who was at the Yeola
conference in 1935 when Ambedkar declared his decision to convert, says
that on Ambedkar’s death in 1956, he resolved to sell Ambedkar’s books
door-to-door for the rest of his life.
Sea change Celebration of Ambedkar’s conversion, at Deeksha Bhoomi, Nagpur
The gayan parties, which
constitute the second-largest number of stalls at these gatherings, may
be traced to the bhajan mandalis of the pre-Ambedkar era. Since the
Mahars had been traditionally associated with singing, there were
several mandalis which sang compositions in the Varkari tradition—the
bhakti cult of Vithoba of Pandharpur, about whom Namdeo, Dyaneshwar,
Chokhamel and Eknath have sung. With the expanding reach of Ambedkar’s
message, there was a dramatic change in the bhajans and in women’s
compositions like the ovi (songs of the grinding stone) and palana
(songs of the cradle). They all adopted the political tones of
Ambedkar’s struggles and campaigns.
A well-known composer, Bhimrao Kardak, recalls the emergence of a new
form—the Ambedkari jalsa, which radically reorganised the structure of
tamasha by making room for verses and dialogue. The comedian of the
jalsa (a man dressed as a woman) would convey the message of Ambedkar
through comical dialogues, often using parody. For instance, criticism
of Gandhi’s idea of Harijan is presented in a verse from the jalsa
called A Dialogue between a Congress Devotee and an Untouchable:
All of us Mahars, Mangs, Bhangis and Chamaars—let’s condemn the name ‘Harijan’!
Hearing the name makes my mind sad!
‘Harijan’ is a stamp, a stigma, a sign of slavery,
And this dominating Congress government, it claims to run a democracy!
Ever since the 1930s, several generations of shahirs (composers)
have dedicated a lifetime to spreading the ideas of Ambedkar. The first
generation of Ambedkari shahirs (1920-56), including Patit Pavandas,
Bhimrao Kardak, Keriji Ghegde, Arjun Hari Bhalerao, Keruba Gaikwad,
Keshav Sukha Aher, Ramchandra Sonavane and Amrutbhuwa Bavaskar among
others, composed jalsas to spread the message of Ambedkar’s social and
political campaigns among the Dalit masses. They used idioms that
challenged the dominant ideas of the day. For instance, presenting an
Ambedkarite challenge to V.D. Savarkar’s famous composition Tumhi Amhi Bandhu Bandhu (You and Us, We are All Brothers), Patit Pavandas subverts it with:
You are human beings,
We too are human beings,
We are Hindus,
You too are Hindus,
Yet when it comes to temples,
It’s always you above,
and we in our place.
The second generation of Ambedkari shahirs, composing after the
1950s, including Wamandada Kardak, Sridhar Ohol, Rajanand Gadpayle,
Deenbhandu Shegaonkar, Annabhau Sathe, Dalit Anand and Vithal Uma,
created new genres of Bhimgeet and Buddhageet, which underlined the
strong linkages between Ambedkar and the Dalit masses. The palana (songs
of the cradle) outlining the events in the life of Ambedkar became a
popular genre with women. The primary themes in these compositions is
Ambedkar’s message of adopting a modern, Buddhist way of life and
rejecting a life of indignity. Kardak, one of the best-known Bhim
shahirs, who performed both in villages and in the working-class
quarters in the cities, urges people to:
Throw off the skin of Hindu dharma
Take on the blue shawl of Buddha’s equality,
Throw off the old worn-out cloth, woven with threads of hatred,
It’s so patched…
Why should anyone use it,
when it has no trace of humanism?
Kalapathaks and jalsas became central to the Buddhist conversion
movement as well as the land-grab movement led by the Ambedkarite leader
Dadasaheb Gaikwad in 1959 and 1964. The jalsa troupes began to close
down in the mid-1970s and a new generation of gayan parties or qawwal
parties emerged. These troupes travel throughout the year, extensively
from April 14 (Ambedkar’s birth anniversary) to the end of May (Buddha
Poornima) chiefly performing Geet Bhimayan, a dramatised and lyrical
performance of the story of Ambedkar. Buddha geets and Ambedkar geets
form the other popular aspects of the programme.
Proud imprint
Ambedkar’s works on sale. (Photograph by Nirala Tripathi)
In the 1990s, audiotapes, locally
produced and inexpensive, expanded the reach of these songs. More people
felt encouraged to form gayan parties. This led to a revolution in
quantity and variety in music. More women singers and troupes became
prominent without eroding the popularity of live performances. The Poona
Pact is presented in the compositions as an intellectual akhada with
the two great men, Gandhi and Ambedkar, engaged in a cerebral wrestling
match. The compositions dwell upon the “unethical and morally incorrect”
behaviour of Gandhi in withdrawing from a signed agreement. The chorus
underlines the defeat of Gandhi (Gandhi harla) and his betrayal of the
excommunicated communities. The interesting and repeated theme in the
compositions on the Poona Pact is the request made by Kasturba Gandhi to
Ambedkar to grant jeevandan (boon of life) to Gandhi.
The educational background of the artistes ranges from as little as
Class IV to Class XII. There’s a predominant presence of women singers
in the new gayan parties, and some of them, like Satyabhama Kokate, are
illiterate, while others like Maina Kokate are educated up to Class VII.
Every party has four to ten members. Most of the members have to
struggle to make ends meet and look for supplementary sources of
income. The promoter of ‘Asha Gaikwad & Party’, popularly known for
the audio cassette Amhi Bhimachya Nari (We, the Daughters of Ambedkar), was an agricultural labourer before she formed her own gayan party.
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pamphlets came into being much earlier, but what the 1990s brought
forth was a robust flowering of interest in Ambedkar’s writing and
struggles for the emancipation of women. Booklets on Ambedkar and
women’s liberation began circulating in the 1990s, enabled by the events
of the period, including the rise of autonomous Dalit women’s
organisations, the formation of national-level federations and forums of
Dalit women, and the subsequent revival of the women’s wings of Dalit
political parties. Many writers of these booklets are concerned with
Ambedkar’s views on women’s liberation and delineate Ambedkar’s efforts
in drafting laws such as the Mines Maternity Benefit Act, when he was
the labour member in the Viceroy’s Executive Council (1942-46).
Some booklets highlight his recovery of the Buddha’s legacy of
feminism and see Ambedkar’s critique of Brahminical practices, including
sati, child marriage, and institutionalised prostitution, as one of the
early theoretical statements on violence against women in India.
Thus, when conclusions about the emotive iconisation of Ambedkar are
being drawn, the dynamic gatherings around the Ambedkar almanac tell
another story. The invaluable labour of “mudhouse cultural activists”
(as political theorist Gopal Guru calls them) has for long remained
unsung. The mudhouse print and music cultures and their popularity have
made an immense contribution to sustaining the memory of Ambedkar’s life
and works.
(The writer teaches sociology at the University of Pune and is author of the forthcoming Against the Madness of Manu: B.R. Ambedkar’s Writings on Brahminical Patriarchy.)
The Greatest Indian
- Dr B.R.Ambedkar
Ranking By Popular votes
- B.R. Ambedkar 19,91,734
The Greatest Indian
A Case For Bhim Rajya
So, finally, Ambedkar comes into his own in the national
consciousness. Now perhaps it’s time to embrace a legacy sidelined by
the dominant discourse.
“I told my father that I did not like any of the figures
in (the) Mahabharata. I said, ‘I do not like Bhishma and Drona, nor
Krishna. Bhishma and Drona were hypocrites. They said one thing and did
quite the opposite. Krishna believed in fraud. His life is nothing but a
series of frauds. Equal dislike I have for Rama. Examine his conduct in
the Surpanakha episode, in the Vali-Sugriva episode, and his beastly
behaviour towards Sita.’ My father was silent, and made no reply. He
knew that there was a revolt.”—Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar
in the unpublished Preface dated April 6, 1956, to
The Buddha and His Dhamma
So how and why did Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, finally, top what we are
told is a comprehensive poll? What has changed since the ‘defeats’ of
1999 and 2002? Has India become more accepting of one of its
intellectual giants, who, in Marxist historian Perry Anderson’s recent
words, was “intellectually head and shoulders above” Nehru, Gandhi and
most Congress leaders? Sceptic that I am, this “victory” for Ambedkar is
most likely a result of the presence of a burgeoning internet-savvy,
mobile-wielding, dedicated Untouchable (SC/ST) middle class that is almost invisibly
making its presence felt. Still largely kept away from mainstream media,
the private sector and our universities—which have undisguised disdain
for Ambedkar’s greatest weapon, reservation—the SC/STs, in India and
abroad, have fashioned their own websites, mailing lists and blogs such
as Round Table Conference, SC & Adivasi Students’ Portal and
Savari, a YouTube channel called SC/ST Camera, besides scores of
Facebook groups. They no longer depend on corporate media that takes one
month to report, if at all, the 2006 murders and rapes of Khairlanji; a
media that found the lynching of five SC/STs in Lakshmipeta, Srikakulam
district, in June 2012 banal. It is on the worldwide web that new ways
of negotiating citizenship are being forged; it is from these new
banlieues that unyielding Eklavyas are waging war with the Bhishmas and
Dronas, gaining thumb-inch by thumb-inch. Some of these warriors had
expressed dismay and fatigue over a survey that wanted to select ‘The
Greatest Indian After Gandhi’. The caveat, which presumed Gandhi’s
victory should he have been included, rankled. It was fresh salt on an
old, unhealed wound.
All the same, the emergence of Ambedkar in this poll offers India an
opportunity to come to terms with the legacy of a man who has been
defeated and betrayed time and again by Indians. Many of these bitter
defeats have been swept under the thick, dirty carpet of nationalist
history.
Let us begin at the end, with one of the worst humiliations in
Ambedkar’s life, less than three months before his death. On September
14, 1956, exactly a month before he embraced Buddhism with
half-a-million followers in Nagpur, he wrote a heart-breaking letter to
prime minister Nehru from his 26, Alipore Road, residence in Delhi.
Enclosing two copies of the comprehensive Table of Contents of his
mnemonic opus, The Buddha and His Dhamma, Ambedkar suppressed pride and sought Nehru’s help in the publication of a book he had worked on for five years:
“The cost of printing is very heavy and will come to about Rs 20,000.
This is beyond my capacity, and I am, therefore, canvassing help from
all quarters. I wonder if the Government of India could purchase 500
copies for distribution among the various libraries and among the many
scholars whom it is inviting during the course of this year for the
celebration of Buddha’s 2,500 years’ anniversary.”
High table Nehru,
Ambedkar at a dinner hosted by Sardar Patel in 1948 in honour of C.
Rajagopalachari becoming governor-general. (Photographs Courtesy:
Lokvangmay Grih)
Ambedkar had perhaps gotten used
to exclusion by then. The greatest exponent of Buddhism after Asoka had
ruthlessly been kept out of this Buddha Jayanti committee presided over
by S. Radhakrishnan, then vice-president and a man who embarrassingly
believed that Buddhism was an “offshoot of Hinduism”, and “only a
restatement of the thought of the Upanishads from a new standpoint”.
Worse, when Nehru replied to Ambedkar the next day, he said that the sum
set aside for publications related to Buddha Jayanti had been
exhausted, and that he should approach Radhakrishnan, chairman of the
commemorative committee. Nehru also offered some business advice,
gratuitously: “I might suggest that your books might be on sale in Delhi
and elsewhere at the time of Buddha Jayanti celebrations when many
people may come from abroad. It might find a good sale then.”
Radhakrishnan is said to have informed Ambedkar on phone about his
inability to help him.
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is the vinaya that the prime minister and vice-president of the day
extended to the former law minister and chairperson of the drafting
committee of the Constitution. It was suggested with impertinence that
Ambedkar could set up a stall, hawk copies and recover costs. When Karna
needed to attend to the wheel of his chariot, Krishna goaded Arjuna to
strike the fatal blow. But this time Karna managed to pull away from
what he called the “dung-heap of Hinduism”, away from holy books like
the Bhagavad Gita that offered an “unheard-of defence of murder”, to
steer the Wheel of Dhamma. The man who lamented the lack of ethics and
morals among Hindus and sought refuge in the “sacred morality” of
Buddhism did not live to see a printed version of The Buddha and His Dhamma.
The huge flock that walked away into Buddhism on October 14 that year
was, for the moment, denied the message their Shepherd wished to
bequeath to them.
The violence and injustice done to Ambedkar by India cannot be atoned
for by the same Radhakrishnan, now as president, inaugurating
Ambedkar’s statue in Parliament in 1967, by an afterthought Bharat
Ratna, by random political parties garnishing their garrulous posters
with his pictures, by the hypocrisy of textbook writers who admonish
Dalits for lacking a sense of humour. Only an earnest return to
Ambedkar, through a pursuit of his ideas of emancipatory justice in an
intrinsically unequal society, can help repair the damage.
Much like the religion he embraced had been vanquished from India for
close to 1,200 years until British archaeologists and Orientalists
literally excavated it, Ambedkar and his intellectual legacy have been
lying buried, sedimented beneath layers of indifference, hatred and
contempt. Nearly half of his writings were first published only after
the 1980s; some of his manuscripts are said to have been lost. His works
are still not available in mainstream bookstores. As Sharmila Rege (Songsters from the Mudhouse)
shows in her essay, his life, ideas and books have been kept alive
solely by Dalits in their segregated enclaves, in counter-public
spheres. The partial exhumation that has happened since the 1991
centenary year is largely of Ambedkar’s pratima (image), not his
pratibha (genius), to use political theorist Gopal Guru’s felicitous
distinction.
The foundation for Ambedkar’s defeats was laid by the 1932 Poona
Pact. While Gandhi saw the double vote and separate electorates as
dividing Hindus, Ambedkar had no reason to see himself and fellow Dalits
as ‘Hindus’—a nebulous category that gained currency only in the
colonial and nationalist period, with one newspaper even unabashedly
flaunting this as its raison d’etre.
Subsequently, Ambedkar lost every poll of consequence he contested.
Contrary to popular belief that he was welcomed into the Constituent
Assembly to spearhead the making of the Constitution, every effort was
made to thwart him. Ambedkar had hoped that the Cabinet Mission Plan of
May 1946 would facilitate a tripartite agreement between Hindus
(Congress), Muslims (Muslim League) and the Scheduled Castes (Scheduled
Castes Federation or SCF). However, the crushing defeat of SCF
candidates in the March 1946 provincial assembly elections undermined
Ambedkar’s position. Such a loss was only to be expected in a post-Poona
Pact scenario where caste Hindus, who invariably outnumbered the Dalits
even in reserved constituencies, elected only obliging ‘harijans’, not
Dalits. In a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, Ambedkar too lost.
May 8, 1950 Babasaheb being sworn in as independent India’s first law minister
When members were being elected to
the CA by provincial assemblies, Ambedkar stood little chance with SCF
members in the Bombay province unable to make up the numbers. Bombay
premier B.G. Kher, under instructions from Sardar Patel, ensured that
Ambedkar was not elected to the 296-member body. Says Ambedkar’s
biographer Dhananjay Keer, “The Congress elected its men. The majority
of them were elected not because they knew much about
constitution-making but because they had suffered imprisonment in the
patriotic struggle.”
At this juncture, Jogendra Nath Mandal (1904-1968), a man forgotten
today except in the Dalit circles of Bengal, came to Ambedkar’s rescue.
As the leader of SCF in Bengal, he had forged an alliance with the
Muslim League and commandeered the numbers to get Ambedkar elected to
the CA from the Bengal assembly. After Partition, Mandal became a member
and temporary chairman of Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly, and served
that country as its first minister of law and labour. That Pakistan’s
first law minister, like Ambedkar, was also Dalit is almost forgotten
today. Bengal’s Partition disabled Ambedkar’s membership of the CA.
However, now finding him indispensable, the Congress allowed for his
fresh election from Bombay following the resignation of M.R. Jayakar.
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1951, in the first-ever parliamentary elections, Ambedkar—having
resigned from Nehru’s cabinet as law minister, disgusted by the repeated
scuttling of the Hindu Code Bill—contested from Bombay City North, a
double-member constituency that was required to return both a general
and an SC candidate. Contesting the reserved seat, he lost to Congress
candidate Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar by 14,374 votes. S.A. Dange, one of
the founders of the Communist Party of India, canvassed against
Ambedkar, accusing him of ‘separatist’ politics, saying he favoured not
just separate electorates for untouchables but also for the Muslims; and
that he suggested Kashmir could be divided. Arun Shourie was not the
first to hurl such abuse.
Ambedkar tried his luck again in a 1954 byelection from Bhandara, but
lost to unknown Congressman Bhaurao Borkar. The Congress merely wished
to prove that a ‘seventh standard pass’ could defeat Babasaheb. Dalits
and Adivasis may enjoy ‘reserved seats’ today in proportion to their
ratio in the population, but the FPTP method ensures that those elected
are inevitably pliable candidates propped up by parties with
majoritarian interests—the Kajrolkars and Borkars, Jagjivan Rams and
Bangaru Laxmans, Sushilkumar Shindes and Meira Kumars who would do their
masters’ bidding.
In such a hollowed-out democracy, liberal scholars comfortably
celebrate Ambedkar’s constitutionalism, steering clear of the radicalism
of works like States and Minorities (1945), which he proposed
as the ‘Constitution of the United States of India’ at a time when he
was not sure of a place in the CA. Besides its sharp, left-leaning
socialist tenor—“key industries shall be owned and run by the
State…insurance shall be a monopoly of the State…agriculture shall
be a State industry”—this document needs to be revisited for the
political solutions it offers to pre-empt the rise of a Narendra Modi,
the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the stalemate in Kashmir and even the
Bodo-Muslim problem in Assam.
At the heart of Ambedkar’s idea of democracy was his passion to
preserve the rights of minorities, for he saw Indian society as a
conglomeration of minorities. He offered a formula that would thwart the
communal majority (“born, not made”) from claiming a political
majority. In the Central Assembly, the Hindus, who form 54 per cent of
the population, should get 40 per cent representation; Muslims with 28.5
per cent, 32 per cent; 14 per cent SCs, 20 per cent; 1.16 per cent
Indian Christians, 3 per cent etc. In Bombay, Hindus who form 76.42 of
the population would get 40 per cent representation; Muslims at 9.98 per
cent, 28 per cent; SCs at 9.64 per cent, 28 per cent.
Shared space At a Bombay function in 1951, Babasaheb seated S.K. Bole in his lap
In other words, minorities must
get representation positively disproportionate to their ratio in
population while for the majority community it is capped at 40 per cent.
Undergirding this mechanism—which would have surely prevented Partition
and allayed Jinnah’s justifiable fears of Muslims being overrun by
Hindus—is the belief that “majority rule is untenable in theory and
unjustifiable in practice. A majority community may be conceded a
relative majority of representation but it can never claim an absolute
majority”. Ambedkar prophesied that the rise of Hindutva was hardwired
into the machinery of FPTP parliamentary democracy.
In Gujarat today, where we have a mere 2.7 per cent legislators who
are Muslim against a population share of 9 per cent, Ambedkar’s worst
fears have been borne out with a communal majority posing as political
majority. Parliamentary democracy as it stands today in India offers no
relief to minorities; the minorities are “overwhelmed by the majority”;
in Ambedkarite terms this rule of a brute communal majority cannot be
termed democracy at all.
An earnest and sincere engagement with Ambedkar means we rethink the
way our society is organised; we must rethink caste and ask ourselves if
India is ready to do today what Ambedkar asked of it in 1936: “You must
not forget that if you wish to bring about a breach in the system then
you have got to apply the dynamite to the Vedas and the Shastras, which
deny any part to reason; to Vedas and Shastras, which deny any part to
morality. You must destroy the Religion of the Shrutis and the Smritis.
Nothing else will avail.”
The time has come to jettison Ramayana and embrace Bhimayana; the
time has come to reject Gandhi’s Ram Rajya and usher in what Ambedkar’s
forebear Jyotirao Phule called Bali Rajya. The time has come to dump the
Dronacharya and Arjuna awards that memorialise deceitful gurus and
their unscrupulous chelas. While ushering in Bhim Raj, we should be
prepared to reclaim Eklavya, Surpanakha, Karna and Shambuka. Ambedkar
felt a social revolution was not possible in India. On this one count,
we ought to prove him wrong.
Separate And Unequal
- At Satara High School, is made to sit apart, denied water. Local
barbers do not cut his hair; sister Manjula does. At Bombay’s
Elphinstone High School, high-caste children rush to ‘save’ their tiffin
boxes behind the blackboard when Bhim is asked to write on it.
- After a BA from Bombay University in 1913, the Maharaja of
Baroda, Sayajirao Gaekwad, sends Ambedkar to Columbia University on a
scholarship of £11.5 per month for three years. “In Columbia,” he says,
“I experienced social equality for the first time.”
- On Mar 20, 1927, leads 3,000 Dalits in Mahad to draw water from
the Chavdar Tank. Hindus attack. “Under Brahmin Peshwa rule,” he says,
“I’d have been trampled by an elephant.”
***
Good Press, Bad Press
- The Hindu in a Sep 26, 1936, editorial on the Poona
Pact doesn’t mention Ambedkar’s name; it alludes to him as “those who do
not look with favour on India’s aspirations”.
- At the 5th conference of the UP SCF in Lucknow in Apr ’48,
Ambedkar says, “What I want is power—political power for my people.” An
editorial in The Leader retorts: “Dr Ambedkar has chosen precisely this moment to tell the Scheduled Castes, ‘a united nation is all rot’.”
- Time on Mar 16, 1936: “Dr Ambedkar is probably the only
man alive who ever walked out in a huff from a private audience with
the Pope of Rome. His Holiness Pius XI, having heard from Dr Ambedkar
about the miseries of Indian outcastes, replied: ‘My son, it may take
three or four centuries to remedy these abuses, be patient’.”
(S. Anand is the publisher of Navayana and co-author of Bhimayana, a graphic biography of Ambedkar.)
Vision For A New India
The Other Father
In his intolerance of inequality and creation of a
rights-based constitution, Ambedkar’s vision for a modern India is still
our blueprint for the future
Anand
Bollimera, a SC/ST activist from Andhra Pradesh, who was a part of the
SC/ST Swadhikar rally in 2003 that traversed the entire nation with a
picture of Ambedkar on a vehicle, knew none of the languages of those
villages and towns where they organised rallies. Emotions would run high
at these meetings thronged by SC/STs revering Ambedkar. The activists
were never short of donations and food, as well as diesel for their
onward journey.
Anand realised that an image of Ambedkar was the sole unifying factor
for all SC/STs, transcending language barriers, from Calcutta to
Kanyakumari. Ambedkar has an everyday presence in the lives of the 160
million-strong SC/ST community. He gave millions of Untouchables an
identity of their own.
Bodhisattva Bharat Ratna Babasaheb B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), as he
is known to his followers, is now regarded as a great Indian, a person
relevant for all times to come. This is not because his followers are
unwavering in their devotion, or that they happen to be numerically
higher than supporters of any other person (dead or living) in India;
and certainly not because he probably has the highest number of statues
erected for any man in history. It is because his following has
transcended generations. His relevance—political, social, ideological,
religious, economic—will persist as long as the clamour and struggle for
justice and equal rights exists.
In a speech on the birth centenary of social reformer M.G. Ranade in
1943, Ambedkar defined a great man: “Sincerity and intellect are enough
to mark out an individual as being eminent…. A great man must have
something more than what a merely eminent individual has. A great man
must be motivated by the dynamics of a social purpose and must act as
the scourge and the scavenger of society. These are the elements (that)
constitute his title deeds to respect and reverence.” Ambedkar himself
fits the definition quite perfectly.
The stage that catapulted Ambedkar to indisputable prominence was
Gandhi’s fast undo death, opposing the political safeguards that
Ambedkar secured for the Untouchables from the British in 1932. The
Poona Pact between Gandhi and Ambedkar on September 24, 1932, shaped our
electoral system and the electoral method by which reserved
constituencies were defined.
Ambedkar introduced reservation for untouchables in jobs, education
and scholarships through the Poona Pact. Initially unwilling, Gandhi
finally agreed to a representation of scheduled castes in legislative
bodies under it. But Gandhi skewed the electoral method, which made the
election of a reserved candidate dependent upon the dominant caste vote.
This rendered them subservient to the interests of dominant social
forces, defeating the very purpose for which such representation was
secured.
Gandhi and Ambedkar agreed on many things, only to differ on the
methodology. Gandhi’s assassination before the Constitution could be
finalised even gave an opportunity to Sardar Patel to move towards
abolishing political safeguards to Dalits and tribes, but which were
rescued due to Ambedkar’s persistence. They were first extended by Nehru
in 1961. The representative character of reserved candidates remained
the way Gandhi wanted them to be.
While Gandhi’s assassination restricted his historical contribution
to the achievement of Swaraj, it was Ambedkar’s idea of a new India that
made him establish a rights-based Constitution. Now these very
constitutional means are used to secure the same rights for all—food,
livelihood, education, political and social safeguards, thus revisiting
Ambedkar’s contribution to the body politic.
Poona Pact participants
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adult franchise was a right for which Ambedkar fought since 1928 before
the Simon Commission, which the Congress boycotted. This, at a time
when Europe was still considering female franchise and America the vote
for Blacks. He warned Constituent Assembly members that they shouldn’t,
in their eagerness to bring Indian states into the Union, compromise in
any manner on the basic principles of democracy. Ambedkar fought against
an emerging democracy of patronage to create a democracy of rights for a
new India.
Ambedkar’s vision of modern India tends to revisit us more often. His
1955 idea of linguistic states split Bihar and Madhya Pradesh into two,
which became a reality in 2000. He was for small states and wanted
Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra split into three. He looked at Bombay as a
city state and Hyderabad as the second capital of India for its
centrality. The idea of gender equality, which Ambedkar wanted to
achieve through the Hindu Code Bill by making women coparceners in 1951,
was realised in 2005. Ambedkar chose to resign from Nehru’s cabinet on
the issue of gender equality, while orthodox Hindu leaders derided him
as a Modern Manu, as he dared to dispute the laws of Manu.
Ambedkar’s vision remains unfulfilled. His body politic was to be a
“united states of India”—an indissoluble union. In his India there
wouldn’t be landlords, tenants and landless labourers; where all land
would be vested with the state and where all Dalits would be resettled
in other settlements, away from their oppressive villages. For him
agriculture would be considered a state industry, insurance a state
monopoly and every citizen would be entitled to a policy.
The nation owes it to the tenacity of SC/STs for relentlessly pushing
Ambedkar and his ideals to the centrestage, arguing that he was not
only a leader of Dalits, but a great nation-builder. Throughout their
fight against oppression and hatred over the decades, Dalits have
redistributed, reread, and reinterpreted Ambedkar’s books. Finally, we
have come to a stage where the nation has realised that its body politic
is in peril, and has silently admitted the point that democratic ideals
should have precedence over everything.
The relevance of Ambedkar to modern India is indisputable—where Gandhi’s role stopped, Ambedkar’s started.
(The author is an IAS officer and has a PhD in Electoral Systems and the Poona Pact of Gandhi-Ambedkar)
Ambedkar vs Gandhi
A Part That Parted
Gandhi and Ambedkar feuded over how they saw
untouchability, one as just a sin of Hinduism, the other as the denial
of rights to an oppressed people
The
confrontation between Ambedkar and Gandhi was a historic one. It had
its beginnings in the Round Table Conferences of 1930-32. Ambedkar had
gone for the first, as the prime representative of Dalits, or
Untouchables. But when Gandhi finally decided to attend the second
conference, he argued fervently that he represented the Untouchables,
because they were an integral part of the Hindu fold—which he
represented. To Ambedkar, the Untouchables were not a part of the Hindus
but “a part apart” (a phrase he had once applied to himself), a
uniquely oppressed people. They could accept, even welcome, the coming
of independence and its inevitable domination by the Congress (i.e. by
caste Hindus), but they needed “safeguards”.
Ambedkar had originally felt that with universal suffrage, reserved
seats would be sufficient. But universal suffrage was not given, and the
issues at the conference revolved around separate electorates. Gandhi
was reconciled to giving this to Muslims; he had already accepted their
identity as a separate community. Not so for Dalits. When the Ramsay
MacDonald Award gave separate electorates to Dalits, he protested with a
fast unto death. And this brought him into direct confrontation with
Ambedkar.
For Ambedkar, the problem was simple. If Gandhi died, in villages
throughout India there would be pogroms against the Dalits. They would
be massacred. Ambedkar surrendered, and the Poona Pact formalised this
with reserved seats for Dalits—more than they would have had otherwise,
but in constituencies now controlled by caste Hindus.
Ambedkar wrote, many years later, in What Congress and Gandhi have Done to the Untouchables:
“There was nothing noble in the fast. It was a foul and filthy act. The
fast was not for the benefit of the Untouchables. It was against them
and was the worst form of coercion against a helpless people to give up
the constitutional safeguards (which had been awarded to them).” He felt
the whole system of reserved seats, then, was useless. For years
afterwards, the problem of political representation remained chronic.
Ambedkar continued to ask for separate electorates, but futilely. By the
end of his life, at the time of writing his Thoughts on Linguistic States
in 1953, he gave these up also and looked to something like
proportional representation. But the Poona Pact remained a symbol of
bitter defeat, and Gandhi from that time on was looked on as one of the
strongest enemies of the Untouchables by Ambedkar and his followers.
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the fast, Gandhi formed what he called the Harijan Sevak Sangh. Here
again, crucial differences arose. Ambedkar argued for a broad civil
rights organisation which would focus on gaining civic rights for
Dalits—entry into public places, use of public facilities, broad civil
liberties—and he wanted it under the control of the Dalits themselves.
Instead, Gandhi envisaged a paternalistic organisation, controlled by
caste Hindus working for the “uplift” of Untouchables. This flowed from
his basic theory, which saw untouchability as a sin of Hinduism—but not a
basic part of Hinduism, rather a flaw in it which could be removed;
upper-caste Hindus should atone for this, make recompense, and take
actions for the cleansing and uplift of the Dalits. This included
programmes of going to clean up slums, preaching anti-alcoholism and
vegetarianism and so forth. For Ambedkar, all of this was worse than
useless. He condemned the Harijan Sevak Sangh in strong language: “The
work of the Sangh is of the most inconsequential kind. It does not catch
anyone’s imagination. It neglects most urgent purposes for which the
Untouchables need help and assistance. The Sangh rigorously excludes the
Untouchables from its management. The Untouchables are no more than
beggars, mere recipients of charity.” He concluded that the Untouchables
see the Sangh “as a foreign body set up by the Hindus with some
ulterior motive…the whole object is to create a slave mentality among
the Untouchables towards their Hindu masters”. This, to Ambedkar, was
the major thrust of paternalism.
This debate on the Sangh had as its background a fundamental
difference in the very goals of Ambedkar and Gandhi. Ambedkar stood for
the annihilation of caste. He saw untouchability as a fundamental result
of it, and believed there could be no alleviation, no uplift, no relief
without the abolition of caste. Gandhi was not simply a devoted Hindu,
but also a fervent believer in his idealised version of “varnashrama
dharma”. He felt that what he considered to be the benign aspects of
caste—its encouragement of a certain solidarity—could be maintained
while removing hierarchy and the evil of untouchability. This was in
fact the essence of his reformism.
This was followed by a conflict between Ambedkar and Gandhi over
religion. Ambedkar had by now become thoroughly disillusioned with
Hinduism. He argued for conversion, and in 1936 made the historic
announcement at Yeola that “I was born a Hindu and have suffered the
consequences of untouchability. I will not die a Hindu”. Two days later,
Gandhi held a press conference, calling Ambedkar’s decision
“unbelievable. Religion is not like a house or cloak which can be
changed at will”. On August 22, 1936, he wrote in the Harijan
(the name given to his newspaper): “One may hope we have seen the last
of any bargaining between Dr Ambedkar and savarnas for the transfer to
another form of several million dumb Harijans as if they were chattel.”
This way of speaking became typical of him; he could not envisage the
anger and grief of the millions of Dalits who followed Ambedkar on this
issue.
Behind this were different views
of humanity. Gandhi did not see untouchables as individuals born into a
particular community but rather as somewhat unthinking members of an
existing Hindu community; Hinduism he saw as their “natural” religion,
their task was to reform it, they should not leave it. Ambedkar, in
contrast, put the individual and his/her development at the centre of
his vision, and believed this development was impossible without a new,
true religion. The confrontation was inevitable.
The feud between Gandhi and Ambedkar did not stop here. The final
difference was over India’s path of development itself. Gandhi believed,
and argued for, a village-centred model of development, one which would
forsake any hard path of industrialism but seek to achieve what he
called “Ram rajya”, an idealised, harmonised traditional village
community. Ambedkar, in contrast, wanted economic development and with
it industrialisation as the basic prerequisite for the abolition of
poverty. He insisted always that it should be worker-friendly, not
capitalistic, at times arguing for “state socialism” (though he later
accepted some forms of private ownership of industry). He remained,
basically, to the end of his life a democratic socialist. To him,
villages were far from being an ideal; rather they were “cesspools”, a
cauldron of backwardness, tradition and bondage. Untouchables had to
escape from the villages, and India also had to reject its village past.
In sum, there were important, irreconcilable differences between
Gandhi and Ambedkar. Two great personages of Indian history, posed
against one another, giving alternative models of humanity and society.
The debate goes on!
(Gail Omvedt is a veteran chronicler of the SC/ST movement.)
Identity Politics
The Apostate Children Of God
Ambedkar knew that there would be outcasts as long as there are castes
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The Laws of Manu
is one of the most exemplary texts of ideology in the entire history
of humanity. The first reason is that while its ideology encompasses
the entire universe, inclusive of its mythic origins, it focuses on everyday practices as the immediate materiality of ideology:
how (what, where, with whom, when…) we eat, defecate, have sex, walk,
enter a building, work, make war, etc. The second reason is that the
book stages a radical shift with regard to its starting point
(presupposition): the ancient code of Veda. What we find in Veda is the
brutal cosmology based on killing and eating: higher things kill and
eat/consume lower ones, stronger eat weaker, i.e., life is a zero-sum
game where one’s victory is another’s defeat. The “great chain of
being” appears here as founded in the “food chain,” the great chain of
eating: gods eat mortal humans, humans eat mammals, mammals eat lesser
animals who eat plants, plants “eat” water and earth… such is the
eternal cycle of being. So why does then Veda claim that at the top of
society are not warriors-kings stronger than all other humans, “eating”
them all, but the caste of priests? Here, the ideological ingenuity of
Veda enters the stage: the function of the priests is to prevent the
first, highest, level of cosmic eating: the eating of human mortals by
gods. How? By way of performing sacrificial rituals. Gods must be
appeased, their hunger for blood must be satisfied, and the trick of the
priests is to offer gods a substitute (symbolic) sacrifice: an animal
or other prescribed food instead of human life. The sacrifice is needed
not for any special favours from gods, but to make it sure that the
wheel of life goes on turning. Priests perform a function which
concerns the balance of the entire universe: if gods remain hungry, the
whole cycle of cosmic life is disturbed. From the very beginning, the
“holistic” notion of the great chain of Being—whose reality is the
brutal chain of stronger eating weaker—is thus based on deception: it
is not a “natural” chain, but a chain based on an exception (humans who
don’t want to be eaten), i.e., sacrifices are substitute insertions
aimed at restoring the complete life cycle.
This was the first contract between ideologists (priests) and those
in power (warriors-kings): the kings, who retain actual power (over life
and death of other people) will recognize the formal superiority of the
priests as the highest caste, and, in exchange for this appearance of
superiority, the priests will legitimize the power of the warriors-kings
as part of the natural cosmic order. Then, however, around the sixth
and fifth century BCE, something took place, a radical “revaluation of
all values” in the guise of the universalist backlash against this
cosmic food chain: the ascetic rejection of this entire infernal machine
of life reproducing itself through sacrifice and eating. The circle of
food chain is now perceived as the circle of eternal suffering, and the
only way to achieve piece is to exempt oneself from it. (With regard to
food, this, of course, means vegetarianism: not eating killed animals.)
From perpetuating time, we pass to the goal of entering the timeless
Void. With this reversal from the life-affirming stance to the
world-renunciation, comparable to the Christian reversal of the pagan
universe, the highest values are no longer strength and fertility, but
compassion, humility, and love. The very meaning of sacrifice changes
with this reversal: we no longer sacrifice so that the infernal
life-cycle goes on, but to get rid of the guilt for participating in
this cycle.
What are the socio-political consequences of this reversal? How can
we avoid the conclusion that the entire social hierarchy, grounded in
the “great food chain” of eaters and those being eaten, should be
suspended? It is here that the genius of The Laws of Manu shines: its basic ideological operation is to unite the hierarchy of castes and the ascetic world-renunciation
by way of making the purity itself the criterion of one’s place in the
caste hierarchy. As Wendy Doniger says in her introduction to this text,
“Vegetarianism was put forward as the only way to liberate oneself
from the bonds of natural violence that adversely affected one’s karma.
A concomitant of this new dietary practice was a social hierarchy
governed to a large extent by the relative realization of the ideal of
non-violence. The rank order of the social classes did not change. But
the rationale for the ranking did.”
Vegetarian priests are at the top, as close as humanly possible to
purity; they are followed by the warriors-kings who reality by
dominating it and killing life — they are in a way the negative of the
priests, i.e., they entertain towards the wheel of Life the same
negative attitude like the priests, albeit in the
aggressive/intervening mode. Then come the producers who provide food
and other material conditions for life, and, finally, at the bottom,
the outcasts whose main task is to deal with all kinds of excrements,
the putrefying dead remainders of life (from cleaning the toilets to
butchering animals and disposing of human bodies).
Since the two attitudes are ultimately incompatible, the task of
their unification is an impossible one and can be achieved only by a
complex panoply of tricks, displacements and compromises whose basic
formula is that of universality with exceptions: ‘in principle yes,
but…’ The Laws of Manu demonstrates a breath-taking ingenuity in
accomplishing this task, with examples often coming dangerously close to
the ridiculous. For example, priests should study the Veda, not trade;
in extremity, however, a priest can engage in trade, but he is not
allowed to trade in certain things like sesame seed; if he does it, he
can only do it in certain circumstances; finally, if he does it in the
wrong circumstances, he will be reborn as a worm in dogshit…
In other words, the great lesson of The Laws of Manu is that
the true regulating power of the law does not reside in its direct
prohibitions, in the division of our acts into permitted and prohibited,
but in regulating the very violations of prohibitions: the law
silently accepts that the basic prohibitions are violated (or even
discreetly solicits us to violate them), and then, once we find
ourselves in this position of guilt, it tells us how to reconcile the
violation with the law by way of violating the prohibition in a
regulated way…
British colonial administration of India elevated The Laws of Manu
into a privileged text to be used as a reference for establishing the
legal code which would render possible the most efficient domination of
India – up to a point, one can even say that The Laws of Manu only became the book of the Hindu
tradition retroactively, chosen to stand for the tradition by the
colonizers among a vast choice (the same as its obscene obverse,
“tantra,” which was also systematized into a coherent dark, violent and
dangerous cult by the British colonizers) – in all these cases, we are
dealing with what Eric Hobsbawm called “invented traditions.” What this
also implies is that the persistence of the phenomenon and social
practice of the Untouchables is not simply a remainder of tradition:
their number grew throughout the nineteenth century, with the spreading
of cities which lacked proper canalization, so that the outcasts were
needed to deal with dirt and excrements. At a more general level, one
should thus reject the idea that globalization threatens local
traditions, that it flattens differences: sometimes it threatens them,
more often it keeps them alive, or resuscitates them by way of adapting
them to new conditions – say, like the British and Spanish re-invented
slavery.
With the formal prohibition of the discrimination of the
Untouchables, their exclusion changed status and became the obscene
supplement of the official/public order: publicly disavowed, it
continues its subterranean existence. However, this subterranean
existence is nonetheless formal (it concerns the subject’s symbolic
title/status), which is why it does not follow the same logic as the
well-known classic Marxist opposition of formal equality and actual
inequality in the capitalist system: here, it is the inequality (the
persistence of the hierarchic caste system) which is formal, while in
their actual economic and legal life, individuals are in a way equal (a
dalit today can also become rich, etc.). The status of the caste
hierarchy is here not the same as that of nobility in a bourgeois
society, which is effectively irrelevant, just a feature which may add
to the subject’s public glamour.
Exemplary is here the conflict between B.R. Ambedkar and Gandhi
during the 1930s: although Gandhi was the first Hindu politician to
advocate the full integration of the Untouchables, and called them “the
children of god,” he perceived their exclusion as the result of the
corruption of the original Hindu system. What Gandhi envisaged was
rather the (formally) non-hierarchical order of castes within which each
individual has his/her own allotted place: he emphasized the importance
of scavenging and celebrated the Untouchables for performing this
“sacred” mission. It is here that the Untouchables are exposed to the
greatest ideological temptation: in a way which prefigures today’s
“identity politics,” Gandhi is allowing them to “fall in love with
themselves” in their humiliating identity, to accept their degrading
work as a noble necessary social task, to perceive even the degrading
nature of their work as a sign of their sacrifice, of their readiness to
do the dirty job for society. Even his more “radical” injunction that
everyone, Brahmin included, should clean his or her own shit, obfuscates
the true issue, which is not that of our individual attitude, but of a
global social nature. (The same ideological trick is performed today by
injunctions which bombard us from all sides to recycle personal waste,
to put bottles, newspapers, etc., in the appropriate separate bins… in
this way, guilt and responsibility are personalized, it is not the
entire organization of economy which is to blame, but our subjective
attitude which should be changed.) The task is not to change our inner
selves, but to abolish Untouchability as such, i.e., not as an element
of the system, but the system itself which generates it. In contrast to
Gandhi, Ambedkar saw this clearly when he, as Christophe Jaffrelot says,
“underlined the futility of merely abolishing Untouchability: this evil
being the product of a social hierarchy of a particular kind, it was
the entire caste system that had to be eradicated: ‘There will be out
castes /Untouchables/ as long as there are castes.’ … Gandhi responded
that, on the contrary, here it was a question of the foundation of
Hinduism, a civilization which, in its original form, in fact ignored
hierarchy.”
In 1927, Ambedkar symbolically burnt a copy of the Manusmriti; Gandhi always held in his hand a copy of the Bhagvad Gita—a text that extolled the varna order in its originary four-fold form. Ambedkar mounted a severe critique of the Gita for being a counter-revolutionary defence of the caste
order. The Gandhi-Ambedkar difference here is insurmountable: it is the
difference between the “organic” solution (solving the problem by way of
returning to the purity of the original non-corrupted system) and the
truly radical solution (identifying the problem as the “symptom” of the
entire system, the symptom which can only be resolved by way of
abolishing the entire system). Ambedkar saw clearly how the structure of
four castes, or the varna system, does not unite four elements which
belong to the same order: while the first three castes (priests,
warrior-kings, merchants-producers) form a consistent All, an organic
triad, the Shudras (slaves) and Untouchables (outside the four-fold
system) are like Marx’s “Asiatic mode of production” the “part of no
part,” the inconsistent element which holds within the system the place
of what the system as such excludes — and as such, the Untouchables
stand for universality. Or, as Ambedkar’s put it in his ingenious
wordplay: “There will be outcasts as long as there are castes.” As long
as there are castes, there will be an excessive excremental zero-value
element which, while formally part of the system, has no proper place
within it. Gandhi obfuscates this paradox, as if harmonious structure is
possible.
Slavoj Žižek is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute
for the Humanities, University of London. His most recent book is Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. A shorter, edited version of this appears in print.
Beyond his light? Many believe Kanshi Ram and Mayawati have done more for the Entire People including SC/STs/OBCs/Minorities through the policy of SARVAJAN HITHAY SARVAJAN SUKHAI
Opinion
An Untouched History
His stature as a social actor often obscures the value of his scholarship
When Gandhi and Ambedkar met in 1931, soon after the first session of
the Round Table Conference, they had a fierce disagreement about
Congress initiatives regarding untouchables. It is significant that
Gandhi thought Ambedkar was an intemperate Brahmin who took interest in
‘Harijan’ matters. This misassumption on Gandhi’s part provides a
historic clue about the incredibility of an untouchable’s entry into
national consciousness.
In the years to come, the Gandhi–Ambedkar stand-off became marked not
only in the political battleground but also in the way they viewed
history, politics and ethics. For Gandhi, politics was a means to escape
the violent traps of history and embrace a non-violent condition of
‘truth’. The mode for the attainment of such a truth formed the impetus
behind Gandhi’s experiments with ahimsa. Ambedkar was more
interested in the violence of history as a reliable source for
understanding the truth of politics. In contrast to the centrality of
‘self’ in Gandhi’s schema of politics, Ambedkar emphasised ‘caste’ as the cardinal category for understanding Hindu identity and Indian history.For Gandhi, if ‘truth’ was outside history, for Ambedkar that truth was untouchability.
Ambedkar conceded that deciphering “the origin of Untouchability is
not the same as writing history from texts” but a case of
“reconstructing history where there are no texts”. So he tried to
interpret what the texts “conceal or suggest”, risking uncertainties
about the ‘truth’. The risk allowed Ambedkar to traverse with acumen
between the textual and the social. For example, the Sanskrit word antya in
ancient Hindu law books, meaning ‘born last’, is associated by orthodox
Hindu scholarship with the untouchable who comes last in the order of
creation. But Ambedkar pointed out that in Vedic theory the last born is
a shudra. So if the untouchable is antya it would mean not
someone born at the end of creation, but at the end of the village. By
that interpretative masterstroke Ambedkar connected Hindu society’s
language of othering with its corresponding practice of ostracising untouchables.
The historian D.D Kosambi was optimistic that the “supposed
unshakeablity and inherent strength” of the caste system would “vanish
as soon as new forms of production come in”. Kosambi’s view that
passenger trains, factories and non-caste guilds among workers would
transform caste into class was echoed by other historians including
Irfan Habib, as well as by Nehru. There was a universalist assumption
regarding the progressive transformation of social relations, based on a
scientific vision of history. In contrast, Ambedkar’s speculative
history of caste today better explains the persistence of caste with the
advent of colonial modernity. While other prominent left historians
probed the issue of caste mainly through political economy, Ambedkar
read the caste system prominently as an entrenched norm of power
relations, both suggesting and hiding its exception: the barbaric
effacement of untouchables.
From the late nineteenth century phase of the nationalist movement, the Gita
became a source of intense debate about the relationship between
morality and politics. Tilak and Aurobindo, among others, upheld the
text’s moral sanction of bloodshed, while Gandhi claimed that once the
elevated ideal of detached action was followed, it was impossible to be
violent. But they were all in accord that the Gita presented a symbolic context for a human being’s duty-bound predicament and they found the text an ethic for individual action.
Ambedkar, on the other hand, stressed that the Gita was “concerned with the particular and not with the general”. He explained how its terminologies of karma and jnana were untranslatable into the generalised, modern notions of ‘action’ and ‘knowledge’. Ambedkar held the Gita to be “neither a book of religion nor a treatise of philosophy” but a text which defends certain religious dogmas, like the chaturvarnya, on “philosophic grounds”. In Hegel’s commentary on the Gita,
the philosopher observed that the “moral principles” and “rules of
conduct” in the text can “only be understood from the caste law”. Hegel
and Ambedkar found the Gita incapable of transcending its casteist context and becoming an individual ethic. Beyond the debate about whether the Gita
propagates violence or non-violence, Ambedkar alone took pains to
historicise the constitutive violence of the text’s casteist framework.
Ambedkar believed in the Buddhist doctrine which differentiates
between ‘the will to kill’ and ‘the need to kill’. He also believed in
‘absolute non-violence’, where he endorsed violence for just ends in the
fight against inequality and oppression. The distinction between ‘will’
and ‘need’ is a tricky one in the context of the justificatory
discourse of state (or any other) violence. But Ambedkar placed his
optimism in the institution of the state in order to overcome the
institution of caste. Gandhi’s political idea of non-violence, as a
“method of securing rights by personal suffering”, was on the other hand
an oppositional politics of counter-sovereignty against the state. But
while Ambedkar saw the possibility of the state reflecting an assertive
caste consciousness, Gandhi did not engage with the state’s class and
caste character.
Ambedkar had once made a distinction between the “learned”, limited
by class interests, and the “intellectual”, emancipated from class
considerations. Among the many learned Indian nationalists, Ambedkar was
a rare intellectual.
A slightly shorter, edited version of this appears in print. This article was edited online on August 11, 2012.
Opinion
The Third Day’s Dawn
The everness of Ambedkar’s appeal lends him a messianic quality. Immortality.
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The
relevance of any idea may be judged by its capacity to make an abiding
impact on society over time. Newly independent India had crafted its
values by branding Jawaharlal Nehru as the modernist visionary of the
future, and M.K. Gandhi as the moralist ideal. Babasaheb Ambedkar also
played a crucial role in this dynamic by proposing a corrective model of
liberal democracy which was different from the positivist tendencies of
the nationalist elite. In the first two decades after Independence,
Ambedkar was relegated to being an insignificant critical voice of the
socially downtrodden masses in opposition to the heightened populist
political appeals of so-called secular nationalism, citizenship and
modernization. However, Ambedkar has been resurrected at regular
intervals, and his ideas and legacy have repeatedly inspired the
disadvantaged groups to challenge the dominant modes of political
articulations.
On his death-bed Ambedkar revitalized Buddhism and appealed to his
followers to leave the Hindu fold. This was not only a revenge on the
part of enlightened dalit groups against the irrational and exploitative
Brahmanic order, but this also simultaneously problematised the
ethical edifice of the modern Constitution—a document that aimed at
providing security and empowerment to the disprivileged sections, and
was ironically drafted by Ambedkar. At one stroke, Ambedkar
demonstrated the limitations of Gandhian Hindu benevolence and also
challenged the limitations of liberal democracy.
In the early 1970s, Ambedkar was resurrected again as a militant voice
of the radical Dalit Panthers Movement in the urban slums of
Maharashtra. The deployment of Ambedkar here was in contrast to his
familiar image as a passive constitutionalist or a saffron-clad
Boddhisatva. The Panthers reinvented him as the philosopher of the
socially wretched who provided rational wisdom to understand the roots
of their exploitation and promised a new world based on justice and
equality. Ambedkar’s ideas were presented as a corrective to the elitist
formulation of Marxist revolution; demands were made for the immediate
inclusion of social democracy in the language of the Left.
Bahujan Samaj Party’s founder Kanshi Ram’s imaginative conceptualization
of ‘bahujan’ must be seen another resurrection of Ambedkar’s
ideological imperatives for social revolution. Kanshi Ram propelled and
completed a journey Ambedkar had begun—in wresting political power in a
democratic system skewed against dalits. Along with the rise of the BSP
in the 1990s, the Ambedkarite logic of reservation and differentiated
citizenship was instrumentalised to defend the state’s policy of
extending the benefits of social justice to the Other Backward Classes
(OBCs). In this avatar, Ambedkar is seen as the harbinger of
anti-Brahmanic social alliance between the Dalits and the OBCs.
In more recent times, Ambedkar has provided the argumentative force for
defending the rights of socially deprived identities within the Muslims,
known as Pasmandas. Positive discrimination has come to be seen as a
means to come to terms with stratified hierarchies within Muslims. The
Sachar Commission partakes of this logic.
With the complete tilt of India’s economic policies towards market-based
neo-liberalism, Ambedkar appears as a hopeful voice of socialist
philanthropy. The failure of Leftist trade unions and other mass
organizations to protect the rights of the working classes, tribals and
city dwellers from the onslaught of capitalist manoeuvring has led them
to utilize Ambedkar’s arguments of social justice. More than the
socialist Nehru, Ambedkar is being seen as the politically valuable
voice to defend the constitutional directives for ensuring basic
entitlements of food, work and education to the worst off sections.
Despite the propaganda machinery of the DAVP (Department of Audio-Visual
Publicity of the I&B ministry) and myth-making in textbooks and
popular culture around the figure of Gandhi, his position in the last
few decades has been confined to the peripheries of our political
habitus. He has increasingly become a quasi-ethical voice of ecological
protectionism, anti-nuclear protests and conflict resolution through
nonviolent means. Gandhi is also identified with emotive middle class
concerns, distanced from the masses, mostly as a decorative icon to flag
‘non-political’ slogans. The NGOization of Gandhi by Baba Amte, Medha
Patkar and Anna Hazare has further arrested Gandhism’s political
capacities. Such movements and their leaders seem to occupy brief media
and societal attention, but they cannot match the emergence of massive
socio-political movements based on demands for social justice,
democratization of public institutions and pro-poor economic policies.
In other words, what we have seen in the last two decades is the visible
mainstreaming of Ambedkar and the marginalization of Gandhi and Nehru
in the political sphere. From being once seen the exclusive voice of
ex-untouchable castes, Ambedkar has emerged as the messianic
spokesperson of a cross-section of deprived communities. Even when
certain movements do not explicitly acknowledge their debt to Ambedkar,
his ideas suffuse most struggles for emancipation and justice.
Ambedkar’s architectonic imagination has fashioned new communitarian
ethics that allows the downtrodden to demand a level playing field in
today’s increasingly skewed world. When the populist ideas of our
nationalist leaders have benefited hugely from state propaganda—a
top-down approach—Ambedkar’s ideas have been resurrected by protest
movements that rise from below.
Harish Wankhede teaches Political Science in Delhi University. An edited, shorter version of this appears in print.
+ve Awakened Ones with Awareness
I’m surpised to see the name of Gautama Buddha missing from the list.
Perhaps he doesn’t qualify because he was born in Lumbini?
Arun Kumar
Lucknow, India
WHILE DECIDING GREATNESS-one of parameter which also needs to be
considered is ‘ enemies ability ‘ that great person encountered with, Dr
Amedkar fought with 5000 year old inhuman, unjustified but deep rooted
and enforced system called casteism , which was more powerful than
hitler, indira or crickets all fast baller together or non coperative
and corrupt system with which JRD , anna or naryan murthy fought while
trying to introduce values in society and business or suman kalynpur and
vinod khanna or rajesh khanna with whom lata and amit compared and
assessed.
ranadheer patwardhan
sangli, India
-ve people with traditional venomous Dominating hatred and angry ones
who believe in First, Second, Third, Fourth rate souls and that the
untouchables have no soul and they could do any harm they wished to do
to them and to prevent them from acquiring the MASTER KEY as desired by
Dr.Ambedkar for the creation of PraBuddha Bharath through the policy of
SARVAJAN HITHAY SARVAJAN SUKHAY by the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Vinod Mehta
Email not available
samir sandilya
guwahati, India
Aditya Mookerjee
Belgaum, India
Mohan
Adipur, India
“The
selection (of nominees) speaks as much about ourselves…. We still
largely see through Nehru’s eyes. Dr Ambedkar stands very, very tall
(despite being ignored by the mainstream). He was not just a Dalit icon
but a scholar as well.” Yogendra Yadav, Scholar and academic
Naveen,
[[Buddhism does not believe in God, while hinduism is filled with
gods herogiri, Buddhism is based on equality, whereas hinduism is based
on inequality and discrimination…]]
If this is what idiots like you think is Hinduism, I’m 100% convinced
that my ancestors were absolutely right in witholding the knowledge of
scriptures from your ancestors.
Very informative essay! One always knew
Ambedkar and Gandhi were opposed to each other on a variety of issues
concerning SC/STs. But a lot of us never knew the details. This essay is
an eye-opener for folks like me.
-ve people with traditional venomous Dominating hatred and angry ones who believe in First, Second, Third, Fourth rate souls and that the untouchables have no soul, so that they could do any harm they wished to do to them, But the Buddha did not believe in any soul. He said all are equal. To prevent them from acquiring the MASTER KEY as desired by Dr.Ambedkar for the creation of PraBuddha Bharath through the policy of SARVAJAN HITHAY SARVAJAN SUKHAY by the Bahujan Samaj Party, HERE WE HAVE VIEWS PAPERS NOT NEWS PAPERS AND THE MEDIAS ARE JUST IDEAS OF THE TRADITIONAL, VENOMOUS, DOMINATING, HATRED AND ANGRY LEADERS OF THE CASTE RIDDEN SOCIETY.
Ramachandra Guha, Historian
Jaitley, Leader of Opposition, Rajya Sabha
Inder Malhotra, Veteran journalistN. Ram, Veteran journalist
Swapan Dasgupta, Journalist and commentator