Dr Ambedkar highlighted in an article ‘who can be called a great man?’, the dire need to rid the society of perennial ills, as monarchs, politicians, social reformers and the like have done precious little to alleviate the sufferings of the downtrodden. But his futile search for a truly great missionary was confined to obsolete fields leaving the idea of writing as a nonstarter.......here I find Roy’s role as a writer activist uplifting, transforming, instrumental. Priceless literary works emerge from the great houses of illusionists, and visionaries. How far have they illuminated the dim , dark world of the untouchable? All the richly woven tapestry always was from time immemorial, of the privileged , by the privileged few and for the privileged few. It was only in the nineteenth century with the onset of peoples revolutions especially French, Russian literature that noticed the ‘poor man’, poverty, squalor, the ugly and the wretched....evoking a few sensitive writers the world over to sketch him from different, defining parameters, time and again.

There has been ample outpourings about the downtrodden in regional writing, dalit literature and also very ineffectively in Indian writing in English. But none touches your soul like the way Velutha’s portrayal does in the novel. The characterization is almost Greek , divine and classic. If the Greek tragedies humbled to dust, a once pompous man, this novel elevates the outcast the scum to the pinnacles of glory while the society hangs its head in shame sadly not before polluting the future, the children and the innocence... with guilt, shame, ambiguity and anarchy as it happens in the case of
The Politicos and Marxists are sketched to perfection......... namely the place of men, the workers, the educated, the leaders ,the policy makers, the priests and the perverts. The very local locale, Ayemmen house at Kottayam in Kerala is at one level purely Indian and on other level, global and universal. This is neither a critique of Marxism nor a complement to capitalism. A Rhodes Scholar, Chacko could only destroy the very local successful paradise pickles with capitalist ideas. The crazy insistence of the mother and uncle, on good language, manners and etiquette for the children is no different from Comrade Pillai’s pride in his niece’s recitation of Scott’s ‘Lochinvar’. It is true that whichever ideology one may embrace, the yearnings for small things, is there nevertheless. It is a double game that men who profess allegiance to an ideology have to play to oil their wheels of fortune. The callous indifference to conscientious decision making and lack of real leadership qualities, men stumble, falter or mask their weakness as seen in the role of Comrade Pillai in his dealing with workers and owners and also in the role of Chacko as worldly wise.
The priests and the people heavily leaning on religion are also dealt a blow as we see in the characters of Father Mulligan ,Miss .Mitten (foreign missionaries) Baby Kochamma and Rev.Ipe. Incidently the novel doesn’t display any characters as strong except of course in the silence and quite strength of Velutha. The normal ordinary characters are developed and simultaneously diagnosed as abnormal or sub-normal based hand on their excesses and scarcities in their (human) nature .Truly a book that mirrors, mirrors, mirrors a true India......

D.B.R.Ambedkar

Born: April 14, 1891
Died: December 6, 1956
Achievements: Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was elected as the chairman of the drafting committee that was constituted by the Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution for the independent India; he was the first Law Minister of India; conferred Bharat Ratna in 1990.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is viewed as messiah of dalits and downtrodden in India. He was the chairman of the drafting committee that was constituted by the Constituent Assembly in 1947 to draft a constitution for the independent India. He played a seminal role in the framing of the constitution. Bhimrao Ambedkar was also the first Law Minister of India. For his yeoman service to the nation, B.R. Ambedkar was bestowed with Bharat Ratna in 1990.

Dr.Bhimrao Ambedkar was born on April 14, 1891 in Mhow (presently in Madhya Pradesh). He was the fourteenth child of Ramji and Bhimabai Sakpal Ambavedkar. B.R. Ambedkar belonged to the "untouchable" Mahar Caste. His father and grandfather served in the British Army. In those days, the government ensured that all the army personnel and their children were educated and ran special schools for this purpose. This ensured good education for Bhimrao Ambedkar, which would have otherwise been denied to him by the virtue of his caste.

Bhimrao Ambedkar experienced caste discrimination right from the childhood. After his retirement, Bhimrao's father settled in Satara Maharashtra. Bhimrao was enrolled in the local school. Here, he had to sit on the floor in one corner in the classroom and teachers would not touch his notebooks. In spite of these hardships, Bhimrao continued his studies and passed his Matriculation examination from Bombay University with flying colours in 1908. Bhim Rao Ambedkar joined the Elphinstone College for further education. In 1912, he graduated in Political Science and Economics from Bombay University and got a job in Baroda.

In 1913, Bhimrao Ambedkar lost his father. In the same year Maharaja of Baroda awarded scholarship to Bhim Rao Ambedkar and sent him to America for further studies. Bhimrao reached New York in July 1913. For the first time in his life, Bhim Rao was not demeaned for being a Mahar. He immersed himself in the studies and attained a degree in Master of Arts and a Doctorate in Philosophy from Columbia University in 1916 for his thesis "National Dividend for India: A Historical and Analytical Study." From America, Dr.Ambedkar proceeded to London to study economics and political science. But the Baroda government terminated his scholarship and recalled him back.

The Maharaja of Baroda appointed Dr. Ambedkar as his political secretary. But no one would take orders from him because he was a Mahar. Bhimrao Ambedkar returned to Bombay in November 1917. With the help of Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur, a sympathizer of the cause for the upliftment of the depressed classes, he started a fortnightly newspaper, the "Mooknayak" (Dumb Hero) on January 31, 1920. The Maharaja also convened many meetings and conferences of the "untouchables" which Bhimrao addressed. In September 1920, after accumulating sufficient funds, Ambedkar went back to London to complete his studies. He became a barrister and got a Doctorate in science.

After completing his studies in London, Ambedkar returned to India. In July 1924, he founded the Bahishkrit Hitkaraini Sabha (Outcastes Welfare Association). The aim of the Sabha was to uplift the downtrodden socially and politically and bring them to the level of the others in the Indian society. In 1927, he led the Mahad March at the Chowdar Tank at Colaba, near Bombay, to give the untouchables the right to draw water from the public tank where he burnt copies of the 'Manusmriti' publicly.

In 1929, Ambedkar made the controversial decision to co-operate with the all-British Simon Commission which was to look into setting up a responsible Indian Government in India. The Congress decided to boycott the Commission and drafted its own version of a constitution for free India. The Congress version had no provisions for the depressed classes. Ambedkar became more skeptical of the Congress's commitment to safeguard the rights of the depressed classes.

When a separate electorate was announced for the depressed classes under Ramsay McDonald 'Communal Award', Gandhiji went on a fast unto death against this decision. Leaders rushed to Dr. Ambedkar to drop his demand. On September 24, 1932, Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhiji reached an understanding, which became the famous Poona Pact. According to the pact the separate electorate demand was replaced with special concessions like reserved seats in the regional legislative assemblies and Central Council of States.

Dr. Ambedkar attended all the three Round Table Conferences in London and forcefully argued for the welfare of the "untouchables". Meanwhile, British Government decided to hold provincial elections in 1937. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar set up the "Independent Labor Party" in August 1936 to contest the elections in the Bombay province. He and many candidates of his party were elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly.

In 1937, Dr. Ambedkar introduced a Bill to abolish the "khoti" system of land tenure in the Konkan region, the serfdom of agricultural tenants and the Mahar "watan" system of working for the Government as slaves. A clause of an agrarian bill referred to the depressed classes as "Harijans," or people of God. Bhimrao was strongly opposed to this title for the untouchables. He argued that if the "untouchables" were people of God then all others would be people of monsters. He was against any such reference. But the Indian National Congress succeeded in introducing the term Harijan. Ambedkar felt bitter that they could not have any say in what they were called.

In 1947, when India became independent, the first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, invited Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, who had been elected as a Member of the Constituent Assembly from Bengal, to join his Cabinet as a Law Minister. The Constituent Assembly entrusted the job of drafting the Constitution to a committee and Dr. Ambedkar was elected as Chairman of this Drafting Committee. In February 1948, Dr. Ambedkar presented the Draft Constitution before the people of India; it was adopted on November 26, 1949.

In October 1948, Dr. Ambedkar submitted the Hindu Code Bill to the Constituent Assembly in an attempt to codify the Hindu law. The Bill caused great divisions even in the Congress party. Consideration for the bill was postponed to September 1951. When the Bill was taken up it was truncated. A dejected Ambedkar relinquished his position as Law Minister.

Citation from:

http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/br-ambedkar.html ,dated:19-08-2008

Here’s the stage, projector, laptop and audiences:

Coming to think of a new nation emerging into the world without the support of any super power should have been a surprise. Even as the determination of many freedom fighters resulted into the fruit we are having today, a great challenge of driving the country, a difficult responsibility, was faced with learned patience by leaders like 'Mahatma' MK Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, B R Ambedkar, S Radhakrishnan, and the like, post independence. I remember hating the repeated occurrence of lessons pertaining to the life and achievements of Dr.B R Ambedkar in my schooling days. But when I thought about the effort and dedication he put into the making of our Constitution, I wondered at his achievement of the mammoth task.

But all the things we came across till now limit the freedom to political and administrative nature only. Our dependence on others continues to exist in many cases. 61 years of freedom from colonial rule should stop being just a matter of celebration and signify the overall progress of the nation in general, and that of every citizen in particular. The fight for the uplifting of weaker sections should transform into a process of uplifting itself, than continuing to be just a fight. The Spark that occurs at the dawn of new realisations among the Indians in various fields should grow into a fire, bright enough to lead the world into unexplored domains of knowledge base, instead of being doused off in the Spark stage itself. By Independence, i mean to say that we should rise in the world-arena as a country uniform and complete in all respects, and thus reduce the dependence on other countries, which unfortunately cannot be avoided altogether.

Comparing our Motherland with other nations and pointing out at the deficiencies and the incompetence pains my heart too. What other scale can we choose to measure InDependence then? All I wanted to envision amidst the pomp of the Indian Independence Day is that a day should come when India is over the league of he developed world, and if possible, I want to be a part of that celebration and triumph by being one among the people responsible for such a feat. JAI HIND!

My Blogosphere's Freedom Festival posts were posted by Arvind, Reema, Manoj, Mahak, Lekhni, RJ and Suda also. The mention of these posts here serves as an example of different perspectives of patriotic fervor; an instance of  Unity in Diversity.

(though this post was initially a comment on Valli's beauty, I moved it as a separate post, as it addresses various other pertinent issues, with T's approval ? -anu)

Let us put the big question on the table.

Modern democracy as a form of governance has evolved following the emergence of the belief that “all men are created equal.”  How do we look at Indian democracy in this context? Do Indians believe today that all men are created equal? If not, how does it affect the nature of democracy in India?

In the West it took social revolutions to force the acceptance that all men were created equal. So the sequence of events was the following: the emergence of a realization that all men should be equal; a social revolution overthrowing the hierarchical aristocratic order to force the recognition of that equality; the gradual emergence of representative governance (the franchise was extended very slowly with women becoming “equal” much later than men) as the form of governance most compatible with a society comprised of individuals equal in all fundamental attributes.

On can start with the Enlightenment thinkers to understand the social conditions out of which the aspirations for equality emerged – we have done that in earlier posts. But the quickest summary of the second phase can be gained by looking at the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) who sought to persuade his fellow intellectuals to accept the legacy of the French Revolution warning them that it was impossible to turn the clock back.

De Tocqueville pointed out that the growing equality was inevitable and urged a focus on how liberty could be preserved in an egalitarian age  (one of de Tocqueville’s major fears was that democracy would degenerate into despotism). Equality of course meant political equality by definition because every man would have an equal vote. But more than that, de Tocqueville kept referring to the growing “equality of condition” which was not the same thing as economic equality. It meant that men had started viewing each other as social equals and wished to be treated as such irrespective of the differences in their income levels. To translate that into our frame, there were no longer any institutions or places (including the kitchen table) to which an individual could be denied access because of his birth or level of income.

In an excellent primer (Democracy: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002), Bernard Crick distinguishes three dimensions of democracy: democracy as a principle or doctrine of government; democracy as a set of institutional arrangements or constitutional devices; and democracy as a type of behavior (say the antithesis of both deference and unsociability). And he points out that “they do not always go together.”

Crick elaborates the third dimension as follows: “democracy can be seen as a recipe for an acceptable set of institutions, or else as a ‘way of life’ in which the ‘spirit of democracy’ becomes at least as important as the peculiarity of the institutions. For some think that the hallmark of such a way of life lies, indeed, in the deed and not the word: people acting and behaving democratically in patterns of friendship, speech, dress, and amusements, treating everyone else as if they were an equal” (pages 9-10).

Let us now come back to India. It satisfies Crick’s first two dimensions but not the third. And this is the peculiarity of Indian democracy. The historical sequence mentioned above has been reversed. Democracy with universal suffrage has arrived before a social revolution that removed a hierarchical aristocratic order. In fact, even the idea of equality itself is not fully grounded in the polity.

Thus almost all comments to Mayawati feel it necessary to include the reference to her being an “untouchable;” there are quite unselfconscious remarks about the voting behavior of the “lower orders;” and one comes across journal articles with titles like the following reflecting the reality of contemporary Indian life: ‘They dress, use cosmetics, want to be like us’: The Middle Classes and their Servants at Home.

Visionary leaders were quite well aware of these contradictions. Here is what Dr. Ambedkar had to say in 1949:

In politics we will be recognizing 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?

It takes a long time to change structures and it is very messy. What one is seeing in India today is unique in human history – democracy and the vote being used to both bring about equality and to force the acceptance of a belief in equality. Democracy is the instrument that will accomplish what the Enlightenment and social revolutions did in the western world. But, in doing so, will it degenerate into the despotism that de Tocqueville feared?

It is history turned on its head and a fascinating process to watch and be part of.

The journal article mentioned in the text is to appear in Amita Baviskar and Raka Ray, eds., The Middle Classes in India: Identity, Citizenship and the Public Sphere.

The quote from Dr. Ambedkar is from Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, page 15.

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He was killed because of the sin he committed in this land. He questioned local Dora, a Reddy landlord, of the village against whom no body ever uttered a word till now. He asked for payment of the wages for labour provided by a dalit woman.

He was killed because he asked for payment of the service rendered to the Dora. Reddy dora was in fumes as no one ever dared to question their power and autocratic rule that was above the Indian Constitution for decades and the law of British Queen for generations. No body every asked for explanation in the gram panchayat that has been his mouthpiece for ages.

Hussainappa, a young activist from dalit background, was threatened and attacked before his death, he went to the local MLA with his mother for protection from heinous hooligans who are after his blood. He was advised to leave the village otherwise he would be killed. He was innocent, he thought, his sincere work as a Congress activist would give him some strength in his fighting. He forgot that the same Congress MLA was also a kin of the other Reddy, who is ruling from the time of NTR in Kodangal area against whom nobody ever dared to stand up and question.

He didn’t know that what he learnt in text books in schools and what her heard from teachers on school is all bullshit. he believed there is freedom in this world and he was also like any other human being. he wanted to ask what his conscience told him to ask for the wages of his labor. He got wages for his sins of believing in truth .

Hussainappa as naive and stupid dalit forgot that all police and other MLAs work only for the 'caste' members of the community. He didn't know the reality of how the society works and he believed that this is society where everybody is equal and that nobody is above another citizen.

He tried to seek justice under SC ST Atrocities Act that was not registered by the officials. On the contrary for daring to come all the way to file a complaint he butchered into pieces. Wages of sins he committed in democratic India!

A hero, an innocent soul that believed in truth and equality was killed in day light. So no one will ever say human beings are equal and ever ask for protection of the Constitution that says you are free Indians

He died in a pool of blood. After his death, a few people's organisations called for a meeting and dharna in Kodangal town of Mahabubnagar district, yesterday. Police refused to give permission, still they went ahead. They implemented Act 30, around 2000 CRPF Jawans were all over the place. One small pamphlet made them to come that place to protect the prestige of local MLA. Dora managed to utilize local laws, people in power, and the shield of law all turned in his service instead of serving the citizen of this country

He used his party's SC Cell, local agents for his purpose against these civic societies.
What a democracy that we have in Telangana today after 60 years of independence from colonial rule? Hats off and heads hung in shame as no one in the society today talks of this day light murder of basic human values.

Today, Praja Yudha Nowka Gaddar is receiving threatening calls. He approached police for his safety. He was leader, dalit Puli, but do not have protection. There may be any force, or group tomorrow who can kill anyone who is questioning the system. Any party in India only works for exploiting classes and castes.

We are silent when our resources were looted, when our women were raped, when our lives pulled away from us. Where are people's struggles gone?

There are Che Guveras and Castros and Saddams.to inspire generations. We have our illustrious leaders like Bhagath Singh, Subash Chandra Bose, Ambedkar, Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, Nagi Reddy, Mallu Swarajyam, Maqdoom Mohiuddin, Belli Lalitha, and others in thousands over the decades
When will our society rise to become human form within. When we raise our voice against injustice against anybody irrespective of what caste he or she belongs

Look for a day when we all feel glad to be part of this society that respects humanity and that nobody did any mistake for taking birth in any house or caste or community

Hoping for better humanity, dignity and Telangana

Baba Saheb Ambedkar, the visionary of human dignity, with his great works, explained several threats for the oppressed communities in Indian society. Today, though we are a democratic country, yet we are not free. He rightly pointed out that our lives are going to be in contradictions, the contradictions which will always keep us inactive or dead. The contradiction between social and political life will fail our democracy. Hence importance of a culture and philosophy of social empowerment before political process really empower us.

The recent incident in Potti Lanka, Andhra Pradesh, and a kapu mob attacked dalit families, here is the land issue, dalits cannot possess lands, that too near by dominant caste leader’s land. It reminds us that we are not going to escape these caste shackles even after the hi-tech growth in the country. Last week a dalit activist, aged about 25 years, an upcoming leader, was brutally murdered in Mahboobnagar district, Maddoor Mandal, Nandigam village. He was working for Congress and his only sin was asking wage for a dalit women in Gram Panchayat, who is working in local Reddy Dora’s land.. He tried to file a case under SC-ST Atrocities act, when land lord attacked him, but failed to do so as local congress MLA Gurunath Reddy stopped the registration of the case. He questioned the MLA and his stand on the incident. Local Reddy was supported by MLA Reddy, when this activist questioned his caste alliance in public, he was mercilessly butchered in his own house. This is the democracy. We can’t question any one, we can’t grow in politics, we can’t even ask wage for our labour.

In the same district, 1000 acres, belong to Dalit Bahujan were grabbed by APIIC for developing a Green Park. Another TRS leader Laxma Reddy, is behind this process. Over 350 acres assigned land for the same has already been acquired by the government just for peanuts of 5000/- to 18,000/- per acre today while they are selling the same land to private people at the rate of 2,000/- per sq.ft. 21 dalit farmers died within two years due to loss of their livelihoods and future. Total 41 farmers have died so far and the number continues to increase. Who is responsible for this? Today, hundreds of families are on roads, they became beggars, labourers in their own lands. Both elderly as well as children are in pathetic situation, completely helpless. They are raging battle for last four years, not even one politician is concerned about their issue. Shall we call it Democracy?

In the villages, still dalit women's lives are under threat, they are targeted for any incident, committed by any person. Khairlanji incident shows what happens if a dalit man fights for his land, women are raped in public, bodies are made into pieces in great independent India. And ironically the police have taken action against the Dalits. One poor constable belonging to Mahar community was suspended for dereliction of duty. Recently in UP, dalit girl was thrown in fire for just walking on upper caste roads. Today, a Dalit youth was murdered in Barbanki near Lucknow and his beheaded. Some people say that media is bringing these issues to lime light in UP to show the Bahujan government in bad light. My question is that if the news is correct, should not we do something on it? Why we do not get angry over such incidents?

I can provide number of examples in any sector, whether its education, health and employment. organised or un organised sector. Baba Saheb already explained that we may be in political democracy but far away from social democracy. We do have our political leaders and we do have Police machinery, they themselves are suffering with this 'caste' democracy. Our people are reduced to just voters and they will never become decision makers in any issue.

Baba Saheb always quoted Walter Bagehot definition of democracy .."Democracy by discussion", he also quotes Abraham Lincoln's "democracy by the people, for the people and to the people". At this juncture, we have to redefine and seriously think about the concerns of our great leaders, our community future. Current situation of dalits in India shows that we are not progressed much except few middle class employees. Rural side, there is not even scratch in the 'caste system'. The forms have changed but not much difference even in urban situation. What we can do in current day political scenario is the big question in front of us, there are few dalit leaders, who became chamchas in the hands of dominant caste leaders, there are politicians, who are always bothered about their positions, cannot open their mouth.

Can't we produce our leaders? Ya, leaders can not be produced from upward. Leaders come from grass roots. Leaders come from sacrifices, leaders are those who walk alone at the top, who do not compromise, who are not sold to corporate and industrialists. Leaders cannot be just MPs, MLAs and Ministers. Leaders could through revolutionary writings, leaders through grass root political action and social mobilisation. Are we lacking the skills and strategies to tackle these caste politics? We all know that we are better managers than any one, we are the creators, perhaps we only lack the foresight which will save us, and we only lack money which is ruling the world. We do lack the unity in understanding tactics of dominant politics, which always try to keep us scattered and divided.

The need of the hour is to look for alternatives, demolish the old structures, old leaders. We have to identify the real heroes/heroines of our community. Lets not make mistake of "great heroes", Baba Saheb already warned the danger behind these images.

"Heroes and hero-worship is a hard fact in India's political life. I agree that hero-worship is demoralising for the devotee and dangerous to the country. I welcome the criticism so far as it conveys the caution that you must know your man is really great before you start worshipping him. This unfortunately is not an easy task. For in these days with the Press in hand it is easy to manufacture Great Men. Carlyle used a happy phrase when he described the Great Men of history as so many bank notes. I admit that we ought to be more cautious in our worship of Great Men. For in this country we have arrived at such a stage when "Beware of Great Men". Even Carlyle who defended the worship of Great Men warned his readers how: "Multitudes of Great Men have figured in history who were false and selfish".

Hero worshipping has made the entire Dalit-Bahujan completely apolitical. What Ambedkar said about the brahmanical elite then, is becoming true about our own leadership? Just assume if Ambedkar were alive today, what would he had been doing... what would have been his response to issues like OBC quota, to political empowerment in UP, in Maharastra where revolutionary writers like Namdev Dhasal are now in the Shiv Sena camp and writing in Samna, its mouth piece. Different sections of RPIs are now planning to collaborate with Shiv Sena, replicating UP experiment. I think it is important to discuss and learn what is happening in UP and whether such an alliance is pragmatic at national level and helpful to the community. Our problem is that we are questioning every one under the sun but are unable to have a retrospection of our own political class. What has it done? Let us do it. Ramvilas Paswan organised a mega Dalit-Bahujan-minority show in the US, just last week, so our political class is doing its work and we need what is lacking and where it failed, so that a new set of ideologically committed youth is developed. If ideas are not developed and a Dalit vision is not highlighted than we will be having non political political leaders, who will 'represent' our communities but will stand there for his 'leader' and not for us.

New heroes are coming forward with another tag, our people are again going to be trapped in the Great Man syndrome. I am not advocating that all our elected representatives are doing great job for the community. We need to educate our community to identify who has more understanding. Sometimes, our own leaders are most dangerous by diverting our people's movements, we blindly follow them, let’s take stock of our past experience and proceed, we don’t want bad and failed leaders, whether they are ours or others.

We will follow Amedkar's vision that we need a country where Liberty, Equality, fraternity prevailed. We work for those principles. I don’t think it is a big task, if all our politicians, judicial, police responsible persons sit together, show that they are united, take actions, that will partly solve the problem, gives signal to the government that we are united. Of course, they use all there power to destroy this unity, they catch our own leaders to act against us.

Is the issue of Dalit just lack of political empowerment? Or it is a much bigger issue of racial prejudices and human rights violation of humanity. Should the issue be confined to dalits only or should a larger humanity be part of it. What could be a pragmatic approach where our principals are not compromised and we are able to lift the moral of the community both socially as well as economically? Is it really that easy to bring all the people together? Every individual is different so we must do what we feel is good for the society rather than thinking of 'bringing all together', even when you bring every one together there will always be dissension and differences. Let us not blame everyone who does not agree with us as 'enemy' and 'sold', the same can be said about us. Only thing is that we need a strong political movement that could become a pressure group to question our political-social leadership.

Let us remember the sacrifices of Dr Ambedkar, who could have earned everything, as he was one of the best lawyers, with sharp analyzing skills, of his time. He could have compromised with every one. The only love he had was his books, his concern for community and his integrity. How many of the current day crop of leaders who are now enjoying power in the name of Baba Saheb have even one tenth of integrity that that great man possessed. And it was not just that, it was his sharp intellect which every one across the political spectrum respected. We need that intellect, that integrity from all of us, who work for the public life, who claim to work for people. He send students abroad, on his own money for higher education, for engineering. Now there are many among us who can do many things but remain silent. Why can not we launch a movement of our own as we have so many big people, intellectuals, bureaucrats, NRIs, and political leaders. Why can not we start a resurgent movement for our own society? It is time to introspect on this.

Actually, movement leads to organisation and not the other way round. People make organisations and failed to develop movements, that is history. Dr Ambedkar always said Education leads to agitation, when we are young, in our 20s, we question, we are angry, that is the prime time to lead our youth against injustice.. Ask them not to sit silently in helplessness but question, lead the movement. Once the movement is strong, organisation can always develop afterwards. It is like Polepally issue where its spontaneous movement of the people that has been developed and tomorrow the same people can come together and form an organisation whenever needed.

But I am confident, if we take up the campaign for democracy it will succeed as it is we who need it the most. True democracy to all our people, educate them in thoughts of radical philosophy of our leaders like Baba Saheb, Periyar, Phule, Iyothee Thass, Ayyan Kalli, Savitri Bai Phule and many more and one is sure that they will agitate against injustice done to them, they will not keep quiet. Keeping quiet and seeing injustice done is greater injustice as a revolutionary poet Paash sang in Punjab. Empowerment does not come from ‘Self Help Groups’, neither will it come through learning sewing, but through freedom of mind, freedom from religion, freedom to choose and freedom to live with dignity. And for this, we all have to work harder, prepare for sacrifices and not sit silently as helpless creatures. Time to wake up.

Jai Bheem.

Sujatha Surepally.

(Courtesy DalitForDalits.COM)

The current situation in India or else where is very alarming inerms of poor or depressed classes.Today's 'development' is concentrated on looting the 'poor' and building the 'rich'. Poor in India are oppressed sections, the SC,ST, or BCs. We are still victims of the 'top to down' policies. We never look into our people, who are more than 70%, more than 50% are illeterates and depend on agriculture, living in rural areas. Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedker, struggled a lot for eduated, middle class community and himself agreed that he has wasted all energies on 'one class' which is not bothered about down trodden, most vulnerable sections. He also said our own community is also suffering with class and caste barriers. Its a big question infront of us ..why?

We have to live and understand one reality that today there is no 'welfare state', its only corporate bodies which are ruling India, that to by dominant castes. Unfortunately our own people are also became 'chamchas' in their hands, one way we are going backwards saying its not 'Bahujan', the Kanshiram's vision but its 'sarvajan', any one, who read Ambedkar, Phule and Periyar will understand the danger signals behind it.

In the name of Special Economic Zones, Ring Roads, International companies so called Govt are destroying backward class sections, specially 'dalits'. All assigned lands are taken by Govt saying that its for nations development. Today we are fighting for reservations in Corporate sectors, shares also..every one knows that its not possible, even it looks like possible it will not benefit our people. One way we are bargaining for our middle class youth but we are ignoring, 80% S.C, ST,OBCs who are dependent on land and land based activities by losing our lands.

Whos 'deveopment' or what 'development' we are talking about? its only 1% of our community, who are in big positions, can we claim that depressed classes are equal to other classes in this 'hitech' world? how come there are increasing number of atrocities on dalits, still dalit women were raped and harassed, our children are hired in big homes? how do we measure our own 'development'?. These are the indicators of our own 'growth', not who became rich and how many got jobs and business opportunities.

In India there are no poor/dalit policies, they still consider that we are beggars and at receiving end, Gandhi introduced this beggars policy and still continuing in our blood, one way they say that 2 Rs. Kilo rice, 25 n.p interest loans for women, free current for farmers(what to do with current when there is no land).

There are few things which Govt help or can do for us, its only health, education and employment. Please observe the trends on each sector, education is never free in India, they failed to give quality education in Govt schools, filled with our communities. Nowadays, they are talking about english and corporate education, how many of you think our children will benefit out of it. Second, is health, due to mal nutrition, lack of food, un higenic conditions, our people are more in need of public health, no Govt hospital services funtion properly and we depend on corporate hospitals, which costs our lives, we sell our lands, properties whatever we have to save our lives. Regarding the employment, every one knows that there are no Govt jobs today, Govt itself in the hands of world bank, who will assure jobs? We are cleverly bargaining shares in the public sectors, which means 'genocide' of our people, how many of our people are ready to take up those opportunity?..few will benefit, no doubt but do they turn back to society? Before asking for shares in private sectors, we need to build, upgrade our youth to take, grab those opportunities.

My biggest criticism on our community is, how many of us, educated, employed are really giving/going back to our people? many of us are puppets in the dominant system/ leaders, who belong to upper castes, many of us are cought up in 'middle class' values, they dont lead any where. Why only non-dalits help our communities? not even one scholorship/sponsorer we receive from our people, not even one person respond to our problems? I know , first time our community is enjoying benefits of the society, they dont want to share but can we spare least percentage as a responsiblity?

What can we do now? I think, we are already divided among caste, classe, gender, region or religion. We need to unite now, unless we are united nothing is possible. We have to believe our own people than others, there is always one selfish section in every community, lets identify who is our friend or foe, its not big deal though. We need to enter in every sector, so that we will have a strong hold in the society. We have to encourage our own people , need to re-invent our own history and culture, which is basis for unity.

Lets not under estimate our women folk, who are more vulnerable yet stronger than any one, who are more intelligent and technocrats. The develoment of women in any country shows the develoment of community. Unless we are strong and respect our women, outsiders do not respect. Lets celebrate our own beauty, which is immense and natural. Lets have special programmes for their development.

As Baba Saheb said, only working class can rule the country, they should come into politics, thorugh political power only we can achieve our own space. Towards the dream of
Baba Saheb, we need to work hard to reach the goal, we need to develop our own skills and strengthen our community.

My appeal to all oppressed class people: If you are educated, employed please spend something to our society cash /kind. Stand with them, after all, you are the beneficiary of all the movements, give back to your society.

Lets make caste free society, work for Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedker vision.

Jai Bheem

(Courtesy DalitForDalits.COM)

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Published on Sun, Jun 25, 2006

Karan Thapar: Hello and Welcome to Devil’s Advocate. My guest today is one of the sharpest critics of India’s reservation policy. In a book published this month Falling Over Backward, he exposes its intellectual hollowness and its moral two-facedness. But is he against reservation specifically for the Scheduled Castes? And if he answers this as yes, then how does he think India should respond to the centuries of discrimination they have suffered? Those are the two key questions that I would put today to Arun Shourie.

Mr Shourie, let me start with a simple question to establish your position. When you say you are against reservation per say, are you also including reservation for the Scheduled Caste?

Arun Shourie: Yes, I think so. Because reservations are not meant to compensate for historic wrongs. They are meant for helping people at the moment.

Karan Thapar: Well, that’s what I want to put to you. The Scheduled Castes have been treated as untouchables for centuries. In fact, even their shadow was considered to be polluting. Their dignity has been trampled upon. Their individuality and humanity has been questioned. Why do you believe that reservation is not an appropriate way of giving them confidence and status?

Arun Shourie: Firstly, these are clichés without particular examination of historical records. Because a passage occurs in something called Manu’s doctrine or Manu’s compilation, I mean I have not met a person who realises or who acknowledges the fact that this compilation was done over 700 years.

Karan Thapar: Let's leave Manu Smriti out.

Arun Shourie: No.

Karan Thapar: When you are saying these are clichés, are you saying that in fact the untouchables have not been treated in the way that history acknowledges?

Arun Shourie: No. They have been in parts of India. Let's say in some districts of the South. And the real remedy to that has been in modernisation. In overcrowded trains... Indians make five billion railway journeys every year. Five times of our population. In overcrowded buses, are you first verifying what is the caste of the person standing next to you?

Karan Thapar: But what happens when you get off the bus? It’s an argument in your book.

Arun Shourie: No. No.

Karan Thapar: Equality may be forced upon you in a bus, because you have no choice. But when you get off the bus, inequality reigns supreme. It is that inequality that I am talking about.

Arun Shourie: It doesn’t. That’s not the argument in my book at all.

Karan Thapar: I am not saying it is the argument in your book. I am countering your position that reservations are not justified for Scheduled Castes. I am asking you why you believe that centuries of discrimination should not be countered by reservations?

Arun Shourie: You asked me that and I gave you the answer that reservations were and are not meant in the Constituent Assembly as a compensation for historic wrong.

Karan Thapar: They can be used for that?

Arun Shourie: But… My friend, let me answer. Because there are better ways to lift people. Poor must be helped, they must be lifted. That’s the duty of society, but reservation is not the way and that’s why I argued.

Karan Thapar: Let's come to the better ways in a moment's time, I very much want to talk about them. But for most people listening to this interview, it will come as supreme shock that you believe reservations for the Scheduled Castes, who have suffered centuries of discrimination, are unjustified. Let me put to you why people disagree. Even today, Valmiki graduates are unable to get proper jobs and have to scavenge because they are considered untouchables. Even today, the Mushahars of Bihar are forced to eat rats and mice because they are too poor to access proper meal. Are you saying to me that reservations for such people are wrong?

Arun Shourie: Yes. Because the way to help them is to give them jobs and to give them access to education so that they don’t eat the damned mice. And the very fact that after 50 years of reservations, they are still eating mice is a conclusive argument against the compassion that you are showing.

Karan Thapar: Except for the fact that they don’t get jobs because they are untouchables.

Arun Shourie: Absolutely bunk. It is the other way round.

Karan Thapar: Why then are there Valmiki graduates scavenging for a living?

Arun Shourie: But there are Brahmin graduates who are doing it because of inadequacy of jobs.

Karan Thapar: But there is a difference. In one case, there is discrimination and in the other it is the inadequacy of jobs.

Arun Shourie: No. No. You just don’t let me speak. In China, people are scavenging and eating rats. Not because of caste, but because of 110 million of floating population who have lost their jobs.

Karan Thapar: Chinese eat snails, they eat eels, they eat snakes. There is a different culture and cuisine.

Arun Shourie: No. Just one second. I am talking of the 110 million Chinese who have been dislocated by modernisation. You read any Chinese text and you will find that. The point there is that I am all for the stopping of eating mice and elimination of poverty and giving people jobs, but it is wrong to presume…

Karan Thapar: Aren’t you missing the point here? There is difference.

Arun Shourie: No, I am not missing the point. You are not letting me make the point here. But when they are being discriminated against, the persons who are doing that most, who are beating them, who are responsible for the massacres as reported by Mandal himself are the so-called OBCs, who own land.

Karan Thapar: But that’s not the question I asked you.

Arun Shourie: But that’s the question.

Karan Thapar: No, that is not the question. The question is this. There is a difference in dislocation because of modernisation that affects people of all classes, of all castes. I am talking about discrimination due to untouchability, due to a wall of prejudice, which has affected people for centuries. Surely, today modern India has a moral obligation to atone and to recompense for the way it has treated the Scheduled Castes. You are denying that?

Arun Shourie: Karan, I completely would put aside this moral outrage that many of you put on.

Karan Thapar: It’s not put on, it is a reality for the people who are affected.

Arun Shourie: Just a second. Yes, but the so-called modern people do put on this compassion. The fact of the matter is that great progress has been made by our social reformers. That is the real way for dealing with this. Swami Dayanand, Swami Shraddhanand, Sri Narayan Guru in the South…

Karan Thapar: I am afraid it hasn’t changed the situation at the ground.

Arun Shourie: You are absolutely…How do you know the situation? Will you please just let me speak?

Karan Thapar: Can I just answer that?

Arun Shourie: No. First let me speak. Let me first answer your question when you assert that the situation has not changed, that is what I call a cliché. You have to listen.

Karan Thapar: Can I justify that?

Arun Shourie: No. Just one second, let me complete it. I will give you the documentary evidence. You see what Sri Narayan Guru reported in Kerala at the turn of the century. You see what Gandhiji found in the 1920s and you compare that with things today.

Karan Thapar: Compare it with 2006. Name one village out of India’s 6,00,000 villages where the Dalits are permitted to stay in the centre of the village. Not only are they banished to the outskirts, but in most cases, they are required to live in the south side so that the wind that blows over them doesn’t pollute the village. That is the extent of discrimination they still suffer.

Arun Shourie: And the wind in all of South India comes from the south my friend. I don’t know where you get this nonsense from?

Karan Thapar: Chandrabhan Prasad, perhaps one of the few Dalit intellectual scholars, who can easily confirm the facts to you.

Arun Shourie: Well, maybe. We have all got impressions about India. India is a large country. Almost every statement about India must be true, but the south business is quite silly because if you come to Goa my friend, you see the wind coming form the south. You come to Kerala, you see the wind coming from the south.

Karan Thapar: Ok. Let's approach this matter differently. Let's not talk about it in terms of moral obligation or recompense and atonement. Let me put it like this. Do you believe that reservations are intrinsically wrong because they lower standards, because they sacrifice merit as a way of giving people access for the wrong reasons?

Arun Shourie: Yes, they are for all these reasons and many more. For instance, especially when they are caste-based, then they reinforce caste as they have done in South as they are now doing in the North.

Karan Thapar: That’s disputable. You can only fight caste discrimination in terms of caste. Leave the caste basis aside. Your concern is that it affects merit.

Arun Shourie: But why it is caste-based? All reservations in India are caste-based. How can you just put it aside?

Karan Thapar: Because you are correcting caste prejudice. If the Dalits have been discriminated against as untouchables, you have to be given reservation on that very basis to make up for it.

Arun Shourie: That was the argument my friend. That is how things were rationalised in the end when the Constitution specifically forbade caste-based reservations. Then there has been discrimination on the basis of residence. There has been discrimination in India, it has been alleged, on the basis of language as in every other society. On the colour of one’s skin.

Karan Thapar: Quite right.

Arun Shourie: Just one second. So why not have reservations on the basis of the colour of one’s skin?

Karan Thapar: Well let's not talk about hypotheticals. I am trying to understand your concern about reservations.

Arun Shourie: I am not talking about hypotheticals. You said that there is discrimination on the basis of caste.

Karan Thapar: It’s a fact.

Arun Shourie: So I said there is discrimination on the basis of the colour of one’s skin. Why not have reservations for that? You are not answering it.

Karan Thapar: Because I am saying to you that the level of discrimination that has been practised on the basis of caste and because of untouchability is infinitely and incomparably greater. The comparison doesn’t arise.

Arun Shourie: How do you say that, my friend? Where is the basis?

Karan Thapar: Let's come back to the question that I began with. The real reason, if you are not accepting the moral obligation, that you find reservations wrong because they undermine merit, that they sacrifice standards?

Arun Shourie: Yes. That is one of the reasons.

Karan Thapar: But can I then point out to you that special concessions on the grounds that we are talking about have been granted to Indians since at least the 1850s, upper castes were beneficiaries. Let me give you an example. When the first college was set up in Madras in the late 1850s, British records show that the pass marks had to be reduced form 40 per cent to 33 per cent and a whole new concept of third division was introduced to help the sons of Tamil Brahmins. If it can be done for them in the 1850s, why can’t the same concession be given to the Dalits today?

Arun Shourie: Firstly, we are in 2006. The demand for proficiency is much greater. You look at the range of jobs at that time and the skills required for those jobs and…

Karan Thapar: But the problem is the same?

Arun Shourie: No. Firstly if that was the case, it was wrong. Second, if I have to learn typing and you give me a concession on that as in the case of N M Thomas vs. State of Kerala, then it is one thing. But if the job that is required is a highly skilled job in a medical institution and you lower the standards, the consequences are much greater. It’s not typing that you are lowering the standards for.

Karan Thapar: But talking about lowering standards to give them admissions and entrance, we are not talking about lowering standards of graduation. What we are talking about is just creating an opening field.

Arun Shourie: My friend, you have just not studied the Constitution in which it has now been provided that standards will be lowered even for promotions and standards have been lowered for post-graduate courses for reservations.

Karan Thapar: No, I am not questioning the extent…

Arun Shourie: You are. You just said this and then you run away.

Karan Thapar: No, I am not. I am not questioning the extent to which reservations have been taken. I am questioning the position you began with which is that reservations at the very outset for Dalits and Scheduled Castes is wrong. I am putting to you that similar concessions were given to Tamil Brahmins. Let me add. As the Indian University’s Commission says they were even given in 1935.

Arun Shourie: To hell with Tamil Brahmins, man. I am not defending. Dekho Tum baat hi nahin karne detein. Tamil Brahmins be damned. I wouldn’t care two hoots of what the British did. My whole argument is that the British sowed many of these things like separate electorates to divide Indian society.

Karan Thapar: All right. Let me give you a modern example. Yogendra Yadav did a study this month (in June) of 315 key positions in journalistic organisations and he chose 37 national journalistic organisations -- both television and print -- and he discovered that not one of the top 315 positions is manned by a Dalit. That is an example surely of the manner in which discrimination keeps out people of talent only on caste.

Arun Shourie: Absolute bunk. I cannot believe that Karan Thapar is not going to employ a proficient person whether it is for camera or for assisting him just because of caste. Karan Thapar is not like that.

Karan Thapar: Then how do you explain 315 top organisations and 37 media houses, including the papers you have worked for?

Arun Shourie: Because it takes time for that kind of competence to be acquired. Journalism is one of the freest professions as sports are, as entertainment industry is.

Karan Thapar: So, you are saying to the Dalits wait a century? Wait two centuries? Do you think time is on their side? You don’t think they need a helping hand?

Arun Shourie: Of course they do. But you don’t let me tell you what the helping hand has to be. Not reservations.

Karan Thapar: Why?

Arun Shourie: Because I have answered it 10 times and you keep going back to the same question. Repeating the very words. Just look at your own recording Karan, you are just repeating. You are taking up time.

Karan Thapar: You have answered it in terms of the moral obligation. Let me point out to you the efficacy between ’47 and ’97. In those 50 years alone, the number of Dalits who as a result of reservations went to schools and colleges grew from 1.74 million to 27.92 million. During the same period, the number of Dalit graduates jumped from 50,000 to over 5.5 million. That’s an example of how reservations have helped and you are denying this to them.

Arun Shourie: You have just picked up a few statistics.

Karan Thapar: Very meaningful ones.

Arun Shourie: Just one second. For the total number of persons going to school, what is the statistics from 1947 to 2006?

Karan Thapar: What do you mean the total number?

Arun Shourie: Irrespective of Dalits. The total number of school-going population in India from 1947 and now. Tell me.

Karan Thapar: I don’t know the answer, but the point that I am making is that the percentage of both has increased. I am saying the percentage of Dalits has increased because of reservations. Otherwise the system would have kept them out.

Arun Shourie: How do you say the last sentence?

Karan Thapar: I will illustrate it by taking government employment.

Arun Shourie: No. But firstly, you did not know what was the total growth.

Karan Thapar: Do you know it?

Arun Shourie: No.

Karan Thapar: You don’t either. You are simply trying to question whether the two have increased equivalently. I am saying that in fact the reason why the Dalits have increased. It's because of reservations and not because of general improvement in society.

Arun Shourie: That is just an assertion of yours.

Karan Thapar: It is a fairly valid one that most people would accept.

Arun Shourie: How do you say this? Then we have two contradictory assertions.

Karan Thapar: So you neither accept the logic in terms of morality or in terms of efficacy?

Arun Shourie: Yes.

Karan Thapar: On both grounds, you think reservations are wrong?

Arun Shourie: Absolutely.

Karan Thapar: Arun Shourie, since you are implacably opposed to reservations for the Scheduled Castes, what is your preferred way of tackling the discrimination they have suffered for centuries?

Arun Shourie: Firstly, I am not against reservations only for the Scheduled Castes, but for everybody. Second point is yes, if they have suffered that kind of discrimination and we have got good records of this kind of thing happening in the South, for instance in many parts of Tamil Nadu, then the best way is social reform and these great reformers who have made an enormous difference to India in the last 200 years as testified to by the Christian missionaries themselves.

Karan Thapar: Is there a second way beyond social reforms?

Arun Shourie: Yes, there is. Second is economic growth and modernisation.

Karan Thapar: Third?

Arun Shourie: Third is to find out what is the real reason for the poor performance of the child. For instance, he cannot retain what he learns in class because of poor nutrition, give him four free meals a day.

Karan Thapar: Individual attention?

Arun Shourie: Yes, absolutely.

Karan Thapar: Is there a fourth?

Arun Shourie: Yes. There are many things. He doesn’t have a place to study, make free dormitories. He needs free textbooks, he needs training and education.

Karan Thapar: That’s all part of individual attention. But is there yet another measure you would like to implement to help the Dalit? Because let me tell you why I am asking you all the things you have talked about -- social reform, economic growth, individual attention, they are very slow. They are unenforceable, they are difficult to monitor, they are certainly not transparent and in most cases, they are voluntary. The reason why people prefer reservations is because they are transparent, they are enforceable, and they are monitorable.

Arun Shourie: And for 50 years you have not monitored them? Even the government.

Karan Thapar: But that’s not the failure of reservations? That is the failure of the administration.

Arun Shourie: No. No. You don’t understand. Reservations are going to be implemented by whom? By the Americans in India?

Karan Thapar: Reservations have been implemented badly. That’s not an argument against reservations per se?

Arun Shourie: That is the usual argument of Five-Year Plans. Plan was good, but was not implemented properly.

Karan Thapar: But in this case, it is the truth?

Arun Shourie: It is not the truth. It is an assertion that you keep making. The fact of the matter is that these free lunch programmes, midday meals have helped a great deal in reducing dropout rates, in retention of what is learnt. We should do that. That is what requires painstaking work and the very fact that things are not being monitored…

I will give you an example if you please permit me. Recently in the Standing Committee of the Parliament on Social Welfare, there was a report available in May, in which the Secretary of Social Welfare was asked: "You have a backward classes of financial corporation, how do you distribute the money between he states?" He said: "Madam, we distribute it according to the proportion of OBC population in different states." She said: "How do you know the number?" He said: "We don’t know the number." She said: "What is the total number of OBCs in India?" He said: "We don’t know." "What is the total number of Scheduled Caste people?" He said: "We don’t know." If we don't know the number, we don’t know the distribution, we are not monitoring who is getting what.

Karan Thapar: It is a little facile to knock down reservations on the ground that the administrators who are responsible for administrating them are fools. That’s what you are proving. You are proving the administration, not the policy of reservations, is wrong.

Arun Shourie: I am saying more. Many commentators are just assertives. I will not listen to…

Karan Thapar: The assertion could be on fact?

Arun Shourie: What is the fact?

Karan Thapar: I can argue that your refusal to accept this is based on prejudice.

Arun Shourie: No. The caste people…

Karan Thapar: I being the asserter, you could be the prejudiced.

Arun Shourie: Could be. The Scheduled Caste people are saying that the benefits of reservations are being hogged by a Creamy Layer within Scheduled Caste.

Karan Thapar: But at least they are getting it. The Creamy Layer didn’t have it 50 years ago.

Arun Shourie: It is impossible to argue with that.

Karan Thapar: Why? It is a fact.

Arun Shourie: What is the Creamy Layer?

Karan Thapar: Once the Creamy Layer has benefited, you can remove them, but let them benefit before you remove them.

Arun Shourie: But you can benefit the people by having an economic criterion for identifying the individual. Why not?

Karan Thapar: You know that each time milk boils, it forms a Creamy Layer. You just remove it. Each boiling brings a fresh layer to the top.

Arun Shourie: Milk could be made to boil many time over, provided you identify the state policy by the unit of the individual and you identify the beneficiary individual by economic criteria. You would then not be fortifying precisely the types of regressive institutions within Indian society like caste, which you want to get rid off.

Karan Thapar: Except that the people who are untouchables were not created untouchables because of their individual character but because of the group. That’s why the group is being focused upon.

Arun Shourie: It reinforces the kind of group. This was Panditji’s view. I believe that this has been vindicated by time that we have reinforced that group identity to the great evil of society, to the ill results of society.

Karan Thapar: This will unfortunately have to be my last question. That many Dalits listening to you will say that ‘he may be a liberal in many matters, but he is a hard-hearted, callous man who simply doesn’t understand what it’s like to be oppressed under centuries of discrimination.’

Arun Shourie: They said that to me when I wrote about Bhindrawala. He is a Hindu, Arya Samaji, does not…

Karan Thapar: The two situations don’t equate.

Arun Shourie: They do. When I wrote about the Shariat and the consequences of Shah Bano, everybody said he is communal, he is Hindu. And now? So wait for time.

Karan Thapar: So the verdict of your peers or the verdict of the majority of society is water off a duck's back as far as Arun Shourie is concerned.

Arun Shourie: I don’t know what the majority of the society. Karan Thapar doesn’t speak for them either.

Karan Thapar: Arun Shourie, a pleasure talking to you.

Arun Shourie: Thank you.

Arun Shourie's book 'Woshipping False Gods' The recent furore following the desecration of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar's statue in Bombay has largely been interpreted as the resurgence of the dalit movement in India. A phenomenon which first saw its genesis in the philosophy and personality of Dr B R Ambedkar 50 years ago.

In his latest book, Worshipping False Gods, Arun Shourie challenges Dr Ambedkar's contribution to Indian Independence. The book has already run into controversy and several dalit organisations in Maharashtra want it banned.

Ambedkar's public life begins in a sense from a public meeting held at the Damodar Hall in Bombay on March 9, 1924. The struggle for freeing the country from the British was by then in full swing. Swami Vivekananda's work, Sri Aurobindo's work, the Lokmanya's work had already stirred the country. Lokmanya Tilak had passed away in 1920. The leadership of the National Movement had fallen on Gandhiji. He had already led the country in the Champaran satyagraha, the Khilafat movement, in the satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act, against the killings in Jallianwala Bagh and the merciless repression in Punjab. This National Movement culminated in the country's Independence in 1947.

In a word, a quarter century of Ambedkar's public career overlapped with this struggle of the country to free itself from British rule. There is not one instance, not one single, solitary instance in which Ambedkar participated in any activity connected with that struggle to free the country. Quite the contrary--at every possible turn he opposed the campaigns of the National Movement, at every setback to the Movement he was among those cheering the failure.

Thus, while the years culminated in the country's Independence, in Ambedkar's case they culminated in his becoming a member of the Viceroy's Council, that is -- to use the current terms -- a Minister in the British Cabinet in India.

The writings of Ambedkar following the same pattern. The Maharashtra government has by now published 14 volumes of the speeches and writings of Ambedkar. These cover 9,996 pages. Volumes up to the 12th contain his speeches and writing up to 1946. These extend to 7,371 pages. You would be hard put to find one article, one speech, one passage in which Ambedkar can be seen even by inference to be arguing for India's Independence. Quite the contrary.

Pause for a minute and read the following:

All me to say that the British have a moral responsibility towards the scheduled castes. They may have moral responsibilities towards all minorities. But it can never transcend the moral responsibility which rests on them in respect of the untouchables. It is a pity how few Britishers are aware of it and how fewer are prepared to discharge it. British rule in India owes its very existence to the help rendered by the untouchables. Many Britishers think that India was conquered by the Clives, Hastings, Coots and so on. Nothing can be a greater mistake. India was conquered by an army of Indians and the Indians who formed the army were all untouchables. British rule in India would have been impossible if the untouchables had not helped the British to conquer India. Take the Battle of Plassey which laid the beginning of British rule or the battle of Kirkee which completed the conquest of India. In both these fateful battles the soldiers who fought for the British were all untouchables...

Who is pleading thus to whom? It is B R Ambedkar writing on 14 May 1946 to a member of the (British) Cabinet Mission, A V Alexander.

Nor was this a one-of slip, an arrangement crafted just for the occasion. Indeed, so long as the British were ruling over India, far from trying to hide such views, Ambedkar would lose no opportunity to advertise them, and to advertise what he had been doing to ensure that they came to prevail in practice. Among the faithful his book What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables is among the most admired and emulated of his writings. It was published in 1945, that is just two years or so before India became Independent.

As we shall see when we turn to Ambedkar's views on how harijans may be raised, it is an out and out regurgitation of the things that the British rulers and the missionaries wanted to be said, of the allegations and worse that they had been hurling at our civilisation and people. The book has been published officially by the education department of the government of Maharashtra, and is sold at a subsidised price! It constitutes Volume IX of the set Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches. It reproduces the speech Ambedkar made at the Round Table Conference -- a speech which served the designs of the British rulers to the dot, and for which, as we shall soon see, they were ever so grateful to Ambedkar for it became one of the principal devices for thwarting Gandhiji.

In the speech Ambedkar addresses the prime minister and says, "Prime minister, permit me to make one thing clear. The depressed classes are not anxious, they are not clamorous, they have not started any movement for claiming that there shall be an immediate transfer of power from the British to the Indian people.... Their position, to put it plainly, is that we are not anxious for transfer of power from the British to the Indian people.... Their position, to put it plainly, is that we are not anxious for transfer of political power...." But if the British were no longer strong enough to resist the forces which were clamouring for such transfer, Ambedkar declared, then his demand was that they make certain arrangements-- arrangements which we shall encounter repeatedly in his speeches and writings, the essential point about which was to tie down the new government of Independent India.

'Nationalist leaders were neither surprised that Ambedkar was on the platforms with Jinnah, nor had they any doubts about the inspiration behind these celebrations'

Ambedkar and his patrons were dealt a humiliating blow by the elections of 1937. There were a total of 1,585 seats in the 11 assemblies in 'British India'. Of these 777 were 'tied'-- in the sense that they were to be filled by communal or special representation from Chambers of Commerce, plantations, labour etc. Of the 808 'general' seats, the Congress, which Ambedkar, Jinnah and others denounced from the house tops, won 456. It secured absolute majorities in 5 assemblies -- those of Madras, United Provinces, Central Provinces, Bihar and Orissa. And was the largest single party in 4 others-- Bombay, Bengal, Assam and the NWFP.

From the point of view of Ambedkar and the British -- who had been holding him up to counter the Congress claim that it represented the harijans as much as any other section of Indian society -- worse was the fact that the Congress did extremely well in the seats which had been reserved for harijans. Thirty seats were reserved for harijans in Madras Presidency, the Congress contested 26 and won 26. In Bihar there were 24 reserved seats -- in 9 of these Congress candidates were returned unopposed; of the remaining 15 reserved seats, it contested 14, and won 14.

In Bombay of the 15 reserved seats, it secured 1 unopposed, contested 8 and won 5. In the United Provinces there were 20 reserved seats; two of its candidates were returned unopposed; it contested 17 seats and won 16. In Bengal of the 30 reserved seats, it contested 17 and won 6. In the Central Provinces of the 19 reserved seats, it contested 9 and won 5.

The lesson was there for all to see. Reporting to the Viceroy on the result in the Bombay Presidency, the Governor, Lord Brabourne wrote, "Dr Ambedkar's boast of winning, not only 15 seats which are reserved for the harijans, but also a good many more -- looks like being completely falsified, as I feared it would be."

The electorate, including the harijans, may have punctured his claims but there was always the possibility of reviving one's fortunes through politicking and maneuvers. Efforts of all these elements were focused on the objective of installing non-Congress ministries in Bombay and wherever else this was a possibility. Brabourne reported to the viceroy that Jamnadas Mehta, the finance minister "who is chief minister in all but name", was telling him that the ministry in Bombay would survive motions on the budget and may even get through the motion of no-confidence:

"His calculations are based on the fact that he expects to get the support of the bulk of the Muhammadans, the whole of Ambedkar's Scheduled Castes Party, and of half a dozen or so of those individuals who stood as Congressmen merely to get elected," he reported. But added, "I gather that he is in touch with Ambedkar, who is carrying on negotiations for him, but, as you will find from the next succeeding paragraph, it rather looks to me as if Ambedkar is playing a thoroughly double game, in which case Jamnadas Mehta's hopes are likely to be rudely shattered."

The governor went on to report that he had also had a long conversation with Jinnah, and that Jinnah had told him that, in the event of the ministry being defeated, the Muslim League would be prepared to form a ministry provided they could secure a majority of even two or three in the assembly. "He (that is, Jinnah) went on to say that Ambedkar and his party were prepared to back him in this," Brabourne reported, "and that he expected to get the support of ten or a dozen of the so-called Congress MLAs mentioned above.

He made it quite clear to me that they would not support the present ministry. The governor was sceptical about the claims and assurances of all of them. He wrote, "It is, of course, quite impossible to rely on anything that Jinnah tells me, and the only thing for me to do is to listen and keep silent. I obviously cannot tell Jamnadas Mehta what Jinnah told me, or vice versa, as both of them are hopelessly indiscreet. The only thing that is clear is that a vast amount of intrigue is going on behind the scenes, but, in the long run, I cannot see anything coming out of it at all, as none of these people trust each other round the corner. Were to hazard a guess, it would still be that the present ministry will be defeated on the budget proposals and the alternative will then lie between Congress or Section 93"-- the equivalent of our present-day governor's rule.

Congress ministries were formed. And in 1939 they resigned in view of the British government's refusal to state what it intended to do about Indian Independence after the War. 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.

Nationalist leaders were neither surprised that Ambedkar was on the platforms with Jinnah, nor had they any doubts about the inspiration behind these celebrations. Addressing the Congress Legislature Party in Bombay on 27 December, 1937, Sardar Patel noted, "We cannot forget how Sir Samuel Hoare set the Muslims against the Hindus when the unity conference was held at Allahabad. The British statesmen in order to win the sympathy of the world, now go on repeating that they are willing to give freedom to India, were India united.

The 'Day of Deliverance' was evidently calculated to make the world and particularly the British public believe that India was not united and that Hindus and Muslims were against each other. But when several sections of Muslims were found to oppose the 'Day of Deliverance', the proposed anti-Hindu demonstrations were converted into a Jinnah-Ambedkar-Byramji protest against the Congress ministries and the Congress high command..."

That rout in the election remained a thorn in the heart of Ambedkar for long. A large part of What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables which Ambedkar published in 1945 is a tortuous effort to explain that actually the Congress had not done well in the election, that in fact, while groups such as his which had opposed Congress had been mauled even in reserved constituencies, they had triumphed, and the Congress, in spite of the seats having gone to it, had actually been dealt a drubbing!

Though this is his central thesis, Ambedkar gives reasons upon reasons to explain why he and his kind have lost and why the Congress has won! One of the reasons he says is that the people in general believe that the Congress is fighting for the freedom of the country. This fight for freedom, Ambedkar says, "has been carried on mostly by Hindus." It is only once that the Mussalmans took part in it and that was during the short-lived Khilafat agitation. They soon got out of it, he says. The other communities, particularly the untouchables, never took part in it.

A few stray individuals may have joined it -- and they did so, Ambedkar declares, for personal gain. But the community as such has stood out. This is particularly noticeable in the last campaign of the "Fight For Freedom", which followed the 'Quit India Resolution' passed by the Congress in August 1942, Ambedkar says. And this too has not been just an oversight, in Ambedkar's reckoning it was a considered boycott. The Untouchables have stayed out of the Freedom Movement for good and strong reasons, he says again and again.

'Even though he had been heaping scorn at them for a quarter of a century, the Congress leaders put all that aside and invited him to join the government'

Independence came. For all the venom he had poured at Gandhiji and the Congress, Ambedkar was back in the Cabinet, this time Pandit Nehru's Cabinet of Independent India. How did he get there?

Ambedkar's own explanation was typical of the man: he had done nothing to seek a position in the new government, Ambedkar told Parliament later, it was the new prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru who had urged him to join the new government; the offer had come to him as a surprise, he said, he had been full of doubts, but in the end he had yielded to the call of duty and to the plea that he make his talents available to the new government -- that is how things had gone according to Ambedkar. Recall the pleas to Atlee, and set them against Ambedkar's reconstruction of the sequence in the speech he made in the Lok Sabha. It was 10 October 1951 and Ambedkar was explaining his resignation from the Cabinet of Panditji:

It is now 4 years, 1 month and 26 days since I was called by the prime minister to accept the office of the law minister in the Cabinet. The offer came as a great surprise to me. I was in the opposite camp and had already been condemned as unworthy of association when the interim government was formed in August 1946. I was left to speculate as to what could have happened to bring about this change in the attitude of the prime minister. I had my doubts. I did not know how I could carry on with those who had never been my friends. I had doubts as to whether I could, as a law member, maintain the standard of legal knowledge and acumen which had been maintained by those who had preceded me as law ministers of the government of India. But I kept my doubts at rest and accepted the offer of the prime minister on the ground that I should not deny my co-operation when it was asked for in the building up of our nation...

In a word, the reluctant expert who eventually yields to the implorings of others so as to help the poor country that needs his talents. Far from a word of gratitude for the fact that, even though he had been heaping scorn at them for a quarter of a century, even though he had been a most ardent member of the British government which had thrown them and kept them in jails for years, the Congress leaders had put all that aside and invited him to join the government, far from there being any word of gratitude, there was not a word even of appreciation, even of a mere acknowledgment at least for their sagacity, if not their magnanimity, in putting so much of the past -- of the past that was so recent, of the past that had been so bitter -- behind them. The new leaders had implored him to join the government as they had no alternative, so indispensable were the man's talents -- that was the implicit refrain.

The diary of Indrani Devi, the widow of Jagjivan Ram, records the exact opposite. In the entry entitled, Ambedkar ki sifaarish, she records,

And on this side Ambedkar had started coming over to our house. One day he (Ambedkar) told him to put in a word with Gandhiji to have him (Ambedkar) included in the Cabinet. Before talking to Gandhiji he (Jagjivan Ram) talked to Sardar Patel. Sardar Patel said, do what you think is appropriate. He (Jagjivan Ram) got into quite a quandary -- that Ambedkar had always opposed Gandhiji and the Congress, how could he now recommend his case to Gandhiji? Even so, given his large-heartedness, he pleaded with Gandhiji on behalf of Ambedkar, and told him that as he has surrendered in front of you please request Nehruji so that he may be taken into the first Cabinet.

In any event, either as a result of his lobbying or because Pandit Nehru requested him, Ambedkar joined the government. He broke with Nehru four years later and denounced the Congress and Nehru. He entered into an electoral alliance with the Socialists to oppose the Congress in the 1952 elections. His party was wiped out. There were a total of 489 seats in the Lok Sabha. Of these the Congress secured 364, that is almost three-quarters. Ambedkar's party got no seat in the Parliament, only one set in the Bombay assembly, and one in that of Hyderabad.

But presumably the inference to be drawn from this defeat too is the same. "It was a colossal failure, and Ambedkar fell like a rocket," writes his admiring biographer, Dhananjay Keer, about the election result. "It proved once again that there is no gratitude in politics. The nation which had conferred so much glory on him seemed now unwilling to show him gratitude..."

But I anticipate. For the moment we need bear in mind just a few facts.

'Ambedkar was one of the few politicians who supported the Muslim League demand for Pakistan'

Throughout the twenty-five years of his public life before the British left India, Ambedkar took positions which were ever so convenient for the British, throughout these twenty-five years he hurled pejoratives at the Congress, in particular Gandhiji. At every turn he put forward formulae and demands which enabled the British to counter the national movement for freedom. The British were fully aware of the use he was to them, and they were anxious to give him a hand so that he could become even more the exclusive leader of the scheduled castes.

We shall have occasion soon to see what happened at the Round Table Conference in 1931, and what happened in its wake: Gandhiji had to stake his very life to thwart the maneuver the British made -- in consultation with Ambedkar, and to his great acclaim -- to split Hindu society asunder. Gandhiji survived, but he was kept in jail, as were the other Congress leaders. Ambedkar, of course, was again on his way to England to attend yet another Round Table Conference. And as on the previous occasion, what he said and did was to the full satisfaction of the British rulers.

On 28 December 1932, the Secretary of State, Sir Samuel Hoare, was recounting the proceedings for the Viceroy. He wrote, "Ambedkar had behaved very well at the (Round Table) Conference, and I am most anxious to strengthen his hands in every possible way. Coming from a family whose members have almost always been in the (British) Army, he feels intensely that there are no Depressed Class units left. Could you not induce the Commander-in-Chief to give them at least a Company? Ambedkar tells me that the Depressed Class battalion did much better in the Afghan War than most of the other Indian battalions. In any case, I feel sure that at this juncture it would be a really valuable political act to make a move of this kind."

Next, Ambedkar argued long and vehemently that India must not be given Independence in the foreseeable future. We have already seen some of his urgings in this regard. Consider an example from another sphere. As is well known, apart from the Communists, Ambedkar was one of the few politicians who supported the Muslim League demand for Pakistan. One side of his argument was that Muslims cannot stay in a multi-religious society; the other side of his argument was that no one can stay with the Hindus either, by which he always meant "upper-caste exploiters".

That in brief was the thesis of his book, Thoughts on Pakistan. In private he was telling the British something quite different. He had been yearning to be included in the Viceroy's administration, and in mid-1940 it was presumed that, in view of what he had been saying and doing, his induction was just a matter of days.

But those were uncertain times and the calculations of the British were changing from day to day: they were at war with Hitler; they knew that opinion within the Congress was divided, some important elements were of the view that Britain should be supported even though they were not prepared to spell out what they would do about India after the war; so they had to keep in mind the possibility of strengthening this section within the Congress. They also knew that inducting a person like Ambedkar would offend the Congress as a whole no end.

At the last minute, therefore, the Viceroy had called Ambedkar and the other aspirant, M S Aney, and told them that he would have to put off the expansion of his Council for the time being. Not only that, in view of what he might have to do to win co-operation of the Congress, the Viceroy had had to tell Ambedkar that he could not bind himself or his successor about the future. Recounting his meeting with Ambedkar the Viceroy told the Secretary of State on 19 November 1940, in a communication marked "Private and Personal," "I was at pains to protect my successor and myself so far as he was concerned by making it clear that while if circumstances led me to invite him to work with me again, it would give me personal pleasure to have him as a colleague, I or my successor must be regarded as wholly uncommitted in the matter, and under no obligation of any sort."

The conversation had then turned to the demand for Pakistan. The Viceroy noted, "He (Ambedkar) was quite clear that Muslims proposed to hold to their demands for 50:50 and so gradually lay the foundation of Pakistan, and he was perfectly content himself, he said, with that state of things, and in favour of the Pakistan idea quite frankly because it meant the British would have to stay in India. He saw not the least prospect of our overcoming difficulties here by guarantees of any sort and (like most minorities) he has, I suspect, little interest in constitutional progress...."

Eventually, of course, the British had decided that they would just have to leave. Ambedkar then pleaded with them that they tie the new government by a Treaty. Then that they get his organisation a place in the new set up. Then he went and pleaded with Jagjivan Ram, the sort of man on whom he had poured scorn for decades.

But today that very Ambedkar is a Bharat Ratna!

'Ambedkar collaborated with the British to undermine Gandhiji'

All the facts which have been recounted above were well known fifty years ago. With the passing of the generation that fought for Independence, with the total abandonment of looking up the record, most of all with the rise of casteist politics, they have been erased from public awareness. And that erasure has led to the predictable result: schizophrenia.

To start with, those trading in Ambedkar's name and their apologists have sought to downplay the struggle for Independence: the freedom it brought is not "real", they insist. Exactly as that other group did which teamed up with the British at that crucial hour, 1942 -- the Communists. Indeed, as we shall see in the concluding part of the book, to justify Ambedkar's conduct his followers insist that British Rule was better.

Next, they have sought to exaggerate the hardship that Ambedkar had to put up with, to almost rub out the fact, for instance, that at every step -- for instance in his education -- he received fulsome help from persons belonging to the higher castes; by exaggerating the hardships the apologists seek to explain away Ambedkar's collaborating with the British, his hankering for office: these hardships were the sort that are commonplace in India -- one has only to recall the circumstances in which Swami Vivekananda matured, one has only to recall the starvation which stared him in the face, the calumny and humiliations he had to fight back; but in the case of one and each of our leaders the hardships became the crucible which steeled their resolve to rid our country of British rule; it is only in Ambedkar's case that his followers and apologists think that those hardships justify his collaborating with the British against the national movement.

And, of course, these persons have made a practice of denouncing and calumnising Mahatma Gandhi: Gandhiji was the great leader, even more so he was the great symbol of that struggle for Freedom; as Ambedkar collaborated with the British to undermine him, as for 25 years he heaped on the Mahatma calumnies which the British found so valuable, his apologists abuse and denigrate and belittle the Mahatma. In doing this they work out their own poisons -- poisons which, as we shall see, are the inescapable legacy of leaders who have not cast out the thorn of hatred before they come to wield influence.

Today the abuse he hurled at Gandhiji provides the precedent: the apologist's case, as Kanshi Ram said recently while explaining the venom his associate Mayawati had spewed at the Mahatma, is, "We are followers of Babasaheb, we only keep repeating what he used to say." They are at the same time serving their convenience: they have made Ambedkar's style, so to say, as also the facility with which he allied with those who were out to keep the country subjugated, the rationalisation for their own politics.

But the facts lurk in the closet. Lest they spill out and tarnish the icon they need for their politics, lest their politics be shown up for what it is -- a trade in the name of the dispossessed -- these followers of Ambedkar enforce their brand of history through verbal terrorism, and actual assault.

And intimidation works. Editors and others conclude, "Better leave bad enough alone."

Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie, ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or bibimpex@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in

Was it a mere coincidence that the Babri mosque was demolished on December 6? Of course, there are strong reasons to believe that the event was not an act of spontaneous mob frenzy but rather an outcome of a high-level conspiracy. No wonder the issue was utilised by the Sangha Parivar to generate communal euphoria across the length and breadth of the country. Moreover, this euphoria was manufactured and nourished sequentially and saw its logical culmination in the ultimate levelling of the mosque. However, the pertinent question is: what drove the saffron forces to chose this particular date for their heinuous act? What was so especial about this particular date that it overrided all other options in the 366 days of that year (1992 being a leap year)? A scrutiny of this question, I posit,would unveil the true character of Hindu communalism or Hindutva completely.
As we are all aware the class struggle between the exploiters and exploited sections continues unceasingly in all human societies. Though at certain critical junctures in history this struggle manifests itself in violent forms most of the time it is fought unabated at the psychological level. This psychological war is fought between the collective/folk memory of the people and the institutionalised memory of the oppressors. The strategy of the ruling classes everwhere and at all times has been to efface this folk memory of the people which is nothing but an historical record of the resistance offered by the people and their heroes to the powers that be. Of course, the oppressors are aware that the oppressed sections get more agitated listening to the tyranny meted out to their ancestors than the fact of actual oppression that they face themselves. Hence the powerful use all the instruments at their disposal to erase this collective memory—from the organs of the state to all the institutions of indoctrination (education) and propaganda (media/cinema). They are also often successful at that.

On the other hand the subject classes strive to eternalise this collective memory by bequeathing it to the successive generations through its own literature, culture, art and folk traditions. In our own times the autobiographies being penned by Dalit authors exemplify this best. They also celebrate and observe the decisive dates in their history or those associated with their leaders (their birth and death anniversaries for instance) to keep the flame of their cause alive. How this memory of tyranny unleashed against their ancestors inspires the oppressed to do something remarkable can be glimpsed in one of the statements by Vivian Richards, a reknowned Black cricketer from Antigua in West Indies. Richards, as we all know, was not only a sportsman par excellence but also a vocal crusader against racial injustice. He once said:

Every member of my team is haunted by the memory of white oppression faced by our ancestors for centuries. When we bowl lethally at them or bat explosively it is as if we are extracting revenge from them for those misdeeds and consequently restoring prestige for our race.

Hence, we can see how this collective memory often acts as the chief weapon in the armoury of the oppressed sections. However, there are certain memories which the powerful can never erase despite their best efforts. In such cases they take recourse to adulterating this memory and channelising it for their own nefarious ends. I contend that on December 6, 1992 when the Babri mosque was razed to the ground similar efforts were made. But I will come back to it later. First a few words on the true character of Hindutva.

The paramount feature of the Hindu faith is the caste system. Moreover, the ideology of Hindutva only nurtures and sustains this system. In Gita, which is accorded the highest place in the corpus of Hindu scriptures, God animated as Krishna states that the varna system is His creation. Besides, all the scriptures of Hindu faith unequivocally support the caste system. It can be further asserted that those sitting pretty at the top of the varna hierarchy have their dominance, superiority, privileges, heaven, salvation, or for that matter everything, secure so far as the varna system operates. How the superiority of the twice-born and their social, political, economic and cultural hegemony can be perennially maintained seems to be the primary concern of the sanatana dharma. Otherwise why do proponents of Hindutva go berserk on the question of 27% reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC’s)?

The real history of India is yet to be written. The central role of the struggle against the caste system in the historical development of this land has not yet been rigorously investigated. This will only become a reality once the Dalit-Bahujan masses undergo a process of cultural revolution or, dialectically speaking, it is the very writing of this history that will inaugurate the cultural revolution for Dalit-Bahujan masses.

The history of India is an account of the struggles against the caste system. The emergence of Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism or the influx of Islamic and Christian faiths and their acceptability would not have been possible but for the caste system. One may also propose that it is this very exploitative system which is responsible for the historical stagnation of the productive forces and development of knowledge and science in this country. This historical stagnation was however, consciously or otherwise, arrested by the advent of the British colonial state. In this respect the formulations of Karl Marx, Raja Rammohun Roy and Jotiba Phule bear remarkable similarity. In the mediaeval ages many a dalit-bahujan took a sigh of relief at the demolition of the Hindu temples by the Muslim invaders as these temples were also centres of social power parallel to the state. In these temples the entry of shudra-atishudra was prohibited quite unlike the mosques, churches. gurudwaras or monasteries which were more or less open to general masses and they could pray there collectively without a thought of high and low pervading the sacred premises. Even during the heydays of the struggle against British colonialism the banner of revolt against social imperialism was hurled high by people like Jotiba Phule, Narayana Guru, Periyar, Shahuji Maharaj and Babasaheb Ambedkar. Organisations like Bihar’s Triveni Sangha multiplied in all parts of the country.

The developments since Independence also narrate the story of this struggle—the protagonists being Dr. Rammanohar Lohia, Karpuri Thakur, Kanshiram, Annadurai, BP Mandal and VP Singh.

The anti-caste proclivities received a great boost when VP Singh government announced its decision to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations. In the wake of this move by VP Singh the challenge posed by Dalit-Bahujan masses to the caste elite multiplied tenfold times. Thus they unleashed the genie of kamandal to counter the politics of Mandal. Advani subsequently stormed the nation on his ‘Ram-rath’ leaving behind a trail of blood whereever the rath crossed. When Laloo Prasad finally arrested him BJP withdrew support from the VP Singh government thereby ‘chastising’ him for attempting the unpardonable. Communal polarisation and galvanisation by the Hindutva forces gained momentum resulting in the ultimate demolition of the Babri mosque. No wonder, the ‘Brahmin’ and Brahminist Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao kept himself busy with an afternoon siesta on a wintry day and by the time he woke up the mosque had been razed to the ground.

There seem to be many reasons behind the demolition of the mosque. First, to counter the influence of Mandal by the valour of demolition. Second, to transform the feeling of defeatism plaguing the Hindu psyche due to repeated defeats at the hands of invaders (a consequence of the divisive caste system one may add) into a feeling of glory. Third, to dilute the social contradictions and varna struggle arising out of the assertion of the dalit-bahujan masses by a wider Hindu resurgence and unity. Fourth, the consolidation of the Hindu vote bank by arousing communal passions for BJP in order to achive the ideal of the so-called Hindu Rashtra and so on. However, when we investigate the reason behind a particular choice of date (December 6) we are informed of at least one more reason.

In the twentieth century the major challenge to Hindutva has been indisputably presented by Dr. BR Ambedkar. This challenge, albeit political at first sight, is largely an ideological one. Along with Ambedkar two other names can be shortlisted for having contested Hindutva effectively—namely, Ramaswamy Naicker (or Periyar) and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia. It is unfortunate that Periyar’s influence remained restricted to South India only. Lohia’s slogan pichda pawe sau mein sath (let the backward bag sixty out of hundred) effectively challenged the political power of the proponents of Hindutva. The process of social change and consciousness we witness in North India today, especially in UP and Bihar, would have been scarcely possible without the contribution of Lohiaite ideology. However, one can surely find grounds to critique the contradictions and inconsistencies in his thought regarding Hindu religion, philosophy and tradition. Despite his powerful slogans this lacuna in his thought severely hampers the march of the caravan of social justice towards any meaningful destination. A harmonious integration of Lohiaite and Ambedkarite ideology is therefore imperative to give the much required edge to the politics of social justice.

The Saffron brigade trembles when it hears the names of Ambedkar or Periyar. Afterall, it is they who have bitterly exposed the reality of Hindu faith and have established beyond doubt that this faith is nothing but Brahmanism or the varna system. Both urged their followers not to stop before the complete destruction of this religion. While Periyar swithched to atheism for this purpose Ambedkar advocated disowning of Hinduism and adoption of Buddhism respectively. It is another matter that even Buddhism is silent on the concept of  God.

Despite being a constitutionalist Dr. Ambedkar often finds a pride of place in the league of the world’d greatest revolutionaries. He stood up to combat a system that had been reigning undeterred in this country for the last three thousand years. He could not have urged the voiceless and powerless untouchables leading a life worse than animals for attempting an armed insurrection. That is why he was a constitutionalist. By investigating meticulously the Hindu religious scriptures and authoring powerful tracts (like Riddles in Hinduism, Annhilation of Caste and Revolution and CounterRevolution in Ancient India), and, also by such powerful symbolic gestures like setting Manusmriti on fire and articulating and voicing the concerns and demands of the untouchables in various round table conferences, he laid bare the hypocrisy, contradictions and inhumanity of the Hindu religion and society in front of the whole world. He did not even deter from engaging in a vitriolic polemic and conflict with a personality like Gandhi in order to secure an independent identity and place for Dalits in the Indian political landscape. On the one hand he managed to pocket a few concessions for the dalits by making his way into the Constituent assembly, on the other he also criticised the Indian Constitution on various counts in no uncertain terms. When he became the first law minister in independent India, he strived and struggled to ameliorate the condition of Hindu society, and especially the pitiable condition of its women, by drafting the ‘Hindu Code Bill’ and making efforts to get it passed in the Parliament. However, his efforts came a cropper due to the influence of fanatic Hindus in the Congress party and government which were against modern and radical reforms. Now he saw no point in continuing as a member of Hindu society. During all these years he had been postponing the actualisation of his call to leave Hindu religion that he gave twenty years back. All this time he had been genuinely working at reconciliation with his adversaries. But now he could take it no longer. He converted to Buddhism with lakhs of his followers and reestablished the faith that had been exiled from the country of its origin some fifteen centuries back due to the inexcusable crime of challenging the caste system. In other words, Dr. BR Ambedkar now donned the mantle of a modern Buddha.

Until the day the Indian society liberates itself from the tentacles of the caste system his legacy shall continue to inspire the dalit-bahujan masses. It would be a parochial stance if we recognise Ambedkar only as a champion of shudras-atishudras. He is the leader of all Hindus because his primary concern was to liberate the entire Hindu society by breaking innumerable divisive caste walls. The path of liberation, for a Brahmin as well as a scavenger, from this inhumane caste system is ingrained in the theoretical insights of Ambedkar.

This is the only reason why Dr. Ambedkar’s life, actions, thoughts and struggle pose such a great challenge for Hindutva. His ideology is a guide to action for th dalit-bahujan masses. However, the efforts to destroy his legacy continue to proliferate. It is to meet such sinister objectives that books like Worshipping False Gods are written by Saffron theoreticians like Arun Shourie. Surely, for them a memory which cannot be erased, a legacy which cannot be vanuished can be surely mitigated by aduleration, illusions and sleight of hand pure and simple.

On December 6, 1992 when the nation was observing the death anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar, the Sangha Parivar was engaged in demolishing the Babri mosque with the aid of thousands of its cadres and supporters. A countervailing ‘Hindu glory’ was being forged opposed to Dr. Ambedkar’s memory. Hindutva was making unholy inroads into the dalit-bahujan psyche generally permeated with Ambedkar’s legacy till then. An intense psychological war was witnessed which was no less lethal or violent than the organised and frequent pogroms against dalits and Muslims.

One may well ask why was Ambedkar’s birth anniversary (14 April) not chosen as a date for demolition? The answer is simple. In comparison to his death anniversary his birth anniversary is widely celebrated with much vitality and grandeur. It would have been a risky proposition because then their anti-Ambedkar ideology would have been brought out into broad daylight. They could not have afforded such a big risk at that time. Babri mosque is afterall not the last mosque to be levelled. There are other mosques on their hit-list as well. Whenever they find themselves powerful enough to take such a risk they will show the temerity to do so. Why only Ambedkar there are many other icons that give sleepless nights to the Hundutva forces.

In the end, the explanation rendered above is purely theoretical. No concrete proof was available for this assumption. However, later I happened to discover a somewhat similar proof in some extracts of Malay Krishna Dhar’s book Open Secrets: India’s Intelligence Unveiled published in Outlook (Hindi, 7 Feb 2005):

On 25th December K. N. Govindacharya called me on phone and expressed his desire to come over for dinner to my house along with two of his friends…After dinner the conversation continued till midnight. I shivered from what I got to learn from my friends. They gave me sufficient indications that the Sangha Parivar was not obverse to the demolition of the mosque and putting in its place a temple-like structure…Why only December? I asked. Gurumurthy promptly replied that I should read history once again. Did not Mahmud Gaznavi destroy Somnath temple on December 1025?

It is strange that the author did not ask why only on a particular day in December. It is also possible that the author may have asked the question and would have been promptly replied back that because it is the death anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar, and that he did not share this part of the conversation with his readers for the fear of completely unmasking the mindset of the saffron brigade..Who knows?