A crusader for an egalitarian society

Today as never before Dr B R Ambedkar is being venerated and eulogised. There are more statues and roads and streets and colonies named after him than even Mahatma Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru. And this year, his 125th birth anniversary is being observed by the highest world body, the United Nations.

We can be sure that in the coming years, there might even be temples for his worship. Great injustice is being done to him by those who project him as only a Dalit leader whereas all the intelligent among Indians recognise him as a great economist, a patriot, a scholar and a statesmen whose aim was to have an Indian nation and society where inequality would be least and would not be based upon birth as in the past. Some facts are not at all or least known about Dr Ambedkar’s life and work.

Ambedkar had a PhD from the prestigious Columbia University in the US. He returned to India and went to Baroda to serve the Maharaja’s government in fulfillment of the conditions according to which he was granted the scholarship to study abroad. For days, he struggled to get a room to stay. Hindus and Muslims alike refused to give him a room on knowing that he was an untouchable Hindu. He went to a Parsi’s house, lied that he was a Parsi and so got the room. Within a few days, the Parsi landlord came to know that Ambedkar was an untouchable and threw him out. Dr Ambedkar packed up and went to Bombay.

During one of his movements for temple entry and for the right of Dalits to use village wells and ponds for water, he was going on foot from one village to another. He and his friends wanted to quench their thrust by taking water from a pond. Muslims there chased them out, saying that untouchables cannot have water from the pond meant for others. Dr Ambedkar concluded that untouchability for Dalits was not confined to practising Hindus but even to those who had converted from Hinduism to Islam and Christianity.

Dr Ambedkar resigned as Law Minister in Nehru’s cabinet over differences on enactment of more Hindu reform laws. He contested the 1952 General Elections from a constituency in Mumbai as a candidate of his new established Scheduled Caste Federation . Congress vowed to defeat him. Communist Party leaders like S A Dange also worked against him. As a result, Dr Ambedkar lost to a non-descript Dalit candidate of the Congress. He then contested in a bye-election to the Lok Sabha from a constituency near Nagpur.

The Congress again put up its own Harijan candidate and defeated Dr Ambedkar . One can see how intolerant Jawaharlal Nehru was of an intellectual giant like Dr Ambedkar who dared differ with Nehru. Nehru’s intolerance for people who were more intellectual and more popular than him was evident all throughout his career in regard to Sardar Patel also. On the death of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Ambedkar visited his body twice. He was genuinely sorry but that sorrow did not prevent him from giving expression to his estimate of Gandhi and Congress .

At the end of these two visits, he wrote to his would-be Brahmin wife, Savita: "Mr. Gandhi had become a positive danger to his country. He had choked all the thoughts. He was holding together the Congress which is a combination of all the bad and self-seeking elements in society who agreed on no social or moral principle governing the life of society except the one of praising and flattering Mr Gandhi. Such a body is unfit to govern the country.

“And the Bible says that something good comes out of evil, so also I think that good will come out of the death of Mr. Gandhi. He will release people from bondage to superman, It will make them think for themselves and it will compel them to stand on their own merits. And to that, he added: “My real enemy has gone, thank goodness, the eclipse is over” (Source: A Reporter At Large ( Pages: 238/239) by M V Kamat)
In 1935, Dr Ambedkar declared that he was born a Hindu and that was not his choice but he would not die as a Hindu as that would be his choice. He wanted to change his religion.

The Nizam offered Rs 75 million if he and his Dalits embraced Islam. Famous Christian missionaries from several parts of the world came and urged him to embrace Christianity. But in 1956 October at a great congregation of over a million Dalits in Nagpur (2,500th anniversary of Buddha’s Nirvana), he set aside Islam and Christianity and also referred to the various indigenous dharmas and faiths like Sikhism, Jainism, Saivism, Vaishnavism and Buddhism. He said that of all these, Buddhism only could become universal.

That is so not only for the people born in India but everywhere in the world. He embraced Buddhism and became a Buddha Bhikhu and advised his people to become Buddhists. He was portrayed as an enemy of Hindus, but he was not. He tried but could not reform it enough. When India’s Constitution was being drafted what we now call Article 370 providing for special status to J&K was being debated. The entire Congress Party was against giving any special status and the draft Article 370.

Nehru advised Shaikh Abdullah to approach Dr Ambedkar to convince him to provide a Special Article with a special status to J&K. Dr Ambedkar heard Shaikh Abdullah very patiently and finally told him: “Indian blood that is Indian soldiers and Indian money shall protect you from Pakistan as well as develop J&K. You, the Kashmiris can acquire land and property anywhere in India and take up any job including in the government , but no Indian born outside J&K should, according to you, not acquire any property or became voter or seek a job in J&K.

I am the Law Minister of the Government of India , I swore loyalty to my country. I cannot agree to any one of the propositions you are making . I am sorry I will not oblige you.” But Nehru had his own way. Dr Ambedkar was a great economist. This fact is not generally known. Early in his career, he wrote extraordinary tracts: ‘Administration and Finance of the East India Company: The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India and The Problem of the Rupee. Its origin and its solution.’

His other papers in this domain were ‘Agriculture and Poverty, Provincial Budgets; Economic Foundation of Emancipation of Dalits.’ He wrote an incisive article on Marxism and State Socialism. He was opposed to the Indian Communists and their practices. In deep opposition to them he founded the Independent Labour Party and won seats reserved not only for labour but even some general seats in the Bombay Province in the 1937 elections.

Few people know about the manifesto of the Schedule Castes Federation, the party that he founded . That manifesto can serve for all Indians as an all time ideology for the emancipation and empowerment of the poor and for bundling up a very prosperous, harmonious and egalitarian society in Bharat.