Squandered Heritage

 

Squandered Heritage

For 65 years, media and academia have failed to do justice to the towering intellect that Ambedkar was. Successive governments have undermined the Constitution he so admirably piloted and his role in its framing has been either exaggerated or underestimated. And now, in a cruel irony, the Sangh Parivar is seeking to usurp his legacy, distorting everything he stood for.

Published : Jun 10, 2015 12:30 IST

A.G. Noorani

 

                         

Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

IT is not amusing but highly reprehensible to see the Sangh Parivar lay claim to B.R. Ambedkar and his rich intellectual and political legacy. Twenty-five years ago it tried the same trick with Gandhi, whom its mentor, M.S. Golwalkar, and L.K. Advani had scorned. Now the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) Sarkaryawah, Bhaiyaji Joshi, proclaims that Ambedkar was a “Mahamanav” who “needs to be studied and understood in totality” (sub-text: discard elements in the whole which the RSS cannot accept). This one takes the cake: “We should collectively create a harmonious society for which he fought throughout his life.” He went so far as to compare RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar with Ambedkar and assert that “the objectives of both were same” ( Organiser ; April 26, 2015). 

The Parivar attacked Ambedkar for his Hindu Code Bill and was up in arms when his work, Riddles in Hinduism , was published. ( Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches , Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, Vol. 4. This entire series is ably compiled from his published and unpublished writings; cited volume wise herein.) 

Ambedkar, on his part, was unsparing in his critiques in that and in other works. “Hindu society is a myth. The name Hindu is itself a foreign name. It was given by the Mohammedans to the natives for the purpose of distinguishing themselves. It doesn’t occur in any Sanskrit work prior to the Mohammedan invasion…. Hindu society as such does not exist. It is only a collection of castes…. Castes don’t even form a federation. A caste has no feeling that it is affiliated to other castes except when there is a Hindu-Muslim riot” ( Annihilation of Caste , Chapter VI, Vol. 1). Volume 12 contains this dissertation for the M.A. Examination in Columbia University (1913-15). 

The Sangh Parivar is unlikely to be pleased by his understanding of India’s history as these extracts suggest: “It is a mistake to suppose that the Mussalman sovereigns of India were barbarous and despots. On the other hand, majority of them were men of extraordinary character. Mohammed of Ghazni ‘showed so much munificence to individuals of eminence that his capital exhibited a greater assemblage of literary genius than any other monarch in Asia has ever been able to produce. If rapacious in acquiring wealth, he was unrivalled in the judgment and grandeur with which he knew how to expend it….’

“Babar, the founder of the Moghul dynasty in India, found the country in a prosperous condition and was surprised at the immense population and the innumerable artisans everywhere. He was a benevolent ruler and public works marked his statesmanship. Sher Shah, who temporarily wrested the throne from the Moghul, was, excepting Akbar, the greatest of Mohammedan rulers and, like Babar, executed many public works….

“With the advent of the English, things began to change. Prosperity bade fair to India and perched itself on the Union Jack. The evil forces were set forth both on the side of the Parliament and the East India Company. The Rule of the Company was anything but wise, it was rigorous, it gave security but destroyed property…. India contributed or rather was made (to) contribute to the prosperity of England in many ways.” Had he lived, Ambedkar would have denounced the Parivar for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

But neither can the Congress claim him as one of its own. Volume 9 in that series published his excellently documented works, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done To The Untouchables and Mr. Gandhi and the Emancipation of the Untouchables . 

It is trite to say that praise of Ambedkar has tended to obscure his contributions as a constitutionalist. However, even this recognition does less than full justice to that tower of intellect. He was head and shoulders above constitutional lawyers like Tej Bahadur Sapru. For, he was steeped in history—Indian, English European and American—in Hinduism, in the Vedas and the Upanishads, and in Economics. His erudition in constitutional law was rooted in these intellectual disciplines and raised him above the mere constitutional lawyer, however famous. In this, he was peerless. Learning was harnessed to a razor-sharp mind, skilled in logic and dialectics.

Neither academia nor the media have acquitted themselves creditably. Even half a century after his death, a definitive biography has not been written. The media revels in trivia, of which the most ridiculous is the persistent statement, even in leading dailies, that he “wrote” the Constitution at Wayside Inn, a restaurant in the Kala Ghoda neighbourhood of Mumbai. He did go there when he practised at the High Court. But from 1942 he lived mostly in New Delhi—moreover, one cannot write a Constitution on the dining table of a restaurant.

Enriched mind On the other hand, his notable efforts on India’s behalf are ignored; for example, his searching cross-examination of Winston Churchill at the Round Table Conference (RTC) in London. Indeed, his role at the RTC itself is underplayed, with attention focussed almost exclusively on his differences with Gandhi and his advocacy of the cause of the untouchables, as they were then known. This is of a piece with neglect of the RTC’s proceedings themselves. They were a preparation for the drafting of the Government of India Act, 1935, which served as India’s Constitution from April 1, 1937, to August 14, 1947 (minus the federation part), and, with adaptations, from August 15, 1947, to January 25, 1950. The Constitution of India came into force the next day and it is based largely on the Act of 1935. Debates in the RTC’s committees were better informed than those in the Constituent Assembly since the former had the best of India’s legal talent. On some of the provisions of our Constitution, notably the moribund Inter-State Council, it is from the deliberations in London, rather than those in New Delhi, that one acquires an understanding of their raison d’etre . Uniquely, Ambedkar was an active participant in both. 

However, well before that he had enriched his mind with a deep study of constitutionalism. Unlike other constitutional lawyers, his study of history, political science and economics had shaped his outlook considerably.

Even as far back as January 27, 1919, he revealed the depth of his knowledge in his written statement and evidence before the Southborough Committee on Franchise. He differed from the British as well as the simplistic Indian approach. He reckoned with India’s social diversities, which the Congress steadfastly refused to do. He said, “Except the Hindus, the rest of the divisions are marked by such complete freedom of communication from within that we may expect their members to be perfectly like-minded with respect to one another. Regarding the Hindus, however, the analysis must be carried on a little further. The significant fact about the Hindus is that before they are Hindus they are members of some caste. The castes are so exclusive and isolated that the consciousness of being a Hindu would be the chief guide of a Hindu’s activity towards non-Hindus. But as against a Hindu of a different caste, his caste-consciousness would be the chief guide of activity. From this, it is plain that as between two Hindus, caste like-mindedness is more powerful than the like-mindedness due to their both being Hindus.” (Vol. 1, page 249.)

The problem was to devise an electoral system that would enable the minorities—religious and caste—to be properly represented in the legislature. “The Untouchables are usually regarded as objects of pity but they are ignored in any political scheme on the score that they have no interests to protect. And yet, their interests are the greatest. Not that they have large property to protect from confiscation. But they have their very persona confiscated. The socio-religious disabilities have dehumanised the untouchables and their interests at stake are therefore the interests of humanity. The interests of property are nothing before such primary interests…. The Congress is largely composed of men who are by design political Radicals and social Tories. Their chant is that the social and the political are two distinct things having no bearing on each other. To them the social and the political are two suits and can be worn one at a time as the season demands” (Vol. 1, pages 255 and 263). He proposed his own scheme in a supplementary written statement.

Ambedkar was in no condition to boycott the Simon Commission. His counsel was not sought by the Motilal Nehru Committee, which was appointed by the All Parties Conference to prepare a draft Constitution of India (1928). He prepared a detailed report for the Simon Commission. One is struck by his nationalist fervour in advocating a powerful Centre with power “to coerce a recalcitrant or rebellious Province acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the country”. This was two decades before the provision for President’s rule in the States was adopted by the Constituent Assembly.

At the RTC in London, he attacked the princes’ claims and spoke up for the rights of Indians. In the real sense of those hackneyed words, Ambedkar was a freedom fighter. The Secretary of State for India, Sir Samuel Hoare, was put in a corner when he deposed before the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform.

“Dr B.R. Ambedkar: I think there is a general agreement that the ultimate goal of India’s Constitution is to be Dominion status?

Sir Samuel Hoare: It has constantly been so stated.

Dr B.R. Ambedkar: So that on the question of the ultimate goal, there is really no dispute?

Sir Samuel Hoare: That would be so, yes.

Dr B.R. Ambedkar: Now what I want to ask you is this: in view of that, would you be prepared to put this in the Preamble to the Government of India’s Constitution that India would be Dominion status, leaving the question of the time and the pace to be determined by circumstances as they arise?

Sir Samuel Hoare: I do not think here and now I would like to give a pledge as to what is or is not put in the Preamble of an Act of Parliament. I, myself, am prejudiced against Preamble of Acts of Parliament, for reasons good or bad, and I would rather say neither yes nor no to Dr Ambedkar’s question.”

At one point, Hoare acknowledged that “Dr Ambedkar’s very acute mind has discovered a gap in the White Paper…. It is an omission that we propose to set right in any final draft”.

The majority and the minorities Ambedkar was rightly oppressed by the reality that Indian society had a permanent communal majority and permanent communal minorities. Sample these comments: “People who rely upon majority rule forget the fact that majorities are of two sorts: (1) Communal majority and (2) Political majority. A political majority is changeable in its class composition. A political majority grows. A communal majority is born. The admission to a political majority is open. The door to a communal majority is closed. The politics of a political majority are free to all to make and unmake. The politics of a communal majority are made by its own members born in it. 

“How can a communal majority run away with the title deeds given to a political majority to rule? To give such title deeds to a communal majority is to establish a hereditary government and make the way open to the tyranny of that majority. This tyranny of the communal majority is not an idle dream. It is an experience of many minorities.” On another occasion, he wrote: “In India, the majority is not a political majority. In India the majority is born; it is not made. That is the difference between a communal majority and a political majority. A political majority is not a fixed or a permanent majority. It is a majority which is always made, unmade and remade. A communal majority is a permanent majority fixed in its attitude. One can destroy it, but one cannot transform it. If there is so much objection to a political majority, how very fatal must be the objection to a communal majority?... My proposals do not ask the Hindus to accept the principle of unanimity. My proposals do not ask the Hindus to abandon the principle of majority rule. All I am asking them is to be satisfied with a relative majority. Is it too much for them to concede this?… Without making any such sacrifice, the Hindu majority is not justified in representing to the outside world that the minorities are holding up India’s freedom. This false propaganda will not pay. For, the minorities are doing nothing of the kind. They are prepared to accept freedom and the dangers in which they are likely to be involved; provided they are granted satisfactory safeguards.”

In a memorandum on “States and Minorities”, he wrote: “Unfortunately for the minorities in India, Indian nationalism has developed a new doctrine which may be called the Divine Right of the Majority to rule the minorities according to the wishes of the majority. Any claim for the sharing of power by the minority is called communalism, while the monopolising of the whole power by the majority is called nationalism.”

In the plenary session of the RTC, he declared: “We hold that the problem of the depressed classes will never be solved unless they get power in their own hands .” That alone, rather than mere safeguards, can assure protection to the minorities—a share in power. 

It was formidable intellectual equipment that Ambedkar brought to bear on his tasks in the Constituent Assembly 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, they have no capacity for grading their loyalties as well as for being moved by them; if they have no natural inclination to liberty and no natural respect for law; if they lack good humour and tolerate foul play; if they know not how to compromise or when; if they have not that distrust of extreme conclusions which is sometimes misdescribed as want of logic; if corruption does not repel them; and if their divisions tend to be either too numerous or too profound, the successful working of 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 stratagems available in the parliamentary system are used without respect for its true spirit. 

Constitutional morality Ambedkar’s three warnings in the Constituent Assembly as it completed its labours in November 1949 are often quoted—the perils of hero worship; satyagraha or civil disobedience; and neglect of social and economic uplift. All three have gone unheeded, though. But even more tragic is the utter indifference to the far more insightful remarks he made in the Constituent Assembly on November 4 while introducing the Draft Constitution: 

“I agree that administrative details should have no place in the Constitution. I wish very much that the Drafting Committee could see its way to avoid their inclusion in the Constitution. But this is to be said on the necessity which justifies their inclusion. Grote, the historian of Greece, has said: ‘The diffusion of constitutional morality, not merely among the majority of any community but throughout the whole, is the indispensable condition of government at once free and peaceable; since even any powerful and obstinate minority may render the working of a free institution impracticable, without being strong enough to conquer ascendancy for themselves.’

“By constitutional morality Grote meant ‘a paramount reverence for the forms of the Constitution, enforcing obedience to authority acting under and within these forms yet combined with the habit of open speech, of action subject only to definite legal control, and unrestrained censure of those very authorities as to all their public acts combined too with a perfect confidence in the bosom of every citizen amidst the bitterness of party contest that the forms of the Constitution will not be less sacred in the eyes of his opponents than in his own.’

“While everybody recognises the necessity of the diffusion of constitutional morality for the peaceful working of a democratic Constitution, there are two things interconnected with it, which are not, unfortunately, generally recognised. One is that the form of administration has a close connection with the form of the Constitution. The form of the administration must be appropriate to and in the same sense as the form of the Constitution. The other is that it is perfectly possible to pervert the Constitution, without changing its form by merely changing the form of the administration and to make it inconsistent and opposed to the spirit of the Constitution. It follows that it is only where people are saturated with constitutional morality such as the one described by Grote that one can take the risk of omitting from the Constitution details of administration and leaving it for the legislature to prescribe them. The question is, can we presume such a diffusion of constitutional morality? Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic ” ( Constituent Assembly Debates ; Vol. 7, page 38).Now, 67 years later, constitutional morality is far weaker than it was then. It barely exists. 

The authors of the Constitution opted for the British parliamentary system as a matter of course. At the very outset of their deliberations, at a joint meeting, on June 5, 1947, of the Union Constitution Committee and the Initial Constitution Committee. Vallabhbhai Patel announced the decision in the Constituent Assembly on July 15, 1947: “Both these committees met and they came to the conclusion that it would suit the conditions of this country better to adopt the parliamentary system of Constitution, the British type of Constitution with which we are familiar” ( CAD , Vol. IV, page 578). 

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.

Flouted from the outset India’s leaders began flouting the Constitution from the very outset. President Rajendra Prasad raised a hue and cry over the imposition of President’s Rule in Punjab in June 1951. The office of the President, and later the judiciary, suffered. The civil service was suborned. Governors became dalals of the political party in power at the Centre. 

It had all begun fairly early; as far back as 1937, when the Congress had its first taste of power in the provinces. The issue was whether the Speaker of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, P.D. Tandon, should resign from the Congress. Both Gandhi and Nehru strongly asserted that he should not. That was the beginning of the departure from British conventions. They have been abandoned now, reducing the Constitution to a skeleton denuded of life and blood. The judiciary was no less eager to ignore British judicial culture. One gets a flavour of the gap between the Indian and British judicial cultures from an erudite work, The English Judges: Their Role in the Changing Constitution by Robert Stevens. He is a practising barrister, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn, to which Ambedkar belonged, and an academic as well. Two quotes from it suffice to drive the point home. The Times (London) criticised in these terms on March 10, 2004, one of the finest Lords, Chief Justice Lord Woolf. It said he “cannot quite make up his mind whether he is a liberal reformer or the shop steward for the only trade union in the country whose members wear wigs and not hard hats or cloth caps”. 

Sometime back this writer said in these pages that the Army is the country’s most powerful trade union. I should add that judges of the Supreme Court have been as ardently trade unionist. Stevens sharply remarks, “Judges choosing judges is the antithesis of democracy” (page 144). We have had this obscenity for nearly a quarter of a century thanks to the ipse dixit of the Supreme Court in blatant violation of the Constitution. It passed muster because we have had weak governments since 1991. As Lord Bingham said in 2001: “The courts tend to be most assertive…when political organs of the state are least effective.” 

On November 1, 1948, Ambedkar said: “I feel that it [the Constitution] is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that Man was Vile” ( CAD , Vol. 7, pages 43-44). 

He resigned from the Union Council of Ministers on September 27, 1951, fought the first general election in 1952 in opposition to the Congress, and lost. Differences with the ruling party widened to the extent that he delivered an embittered and unflattering disavowal in the Rajya Sabha on September 2, 1953. “People always keep on saying to me, ‘Oh you are the maker of the Constitution’. My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will.” He added: “I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody….”

Ambedkar’s role in the framing of the Constitution has been either exaggerated or underestimated. The style and content of his performance in the Constituent Assembly as the prime mover of the Draft Constitution have been neglected completely.

He was capable of a shocking factual error on a defining moment in Canada’s constitutional history, the Governor-General’s refusal of a dissolution to Prime Minister Mackenzie King in 1926. He tended to be perfunctory, even testy and short, in his replies ( CAD ; Vol. 7, page 270). His health was failing. 

It is, however, not so much his admirable piloting of the Constitution in the Constituent Assembly as his vision, the spirit behind the entire enterprise, and the fundamentals he propounded, which alone make the text meaningful, which compel admiration.

The vision was abandoned and the fundamentals were flouted. Lesser men came after him.

Courtesy: Frontline

 

Legacy of Dr. BR Ambedkar stands irreconcilably opposed to Hindutva

  Legacy of Dr. BR Ambedkar stands irreconcilably opposed to Hindutva

                By B.Sivaraman

                        cpiml.org
                        25 September, 2003

"Inequality is the soul of Hinduism," wrote Ambedkar. He characterized the oppressive caste system as the tyranny of Hinduism. After spending a lifetime in a crusade against the oppressive Hinduism, Ambedkar finally renounced Hinduism, and converted to Buddhism and exhorted his followers to do the same. It is an irony that BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits are trying to appropriate such a historic personality as Dr. BR Ambedkar.

They have started unveiling Ambedkar photos and statues. Some Sangh ideologues have torn some quotations of BR Ambedkar on Islamic invasions out of context and misinterpreted them to fit Ambedkar in their own anti-Islamic framework. Vinay Katiyar took out an Ambedkar Yatra in UP. Mayawati unveiled a statue of Ambedkar's wife even though her party, the BSP, shamelessly betrayed the Ambedkar tradition by aligning with his arch ideological-political foes, the Hindutva brigade, in a coalition for the sake of power.

To attract dalits to its fold, the BJP made Bangaru Laxman its ornamental chief but he had to ignominiously bow down from office for accepting Tehelka cash bundles. But before his resignation he made a speech in the Nagpur session of the BJP National Council almost equating Ambedkar with Hedgewar. In fact, the actual history convincingly refutes the dirty tricks of the Sangh Parivar.

During the freedom movement, because of the failures and neglect of the Congress a few political streams arose independent of it. Because of the Congress neglect of Muslims and the influence of Hindu conservatism and Hindu dominance in Congress leadership, Muslims rallied independently under the Muslim League. For similar reasons, Sikhs also rallied under the Akali Dal. Brahminical upper caste forces dominated the Congress leadership and the party turned a blind eye to the aspirations of nationalities. In Tamil Nadu, Periyar EV Ramasamy fought against this, first through the anti-Brahmin movement and then went on to represent the nationality aspirations of Tamils.

It was Ambedkar who squarely put social reform on the agenda during the freedom struggle and launched a simultaneous movement against untouchability and the caste order that were the hallmarks of Hinduism, and championed the interests of dalits. In this he was far to the left of Gandhi. On the other hand, far to the right of Gandhian leadership there was first Hindu Mahasabha and later RSS streams, which often collaborated with the British and considered, with open hostility, even Gandhi too liberal. This hostility finally culminated in the assassination of Gandhi by an RSS man Nathuram Godse. Ambedkar was lifelong at loggerheads with the Hindu fundamentalists. Even in his Thoughts on Pakistan,(on which Katiyar's portrayal of him as an anti-Muslim Hindutva figure rests), he ruthlessly critiques the Hindu Mahasabha and Savarkar. He writes: "The Hindu nationalist who hopes that Britain will coerce the Muslims into abandoning Pakistan, forgets that the right of nationalism to freedom from an aggressive foreign imperialism and the right of a minority to freedom from an aggressive majority's nationalism are not two different things, nor does the former stand on a more sacred footing than the latter."(p.10-11) This clearly illustrates his criticism of aggressive mjorotarian nationalism. He furth r criticizes Savarkar, commenting that "strange as it may seem, Mr. Savarkar and Mr. Jinnah instead of being opposed to each other on the two nations issue, are in complete agreement about it". But Ambedkar exposes Savarkar's authoritarian intent: " Mr. Savarkar wants the Hindu nation to be the dominant nation and the Muslim nation to be the subservient nation under it."

Such being the historical evolution of different political streams in India, it is clear that the legacy of Ambedkar and Hindu fundamentalism are irreconcilably hostile to each other. Hindutva forces today are trying to delink Ambedkar from his entire legacy, cover up their hostility towards him and try to appropriate him for electoral use.

The fundamental hostility of the Sangh Parivar against Ambedkar was clearly brought to the fore by the vile campaign unleashed against him by RSS ideologue and presently a BJP minister in Vajpayee's cabinet Arun Shourie through his book Worshipping False Gods. Shiv Sainiks, the soul mates of Hindutva forces, also launched a struggle against Ambedkar's book The Riddles of Hindusim. This is the actual record of Hindutava forces vis-à-vis the heritage of Ambedkar, which they are trying to hide now in order to appropriate his glorious image for their own vested interests.

Ambedkar was the architect of the constitution of India. Sangh Parivar is even opposed to the marginal secular and liberal features of this Constitution and that is why they have formed a committee to tinker with it.
While Ambedkar had total enmity towards Hindu Mahasabha and RSS and other Hindu fundamentalists, he was generally pro-left and, befitting a true democrat in a semi-feudal society, he had a positive attitude towards Marxism though it was unfortunate that the communists in those days failed in their united front tactics and failed to develop a proper relationship with Ambedkar. This was part of their general weakness and shortcomings in India.


The contrast between Ambedkar and Savarkar

Savarkar's strategy of dissolving more than 3,000 castes into one pan-Hindu identity involves pan-Hindu temples, pan-Hindu dinners, inter-caste marriages, anti-untouchability programmes and the removal of injunctions on caste-ridden vocations and sea-voyage. Thus, Savarkar seems to have admonished Hindus to break off the seven shackles that according to him hindered the progress of the Hindu society. Did this programme really denounce Hinduism? The answer to this question has to be in the negative because the anti-caste programme particularly relating to injunctions against inter-caste marriage and advocating vedic rights for the shudras and ati-shudras given by Savarkar did not have vigour and genuine thrust to attack the Hindu shastras and caste system.

Savarkar's contention regarding inter-caste marriages looked to be so casual that he offered only a qualified support to such marriages, thus replacing the need for creating any conscious motivation necessary for the radicalmobilisation of the people towards reaching the desired end. Similarly, Savarkar's attempt to grant the study of vedas and vedic rituals to non-Brahmins though apparently liberal may effectively lead to the Brahminisation of the non-Brahmin castes thus according legitimacy to Hindu shastras.

On the contrary, Ambedkar considers inter-caste marriages as the effective means for abolishing caste system. But Ambedkar is also aware that inter-caste dining or even inter-caste marriages are not enough to eliminate casteism. He was of the opinion that for realising the desired goal of casteless society through inter-caste marriages it is necessary to destroy the belief in the sanctity of Hindu shastras. And for destroying this belief, Ambedkar suggests that people should not only discard the shastras, but they should deny their authority as Buddha and Nanak did. Thus; it can be argued here that socially radical Ambedkar was very unlikely to be attracted by Savarkar whose proposal, according to one of the sincere Savarkarites, contained reformative zeal aimed at revival of Hinduism rather than its denunciation.
(From Appropriating Ambedkar by Gopal Guru,
Economic and Political Weekly, July 6-13, 1991)

Ambedkar was never a Marxist. He could not carry forward his struggle for thoroughgoing abolition of semi-feudalism and against imperialism through a democratic revolution like Mao did in China. He focused mainly on the petty bourgeois and bourgeois intelligentsia from the oppressed communities and worked largely within the system representing their interests in the form of reservation etc. Nevertheless, despite this limitation, he remained an outstanding bourgeois revolutionary democrat who was head and shoulders above many in the Congress leadership and was clearly far more radical than Gandhi.

In the course of his differences against the Congress, he never made any concession to the Hindu Right and always remained hostile to them.
Against Brahminical Hinduism During his boyhood Ambedkar had to suffer lots of personal humiliation due to untouchability. In Chowder Tank satyagraha led by Ambedkar in 1927, the upper caste Hindus attacked him and physically injured him. During the freedom movement Ambedkar emerged as the tallest leader of social reform in India.

Ambedkar asserted: "I was born a Hindu, but never will die a Hindu. What is required is to get rid of the doctrine of 'Chatuvarna'. That is the root cause of all inequality and is also the parent of the case system and untouchability, which are merely other forms of inequality". It is relevant to note here that while both Hedgewar and Golwalkar upheld Manu and thus rationalised the caste system inherent to the Hindu religion, Ambedkar even burnt copies of Manusmruti through a campaign. On December 25, 1927 Ambedkar observed a "Manu Smruti Dahan Din", and publicly burnt Manusmruti. The struggle was known as the "Maha-Sangharsha" of Mahad Satyagraha, and it is an important milestone in dalit struggle against Brahmanism and Brahminical Hinduism. Manuvadis had comspired so that Ambedkar did not get a ground for the meeting, but a Muslim gentleman, Mr. Fattekhan, gave his private land to observe this protest. There was a strong reaction in the Brahmanical press, Babasahib was called"Bheemaasura" by one paper. Dr. Ambedkar justified the burning of Manusmruti in various articles.

Ambedkar made a scathing attack on Hinduism: "I tell you, religion is for man and not man for religion. If you want to organise, consolidate and be successful in this world, change this religion. The religion that does not recognise you as a human being, or give you water to drink, or allow you to enter temples is not worthy to be called a religion. The religion that forbids you to receive education and comes in the way of your material advancement is not worthy of the appellation 'religion'. The religion that does not teach its followers to show humanity in dealing with its co-religionists is nothing but a display of a force. The religion that teaches its followers to suffer the touch of animals but not the touch of human beings is not a religion but a mockery. The religion that compels the ignorant to be ignorant and the poor to be poor is not a religion but a visitation!"

He added this on the upper castes: "It is your claim to equality which hurts them. They want to maintain the status quo. If you continue to accept your lowly status ungrudgingly, continue to remain dirty, filthy, backward, ignorant, poor and disunited, they will allow you to live in peace. The moment you start to raise your level, the conflict starts. Untouchability is not a transitory or temporary feature; it is eternal, it is lasting. Frankly it can be said that the struggle between the Hindus and the Untouchables is a never-ending conflict. It is eternal because the religion which assigns you the lowest status in society is itself divine and eternal according to the belief of the so-called high caste Hindus. No change warranted by change of time and circumstances is possible." Such being the views of Ambedkar, those who offer political patronage to outfits like Ranvir Sena can have no claim over Ambedkar.
The ideologues of Hindutva are trying to rationalise caste system saying that it is a division of labour. Ambedkar refuted this saying, "Caste System is not merely a division of labour. It is also a division of labourers. It is an hierarchy in which the divisions of labourers are graded one above the other." While the Hindutva brigade is known for defending Manu and the caste system, Ambedkar made a trenchant criticism of the caste system associated with Hinduism: "There cannot be a more degrading system of social organisation than the Chaturvarna. It is the system which deadens, paralyses and cripples the people from helpful activity." He further added, "Caste in the hands of the orthodox has been a powerful weapon for persecuting the reforms and for killing all reform." Relating the inseparable relation between caste system and Hinduism, Ambedkar wrote, "Hinduism is a veritable chamber of horrors. The sanctity and infallibility of the Vedas, Smritis and Shastras, the iron law of
caste, the heartless law of karma and the senseless law of status by birth are to the untouchables veritable instruments of torture which Hinduism has forged against untouchables."

In Buddha and His Dhamma, Ambedkar has enumerated the evils of Hinduism in the following manner: 1) It has deprived moral life of freedom; 2) It has only emphasized conformity to commands; and 3) The laws are unjust because they are not the same for one class as of another. Besides, the code is treated as final. According to Ambedkar, "what is called religion by Hindus is nothing but a multitude of commands and prohibitions." The Sangh Parivar is out to make this code the official code in India under their scheme of authoritarian Hindu rashtra.

Sensing the alienation of dalits, many people, from Savarkar to Gandhi, made token gestures against casteism. The RSS was also forced to come out with some tokenist pronouncements. But Ambedkar put things in the right perspective by saying, "Caste cannot be abolished by inter-caste dinners or stray instances of inter caste marriages. Caste is a state of mind. It is a disease of mind. The teachings of the Hindu religion are the root cause of this disease. We practice casteism and we observe untouchability because we are enjoined to do so by the Hindu religion. A bitter thing cannot be made sweet. The taste of anything can be changed. But poison cannot be changed into nectar."

Ambedkar even made a sarcastic comment against Gandhi: "There have been many mahatmas in India whose sole object was to remove untouchability and to elevate and absorb the depressed classes, but everyone has failed in their mission. Mahatmas have come, mahatmas have gone but the untouchables have remained as untouchables." Ambedkar told dalits that, "You must abolish your slavery yourselves. Do not depend for its abolition upon god or a superman. Remember that it is not enough that a people are numerically in the majority. They must be always watchful, strong and self-respecting to attain and maintain success. We must shape our course ourselves and by ourselves." He further stressed that, "What you have lost others have gained. Your humiliations are a matter of pride with others. You are made to suffer wants, privations and humiliations not because it was pre-ordained by the sins committed in your previous birth, but because of the overpowering tyranny and treachery of those who are
above you. You have no lands because others have usurped them; you have no posts because others have monopolised them. Do not believe in fate; believe in your strength."

It may be recalled that Advani recently raised a controversy over a Buddhist symbol like Ashoka chakra figuring in the national flag and a Buddhist symbol being the national emblem. Regarding their origin Ambedkar explained, "Even though Buddhism is almost extinct in India, yet it has given birth to a culture, which is far better and richer than the Brahminic culture. When the question of the national flag and the national emblem was being considered by the Constituent Assembly we could not find any suitable symbol from the Brahminic culture. Ultimately, the Buddhist culture came to our rescue and we accepted the Wheel of Law (Dhamma-Chakra) as the national symbol." No wonder, a Brahminical high-priest of Hindutva like Advani wanted to do away with these symbols introduced by Ambedkar and his colleagues.

In his slanderous campaign against Ambedkar, the RSS ideologue Arun Shourie questioned the patriotism of Ambedkar. Ambedkar, however, defined patriotism thus, "I do not want that our loyalty as Indians should be in the slightest way affected by any competitive loyalty whether that loyalty arises out of our religion, out of our culture or out of our language. I want all people to be Indians first, Indian last and nothing else but Indians." And despite all his differences with the Congress, Ambedkar remained a staunch nationalist.
For Ambedkar, the conception of a secular state is derived from the liberal democratic tradition of the West.

In contrast to the Gandhian misinterpretation of secularism as 'sarva dharma samabhava', Ambedkar said, "No institution, which is maintained wholly out of state funds, shall be used for the purpose of religious instruction irrespective of the question whether the religious instruction is given by the state or by any other body". He further explained the corruption of the concept of secularism in India, "This country has seen the conflict between ecclesiastical law and secular law long before Europeans sought to challenge the authority of the Pope. Kautilya's Arthshastra lays down the foundation of secular law. In India unfortunately ecclesiastical law triumphed over secular law. In my opinion this was the one of the greatest disasters in the country."

Ambedkar effectively punctured the false supremacy of the narrow Brahminical elite: "In every country the intellectual class is the most influential class. This is the class which can foresee, advise and lead. In no country does the mass of the people live the life for intelligent thought and action. It is largely imitative and follows the intellectual class. There is no exaggeration in saying that the entire destination of the country depends upon its intellectual class. If the intellectual class is honest and independent, it can be trusted to take the initiative and give a proper lead when a crisis arises. It is true that the intellect by itself is no virtue. It is only a means and the use of a means depends upon the ends which an intellectual person pursues. An intellectual man can be a good man but he may easily be a rogue. Similarly an intellectual class may be a band of high-souled persons, ready to help, ready to emancipate erring humanity or it may easily be a gang of crooksor a body of advocates of narrow clique from which it draws its support."

Though changing one's religion through conversion is not going to abolish the semi-feudal inequalities, Ambedkar's decision to convert to Buddhism in the evening of his life - just a couple of months before his demise on 16 December 1956 - only underlined his disgust and bitterness with the highly iniquitous Hinduism. About 2 lakh dalits converted to Buddhism along with him in October 1956. Since then neo-Buddhism has remained a trend. This clearly rattled the Hindutva bosses who are clamouring for anti-conversion legislation in every state.

A thorough democrat

Though Ambedkar headed the committee that crafted the Constitution of the democratic republic of India, he was never fully satisfied with the democracy which came to be established in India. In his opinion, "A democratic form of government presupposes a democratic form of a society. The formal framework of democracy is of no value and would indeed be a misfit if there was no social democracy. It may not be necessary for a democratic society to be marked by unity, by community of purpose, by loyalty to public ends and by mutuality of sympathy. But it does unmistakably involve two things. The first is an attitude of mind, and attitude of respect and equality towards their fellows. The second is a social organisation free from rigid social barriers. Democracy is incompatible and inconsistent with isolation and exclusiveness resulting in the distinction between the privileged and the unprivileged." "Democracy is not a form of government, but a form of social organisation", he asserted.

He further elaborated, "What we must do is not to content ourselves with mere political democracy. We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there is at the base of it, a social democracy."

Ambedkar underlined the limitations of formal law and Constitution: "The prevalent view is that once the rights are enacted in law then they are safeguarded. This again is an unwarranted assumption. As experience proves, rights are protected not by law but by social and moral conscience of the society. If social conscience is such that it is prepared to recognise the rights which law proposes to enact, rights will be safe and secure. But if the fundamental rights are opposed by the community, no law, no parliament, no judiciary can guarantee them in the real sense of the world. What is the use of fundamental rights to the untouchables in India?" "If I find the constitution being misused, I shall be the first to burn it," he declared.

Ambedkar also had certain premonitions about the rise of authoritarian forces in India which is coming true before our eyes: "On the 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into 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-one-vote 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. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril". The Sangh Parivar outfits rally tribals and dalits only to use them to attack Christian missionaries as witnessed in Orissa or to launch pogroms against Muslims as seen in Gujarat, and thereby endanger democracy. To
frustrate the designs of the Sangh Parivar it is necessary that today communists and genuine Ambedkarites should come together to defend democracy from communal fascists, a democracy to establish which Ambedkar fought so hard.
In his last days, Ambedkar raised a note of warning: "The point is that India once lost the independence she had. Will she lose it a second time? It is this thought which makes me most anxious for the future. What perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once before lost her independence, but she lost it by treachery of some of her own people...Will history repeat itself? It is this thought which fills me with anxiety. . Will Indians place the country above their creed or creed above their country? I do not know, But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost forever. This eventuality we all must resolutely guard against. We must be determined to defend our independence with the last drop of our blood!" The rise of Hindutva forces who totally cringe before the US imperialism but at the same time are bent upon establishing a fascistic Hindu rashtra has proved how correct this warning was. As Ambedkar called upon us, we must defend this freedom and democracy with the last drop of our blood.

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