A gift of Ambedkar, by Ambedkar
How I discovered Dr. Ambedkar.
This year’s Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti is close to my heart, being the first one ever I am celebrating in much awareness. I find my self to be lucky enough that I got the chance and inspiration to read Dr. Ambedkar. Whereas being the unlucky one I used to associate Dr. Ambedkar up to the extent of The Constitution like most people do. The father of constitution. Dr. Ambedkar would not have liked his association with The Constitution as he himself stated in the debates “Sir, my friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out.1” He explains further “The reason is this: We built a temple for god to come in and reside, but before the god could be installed, if the devil had taken possession of it, what else could we do except destroy the temple? We did not intend that it should be occupied by the Asuras. We intended it to be occupied by the Devas. That’s the reason why I said I would rather like to burn it. 2”
India, specially today, needs to know about Dr. Ambedkar besides the fact that he drafted the Constitution of India, Of course he drafted the constitution of India, he was the only exceedingly educated person in the Drafting Committee except B.N. Rau no body else could have done the job.
My curiosity around Dr. Ambedkar was dense and I started reading about Dr. Ambedkar through a book by Sh. Chandra Bhan Prasad, “ What is Ambedkarism”. The author emphasis us to read “The Schedule Caste Emancipation Manifesto 4” stating that “This piece of writing[the Schedule Caste Emancipation Manifesto] should be regarded as the greatest document Dr. Ambedkar writes. By definition, manifestos are visions, promises for the future”. Chandra Bhan rightly complains that rather than being in the 17th Volume of BAWS it should have been right in the front and celebrated by the followers of Ambedkar as the Communist Manifesto is by Communists and Hind swaraj by Gandhians”. Dr. Ambedkar starts the Manifesto with these lines : “To men and women of India who are expected to think before they vote. To the men and women of India who are expected to believe that public good should come before selfish gain5”. Ambedkar’s India, according to the manifesto of his party, not only proposed to bring about equality in the society but also included mechanised large scale cooperative farming, Successful public sector enterprises competing for global tenders and an Industrial development which is neither Socialistic nor Capitalistic in nature.
In order to obtain some historical context of the atrocities of the caste system I came across an auto-biography of Baby Kamble : “The prisons we broke”. In the world of Baby kamble you are introduced to the harsh lives she was living alongside her community. She mentions about the horror the Mahar community faced everyday just to survive. They were to get down from the road if they sees an upper caste person coming from the other side, that was the norm. A master servant relation so to say. She also mentions how Dr. Ambedkar changed her life and influenced her to break the “prisons”. They realised the importance of education more over higher education through the words of Dr. Ambedkar only. which brought me to Dr. Ambedkar’s own autobiography. Though it is not a detailed documentation, assuming he was not a narcissist, It contains certain chapter of his life which he felt like writing about. In “Waiting for a Visa”, Dr. Ambedkar pens bitter experience of his first job in Baroda where he failed to find any accommodation for himself for being an Untouchable. Note that by now he was a qualified professional out of Columbia University New York and attended the first year of post graduation from London School of Economics. The only place he found to stay was to be vacated after a week when people with lathis surrounded the house demanding his exit from the premises.
Further I studied about the contradiction of ideas between Gandhi and Ambedkar through two documents/books. First is Arundhati Roy’s “The Doctor and the Saint” and second is Dr. Ambedkar’s own writing “Mr. Gandhi and the Emancipation of the Untouchables”. Dr. Ambedkar was representing the Dalits in the first round table conference where he asks for India’s Independence becoming the first Indian Delegate to articulate it in such clear terms in front of British opposition and the world media. Dr. Ambedkar demanded :
- Law against Social boycott of Dalits
- Representation for them in the legislature through separate electorates.
- Adequate representation in public services
- Provisions against prejudiced behaviour
- Representation in the central and provincial cabinets6.
On one side Dr. Ambedkar was a victor in the conference as he steels al the gaze towards him, a man, highly educated and dressed in a western outfit from top to bottom, speaking flawless language of Britain, expressing his grief about the atrocities inferred upon Dalits in India whereas on the other side within India, the press was hostile towards him, the largest party of India was hostile against him and Gandhi was hostile against him when he set up a meeting with Dr. Ambedkar before the second round table conference. Here the dialogue between Gandhi and Ambedkar is worth reading :
Gandhi : I have been thinking over the problem of Untouchability ever since my school days — when you were not even born. You may perhaps be knowing what enormous amount of effort I had put in to incorporate this in the programme of the congress. The congress has spent not less that twenty lakh rupees on the uplift of the Untouchables.
Ambedkar : “It is true, Mahatma Ji, that you started to think about the problem of Untouchables before I was born. All old and elderly persons always like to emphasise the point of age. It is true that because of you the congress party gave recognition to the problem. But let me tell you frankly that congress did nothing beyond giving formal recognition to the problem. You say the congress spent more than twenty lakh rupees on the uplift of untouchables. I say it was all waste. With such backing I could have effected an astounding change in the outlook and economic conditions of my people. But I tell you that the congress is not sincere about its professions. Had it been sincere, it would have surely made the removal of untouchability a condition, like the wearing of khadi for becoming a member of congress7.
Through out the second round table conference the issue of separate electorates were not decided upon. British Prime Minister proposes to settle the issue after hearing the opinions from both sides and asks to adhere to that settlement and accepting his decision, upon which the parties were told to pledge. Mr. Gandhi signs and Mr. Ambedkar doesn’t. Little did he know that back in India, lodged in Yervada jail in poona, Mr. Gandhi threatens the British Government that he will go on a fast-onto-death should it support Ambedkar’s Separate Electorates demand. This was purely blackmailing and immoral on part of the Mahatma as he had signed a document pledging to obey the decision of the British Prime minister.
Other than this incident there were numerous events and contradiction between Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar. Mr. Gandhi’s idea of Dalit emancipation goes through the Hinduisation of the Untouchables where as Dr. Ambedkar seeks to take his people above a religion and wanted then to be rational, educated and hardworking. Mr. Gandhi believed in the idea of rural development which was very abstract whereas Dr. Ambedkar wanted agricultural industrialisation in rural India paving a road for a better life for people in rural India, specially the untouchables.
Dr. Ambedkar never believed that Dalit emancipation can only be done through acquiring political power and sitting in political higher positions. His model of Dalit emancipation had Dalit entrepreneurs, Dalit landowners and Dalit business men and women in it. The power acquired through education, through wealth, through media, through English language, through cultures, through attire, through infrastructure. Political power can be contested and won by few only and this leads to hero worship of the one who is in power which is most common in India Today. Dr. Ambedkar emphasised against hero worship when he says
“There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness, as has been well said by the Irish Patriot Daniel O’Connell, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty.
This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero- worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.”
Most important today is to read about Dr. Ambedkar and read Dr. Ambedkar himself. He has written a plethora of writings spread across 17 Volumes which are available in all the Indian languages for us to read. On this birth anniversary I would like to gift you his writings.
This is not an exclusive or the only reading list about Dr. Ambedkar nor am I any specialist in this subject. This my smallest contribution in order to bring about more awareness about this stalwart. I still have to read a lot as reading Dr. Ambedkar is a never ending process.
Footnotes
- Dr. BR Ambedkar in the Rajya Sabha on 2 September 1953
- Dr BR Ambedkar in the Rajya Sabha on 19 March 1955
- What is Ambedkarism by Chandra Bhan Prasad.
- Vol-17, Part 1 of BAWS
- Vol: 17, Part 1 of BAWS Page 386
- What is ambedkarism by Chandra Bhan Prasad, page 111
- Dr. Kheer, Ambedkar’s biography page 166
