Sangh imposing new persona on Ambedkar
This year, April 14 has a special significance. It is the 124th birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar. Every year, his birth anniversary is celebrated all over the country by millions of people, mostly Dalits but also many, many others who recognise him as the greatest of all those who, through the ages, have fought against the inhuman Varnashram Dharma or caste system.
His 124th birth anniversary will, of course, inspire greater and
more enthusiastic celebrations. It is also significant for another
reason. The Sangh Parivar is using all that they have at their disposal
and this now includes the formidable powers and resources of the Indian
State to adopt Dr Ambedkar into their own pantheon. It has many pressing
needs for this. It suffers from lack of national heroes, loved and
respected all over the country for their commitment to the Independence
movement and for the sacrifices that they made for this cause.Dr Ambedkar is not only a national icon, he is also an almost God-like figure to millions of Dalits throughout the country, a community whose co-option is essential to the Sangh project of establishment of a Hindu Rashtra.
Paying homage to Ambedkar through publishing paeans in his honour in all its newspapers, periodicials and publications; garlanding of his statues by its members at all levels; organisation of public meetings devoted to fulsome praise of his achievements in every nook and cranny of the country are some of the events held by the Parivar.
In addition, the Parivar seeks to re-write and re-invent the history of Dalit oppression. The version that they are purveying is that it was never caste Hindus or their Shastras that were responsible for this.
On the contrary, it was the Muslim invaders and then the Christian rulers who reduced Dalits to their position of social subjugation.
In order to succeed, the Sangh Parivar is re-writing and re-inventing history and also imposing a new persona on Dr Ambedkar.
There is an attempt to prove that Dr Ambedkar himself was anti-Muslim. Before long, he may also be transformed into a supporter of Hindu Rashtra.
The truth is quite different. Dr Ambedkar wrote a long and detailed book on “Pakistan or The Partition of India” which was published in 1945 which he began with a detailed description of the events leading up to the Muslim League Pakistan Resolution of l940.
He wrote “There are many lower orders in the Hindu society whose economic, political and social needs are the same as those of the majority of the Muslims and they can be far more ready to make a common cause with the Muslim than they would with high caste Hindus who have deprived them of ordinary human rights for centuries.”
Few people care to remember t hat at one t i me Dr Ambedkar had close relations with Jinnah and they contested elections in Bombay together and shared a political platform quite often. None other than Arun Shourie refers to this in the sneering tone that he adopts towards Dr Ambedkar throughout his book, Worshipping False Gods. He says that Jinnah had informed the Governor of Bombay that in the event of the Congress ministry being defeated in the House, his party would make a bid to form the government with the support of Dr Ambedkar. When the Congress government resigned in 1939, Shourie comments, “Jinnah announced that the Muslim League would celebrate the resignations as ‘Deliverance Day.’ Guess who was at his side in these ‘celebrations’ addressing meetings from the same platforms? Ambedkar, of course.”
Dr Ambedkar was, therefore, not surprised by the 1940 resolution and gave a detailed analysis in his book on the positive aspects of the demand for Pakistan and says that this demand is being raised, in part, as a reaction to the experience of the Congress-led ministries.
However, when Partition did take place, Dr Ambedkar took pains to ensure equal rights to all religious groups in the country and to include safeguards to minority rights in the Constitution of India.
As far as his opinion of Hindu Raj is concerned, in the same book on Partition referred to earlier, he wrote “If Hindu Raj does become a fact it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country.”
Had Dr Ambedkar been alive today, he would have been not just appalled by the theories being purveyed by the Sangh Parivar, he would also have been been extremely disappointed. Throughout his political life, he kept appealing to upper caste Hindus to recognise the barbaric and illogical nature of the caste system and to give them up along with all the Shastras that promoted them.
Five decades after his conversion to Buddhism, the Sangh Parivar has made it clear that by shifting the responsibility for caste oppression onto the shoulders of Muslims and Christians, that the reformation of Hindu society that Dr Ambedkar had hoped for is not something that it has the slightest interest or inclination in bringing about.
The writer is a CPI(M) leader and president, All India Democratic Women’s Association
