BR Ambedkar said, ‘Caste System is not merely a division of labour. It is also a division of labourers’

 Earlier this week on April 14, Dr BR Ambedkar’s 132nd birth anniversary was observed. Dr Ambedkar remains one of India’s tallest leaders, the father of the Indian constitution, and an inspiration for generations of Indians continuing his struggle against caste oppression.

Today, we discuss a small excerpt from his classic undelivered speech, Annihilation of Caste. Written in 1936, the speech was meant to be delivered at a meeting of liberal Hindu caste reformers in Lahore. However, in light of its apparent controversiality, the organisers of the meeting revoked Dr Ambedkar’s invitation. Consequently, he self-published the speech which would go on to become arguably his most famous piece of writing.

Quotes from famous historical figures form an important part of the UPSC Civil Services Exam syllabus. This one becomes relevant for topics related to social issues and social justice.

The quote

“The Caste System is not merely a division of labour. It is also a division of labourers. Civilised society undoubtedly needs division of labour. But in no civilised society is division of labour accompanied by this unnatural division of labourers into watertight compartments … it is a hierarchy in which the divisions of labourers are graded one above the other.”

Responding to a commonly stated defence of caste (that it is just another name for division of labour), Dr Ambedkar succinctly yet profoundly describes the uniqueness of the caste system and why it is problematic.

Division of labour

The basic point of social organisation is to share responsibilities. In other words, living in a society means that no one person has to perform all the tasks required for their sustenance. The burden of these tasks is distributed in society, through what we call ‘specialisation’. Thus, a society has farmers who produce food, factory workers who produce goods, sweepers who clean buildings, cobblers who produce shoes, and so on. Over time, the division of labour has morphed and gained sophistication.

However, in almost all schools of thought, it is considered both necessary and inevitable. The issue surrounding it is rather about how this division is made – “who does what work” – and how remunerations are decided. This is at the heart of many discussions about different bases of injustice, such as class (why are factory workers paid a fraction of the amount a CEO is paid?) and gender (why is women’s labour at home not remunerated?/why are women expected to work at home”).

Division of labourers

Ambedkar acknowledges that the division of labour is necessary for society. However, caste goes far beyond being just that. This is because of two basic features of the caste system.

First, the caste system works on the principle of heredity – an individual inherits their caste, and thus their occupation, from their father. This means that if the father is a vaidya (doctor), the son must follow in his footsteps regardless of his own talents or proclivities. Through the principle of endogamy (marrying within one’s own community), the society is divided into “clear, watertight compartments”. This is why Ambedkar calls caste a division of labourers rather than labour – there is no scope for mobility and intermixing among castes (through taboos on things like interdining, untouchability, etc.)

If caste were just a division of labour, it would be possible for a sweeper’s son to become a priest and a priest’s son to be a sweeper. But that is not how caste society works. In fact, till this day, stories of social mobility are exceptions rather than the rule.

For instance, as recently as 2021, then Minister of State of Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athwale told the Rajya Sabha that 73.31 per cent of all manual scavengers were from Scheduled Castes, who, as per the 2011 census, make roughly 16 per cent of the population. Ambedkar calls this an “unnatural” division.

Gradation of these divisions

Not only does caste create watertight compartments in society, but it also grades these compartments on what French anthropologist Louis Dumont would call “the notion of purity and pollution”. Every occupation falls somewhere in this vast, often contested, scale. For example, intellectual work, such as reading scriptures, is considered to be the purest while manual work like cleaning toilets is considered to be polluting.

This is the basis of untouchability as well – people of castes who engage in certain tasks considered polluting are thus discriminated against as untouchables. Given that occupation is strictly passed down hereditarily, this gradation of individuals on the basis of the purity of their occupation is the ultimate injustice of caste.

While across the world, there are class divisions, which too treat some occupations as being better than others, the reason why caste is unique is that this treatment has a moral connotation, with certain tasks more virtuous than others. In fact, the justification for the caste system is done on moral terms – people are born into a caste based on the deeds/misdeeds of their previous life.

As Ambedkar writes in the following paragraph, “This division of labour is not spontaneous, it is not based on natural aptitudes… (the caste system) attempts to appoint tasks to individuals in advance – selected not on the basis of trained original capacities, but on that of the social status of the parents.”

Written by Arjun Sengupta

Source: Indian Express, 17/04/23

Mahaparinirvan Diwas: What Ambedkar said about Buddhism ‘being better than Marxism’

 December 6 is observed as the Mahaparinirvan Diwas, or the death anniversary, of Dr BR Ambedkar, the Father of the Indian Constitution. ‘Parinirvan’ can be translated as ‘nirvan’ after death, or freedom from the cycles of life and death. Dr Ambedkar breathed his last on December 6, 1956, less than two months after he had converted to Buddhism, fulfilling his declaration of “I will not die a Hindu”.

With his trenchant criticism of major religions, Ambedkar is often mistaken to be against religion, when he was deeply spiritual and conscious of the importance of religion in public life. While his views on Buddhism being superior to other religions are well-known, Ambedkar also believed the Buddha’s path to be superior to the popular religion-rejecting philosophy, Marxism. In an essay, written in his lucid and methodical style, Ambedkar has compared Buddhism with Marxism, saying that while both strive for the same end of a just and happy society, the means propounded by Buddha are superior to those of Marx.

The Marxists may easily laugh at it and may ridicule the very idea of treating Marx and Buddha on the same level. Marx so modern and Buddha so ancient! The Marxists may say that the Buddha as compared to their master must be just primitive…. If the Marxists keep back their prejudices and study the Buddha and understand what he stood for I feel sure that they will change their attitude,” Ambedkar writes.

Similarities

In showing the similarities between Buddhism and Marxism, Ambedkar first condenses the basic philosophy of both into neat bullet points.

For Buddhism, he lists, among 25 points: “The function of Religion is to reconstruct the world and to make it happy and not to explain its origin or its end; That private ownership of property brings power to one class and sorrow to another; That it is necessary for the good of Society that this sorrow be removed by removing its cause; and All human beings are equal.”

Of Marx, he says all that is left “is a residue of fire, small but still very important.” The residue he summarises in four points, including, “The function of philosophy is to reconstruct the world and not to waste its time in explaining the origin of the world; That private ownership of property brings power to one class and sorrow to another through exploitation; That it is necessary for the good of society that the sorrow be removed by the abolition of private property.”

Means

Dr Ambedkar says Buddhism’s commitment to abolishment of private property is apparent in how its ‘Bhikshus’ give up all worldly goods. He says the rules for Bhikhshus owning property or possessions are “fTo establish a happy and fair society, the Buddha had laid down a path for believers. Ambedkar writes, “It is clear that the means adopted by the Buddha were to convert a man by changing his moral disposition to follow the path voluntarily. The means adopted by the Communists are equally clear, short and swift. They are (1) Violence and (2) Dictatorship of the Proletariat…It is now clear what are the similarities and differences between Buddha and Karl Marx. The differences are about the means. The end is common to both.”

The driving force of India’s Constitution also says Buddha was a democrat. “As to Dictatorship the Buddha would have none of it. He was born a democrat and he died a democrat,” Ambedkar writes.

Importance of religion

Ambedkar writes that while Communists claim the State will eventually wither away, they don’t answer when that will happen, and what will replace the state.

“Communists themselves admit that their theory of the State as a permanent dictatorship is a weakness in their political philosophy. They take shelter under the plea that the State will ultimately wither away.”

Of the two questions, says Ambedkar, what is more important is what replaces the state, and if it is anarchy, then the building up of the Communist state would have been a useless effort

“If it cannot be sustained except by force and if it results in anarchy when the force holding it together is withdrawn what good is the Communist State. The only thing which could sustain it after force is withdrawn is Religion. But to the Communists Religion is anathema. Their hatred to Religion is so deep seated that they will not even discriminate between religions which are helpful to Communism and religions which are not,” Ambedkar writes.

‘Buddhism ultimate aid to sustain Communism’

Ambedkar makes distinctions between Buddhism and Christianity, which he says Communists “hate”, and claims Buddhism has not the faults of the older religion. Instead of glorifying poverty and suffering in this world and making people dream of the hereafter – as he claims Christianity does – Ambedkar says Buddhism talks of being happy in this world and of earning wealth through lawful means.

“The Russians do not seem to be paying any attention to Buddhism as an ultimate aid to sustain Communism when force is withdrawn… they forget that the wonder of all wonders is that the Buddha established Communism so far as the Sangh was concerned without dictatorship. It may be that it was a communism on a very small scale but it was communism without dictatorship a miracle which Lenin failed to do…The Buddha’s method was to change the mind of man: to alter his disposition: so that whatever man does, he does it voluntarily without the use of force or compulsion,” Ambedkar writes.

He goes on to add that while “Communist Dictatorship in Russia has wonderful achievements to its credit”, equality “will be of no value without fraternity or liberty”, and “It seems that the three can coexist only if one follows the way of the Buddha. Communism can give one but not all.”

Source: Indian Express, 6/12/22

Dr Ambedkar Centre of Excellence to be launched nationally on April 22, will be set up in 31 central varsities

 The Banaras Hindu University (BHU) will play host to the national launch of Dr Ambedkar Centre of Excellence on April 22, 2022. The centre will be launched by the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister, Government of India, Virendra Kumar. The centres are being launched to provide coaching facilities to scheduled caste (SC) students for civil services examination conducted by the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC).

The proposed centre is being set up in 31 central universities from all over the country, Banaras Hindu University, being one of them. The launch programme is scheduled to take place at the Shatabdi Krishi Prekshagrih, Institute of Agricultural Sciences. Vice-chancellors of all the other universities, where the centre is to be set up, will also participate.

Two MoUs shall also be signed between the Dr Ambedkar Foundation and implementing universities for setting up the centres and Dr Ambedkar Chairs.

Each centre will have 100 seats for coaching and over 33 per cent of total sanctioned seats may preferably be given to eligible female candidates of the scheduled caste (SC) category. As many as three faculty members are to be appointed in each centre. The centres are proposed to have separate classrooms, library, hi-speed WiFi connectivity and other required infrastructure for smooth functioning. For taking admission to the centre to avail coaching, candidates will have to clear an entrance test.

Source: Indian Express, 18/04/22

Looking for Ambedkar in ‘Jai Bhim’

 

Suryakant Waghmore writes: The film is an important depiction of institutionalised discrimination and the quest for justice and power of marginalised groups

Movies based on the real-life struggles of marginalised groups are rare in mainstream Indian cinema. T J Gnanavel’s Jai Bhim is amongst the few that engages with issues of identity and institutionalised discrimination with some sincerity. It is based on the true story of the struggle of Parvathi (Sengani in the movie), an Irula woman, to find and secure justice for her husband, who is arrested and tortured in police custody in a false case of theft, only to disappear from custody later.

Jai Bhim has a powerful cast with Suriya playing the protagonist, based on the communist lawyer-turned-judge, K Chandru, Lijomol Jose as Sengani and Manikandan as her husband, Rajakannu. The movie is a portrayal of the life, occupation and culture of the Irula tribe, their aspiration for a better life and education, and the daily exclusions, along with torture and mass incarceration, that they face — all nested in the deeply hierarchical and illiberal democratic structure of Tamil Nadu.

Set in the early 1990s, the movie shows Rajakannu working as a snake catcher in the homes and farms of the very upper-caste landlords who snub and shun him. Yet, the homeless, landless citizenship of the Irulas is not void of hope and draws meaning from their proximity to nature and the protections enshrined in the Constitution.

Justice Chandru makes no bones about his communist leanings in real life and this is shown well in the movie by Gnanavel. The symbolism of the red flag with the hammer and sickle, banners and posters, along with images and statues of Karl Marx are found in the background of various scenes. Justice Chandru hunts down evidence for the custodial murder of Rajakannu and his wrongful arrest for theft, while arguing a habeas corpus petition filed by Sengani in the high court. The depiction of the violence and cruelty faced by the incarcerated Rajakannu and his close relatives is gut-wrenching and the pregnant Sengani’s quest for justice, despite the trauma, is inspiring. The story unfolds as advocate Chandru argues the case and takes on the mighty apparatus of the state as a good cop (played by Prakash Raj) joins the battle for conscience.

Jai Bhim is also a commentary on the masculine nature of the Indian state, its loose structures permeated by the caste and kinship powers that enable and institutionalise discrimination against marginalised groups like Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and even Muslims.

Despite the realism embedded in the movie, one is left wanting more. Does Suriya look like Justice Chandru? Tamil movies could definitely do better to inculcate an appreciation for dark skin and non-mainstream imagery. Another concern is with the portrayal of Left politics. Hugo Gorringe, a sociologist and scholar of Tamil Nadu, suggests that politics is also a game of pragmatism and the Left movements too are under compulsion to adopt pragmatic politics. It is this pragmatism that forced the Left to focus on issues of caste and social exclusion in Tamil Nadu. One is left wondering why the movie is titled Jai Bhim as Ambedkar is neither evoked nor portrayed as the guiding light except once, when Chandru mentions that Ambedkar was sidelined by Gandhi and Nehru.

The current pressures of politics and the resulting pragmatism may need the symbolic presence of Ambedkar, with an Ambedkar being available for everyone. For legal activism and in a legal drama oriented towards social justice, Ambedkar could be more inspiring than Marx as he had believed that the process of civil repair requires smaller and continual revolutions in society and the institutional mechanisms of justice. The quest for justice and power is a continuous process for marginalised groups. As the lyrics of one song in Jai Bhim go:

Take the power in your hand/ Dare to take power in your hand/ You have no choice but that.

We must also stay aware that the Irulas are still waiting for substantive power and their Ambedkar is yet to seize the moment. We need many more movies like Jai Bhim in our struggle for a better world.

Written by Suryakant Waghmore

The writer is professor of sociology at IIT Bombay

Source: Indian Express, 11/11/21

Ambedkar’s vision of nationalism had no room for parochialism

 Whenever I think of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar’s thoughts and his vision, his work for social democracy comes to mind. In his speech in the last meeting of the Constituent Assembly, for instance, he had categorically said that the caste system and democracy cannot coexist. That is why the Indian Constitution barred discrimination on the basis of caste and language.

Ambedkar drafted the Constitution with his able colleagues and gave a voice to the traditions, faith and beliefs of the country. But, in his vision, all the citizens of the country were Indians first; their other identities came later.

If we delve into Ambedkar’s statements in the Constituent Assembly, we find a unique confluence of politics, law, history and philosophy. In November 1948, while proposing to consider the draft of the Constitution, he explained the decision to call India a “Union of States” and not a “Federation of States”. I believe that Ambedkar was concerned with the challenge of social separation in India, so he said, “If we want to build a democracy, we have to recognise the obstacles in our path because the grand palace of the Constitution stands on the foundation of people’s allegiance in democracy.”

These views reflect his sense of nationalism, in which there is no distinction among individuals, irrespective of their caste and religion. There is harmony among all of us. That is why our nation is a classic example of unity in diversity. That is why the Preamble of the Constitution lays stress on equality and fraternity among citizens. Any nation is formed by a coming together of its traditions, cultures, religions and languages. Therefore, nationalism has no place for parochialism.

Ambedkar also explained this vision about India in a wider perspective. Giving importance to the land, its society and the best traditions for nation-building, he stressed that the nation is not a physical entity. It is the result of continuous efforts, sacrifice and patriotism.

He described nationality as “consciousness of kind, awareness of the existence of that tie of kinship”, as this is how people come close to each other and develop a sense of fraternity. In this, the idea of narrowness is the biggest obstacle. He clearly said that he wanted all the people of India to consider themselves as Indian and only Indian.

Ambedkar took three words from the French Revolution — liberty, equality and fraternity. These words included in the core of the Constitution also deeply influenced his political and social philosophy. That is why the fundamental rights provided by the Constitution enshrine the right to equality through Articles 14 to 18, the right to freedom through Articles 19 to 22 and the right against exploitation (Articles 23 anAmbedkar was also a pioneer in his thinking on women’s education and jobs. He believed that the progress of a community ought to be measured “by the degree of progress which women had achieved”. He was probably the first scholar who tried to understand the position of women in the caste structure. That led him to advocate for rights and empowerment of women.

Ambedkar’s dream for India was that equality should be established at all levels in the society. That is why he constantly emphasised on making society classless. It is intellectual poverty to associate him only with a particular class or caste. He belonged to all.

It also needs to be understood that Article 370 was also added to the Constitution against his will, which was abrogated after 72 years of Independence with the strong will and resolve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

If we go into the totality of Ambedkar’s thoughts, we will find the seeds of equality, unity and integrity. His philosophy of “bahujana hitaya bahujana sukhaya” and its belief in equality and justice is relevant today and will remain so in the future.d 24).

Written by Kalraj Mishra 

Source: Indian Express, 13/04/21

How Babasaheb rejected and criticised the Vedas

Contrary to RSS official Krishna Gopal's claim that Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar had immense faith in the Vedic religion, the framer of India's Constitution not only never believed in the Vedas or Vedic faith but severely criticised it several times, once going to the extent of writing, in his canonical work ` Annihiliation of Caste', that “you have got to apply the dynamite to the Vedas and the shastras, which deny any part to reason; to the Vedas and shastras, which deny any part to morality .“
The first eight of the 22 vows that Ambedkar administered to his followers on the day he embraced Buddhism in Nagpur on October 14, 1956, were also an open repudiation of the Vedic religion, said scholar Hari Narke, who edit ed volumes 17 to 22 of Ambedkar's writings and speeches, published by the Maharashtra government.
In 1936, Ambedkar wrote, “The Hindu religion, as contained in the Vedas and the Smritis, is nothing but a mass of sacrificial, social, political and sanitary rules and regulations, all mixed up. What is called religion by the Hindus is nothing but a multitude of commands and prohibitions.“
Offering a radical solution to the problem of too many scriptures in Hinduism, he said the “Vedas, Shastras and Puranas, which are treated as sacred and authoritative, must by law cease to be so and the preaching of any doctrine, religious or social contained in these books should be penalised.“ Describing the great work of the Buddha, Ambedkar stated that the founder of Buddhism had “repudiated the authority of the Vedas“.When Buddha condemned “karma kanda“ (rituals) and Yagnas, Ambedkar stated, the “counter-revolutionaries“ opposed him saying these things “were ordained by the Vedas, the Vedas were infallible.“
But, he wrote, “People who had accepted the gospel of social equality and who were remaking society on the basis of each one according to his merits--how could they accept the Chaturvarnya theory of gradation and separation of man based on birth simply because the Vedas say so?“ In at least four of his works in addition to the controversial `Riddles in Hinduism -Caste in India' (1916), `Annihilation of Caste' (1936), `Who were the Shudras' (1946) and `The Untouchables' (1948) -Ambedkar offered a strong indictment of the earliest known Hindu texts.


Source: Times of India, 24-01-2017

Appropriating Ambedkar

While the Modi government moves him to the centre stage of national conversation, an effort is simultaneously underway to bring about a confluence of Left and Ambedkarite politics

The 125th birth anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (April 14) has occasioned commemoration, celebration and commentary over the past few days. Indian public life is filled with such anniversaries, but perhaps Ambedkar’s big birthday has attracted more attention than usual this year because at least four different political trends have converged upon him. Most noticeably, there is an aggressive bid to appropriate him on the part of the Hindu Right. Simultaneously, there is a newly awakened interest in him on the part of the parliamentary Left. Together with these two developments among mutually opposed political parties of the right and the left, there is the conflict over Ambedkar on university campuses such as that of the Hyderabad Central University and the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). In these academic settings, on the one hand, student politics has increasingly embraced the figure of Ambedkar, and on the other hand, government and university authorities have targeted student leaders, activists and campus groups who profess Ambedkarite and Dalit ideology, in order to brand them “seditious” and “anti-national”. This combination of contradictory trends in both national politics as well as the microcosm of the university campus is bewildering, and calls for careful analysis.

Ambedkar, right and left

The Modi government has sought to take over a number of modern political icons who do not have any historical connection with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or with Hindu right-wing ideology. This includes Mahatma Gandhi himself to begin with, Sardar Patel, and now Ambedkar. Rather than keep a distance from such figures who stood for ideas and values not just different from but also for the most part opposed to Hindutva, the Prime Minister and his party have adopted a strategy of appropriation as a means to neutralise the ideological threat posed by the legacy of such leaders. Gandhi and Patel hardly have any specific electoral constituency associated with them any longer, but in claiming Ambedkar as a hero for Hindus, the BJP also has an eye on Dalit votes.

Thus we have seen frequent sentimental references to Ambedkar in the PM’s speeches, expensive new museums being constructed in houses where Ambedkar lived in Delhi (Civil Lines) and London (Primrose Hill), and an eruption of Ambedkar signage, statuary and memorabilia in public spaces all across the country. This government has moved Ambedkar into the centre stage of the national conversation — at least in terms of superficial reminders and references, if not through actual policy and legislative reform — in a way that is quite unprecedented. More official attention and showy gestures of adulation can be expected in the coming months, since December 6, 2016 will also mark 60 years since Babasaheb’s death in 1956. (As anniversaries go, surely the BJP would prefer that December 6 be remembered as the day Ambedkar passed away rather than as the day the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya in 1992).

The Left, too, is not far behind. Senior communist leaders Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat, D. Raja and others have all recently spoken and written about Ambedkar’s commitment to equality, to the rights of Dalits and to social justice, and about his role in the making of India’s Constitution, with approval and newfound admiration. They have also criticised the BJP’s sudden love for Ambedkar, calling it politically expedient and motivated by a desire to tap into the Dalit vote (a charge that is not incorrect). Yet one wonders why the Left parties have allowed decades to pass before recognising their own natural affinities with Ambedkar, especially on questions of inequality, caste and class, reservations, labour, and Ambedkar’s scholarly interest in Karl Marx. The opportunities for debate and dialogue across the Left and Ambedkarite political traditions have existed, and been systematically wasted, since the 1930s (with brief exceptional interludes in Maharashtra in the 1970s and Karnataka in the 1980s). It may be a case today of too little, too late, or else it might be better late than never, for the Left to begin to engage with Ambedkar in a way that is both intellectually rigorous and ideologically daring.

But it is also interesting that both the Right and the Left are skating on thin ice in coming to grips with Ambedkar so long after the time when they really ought to have begun to take him seriously. And both may find, when (or if) they begin to read Ambedkar with a degree of fidelity to his ideas and respect for the actual text of his writings, that his positions on a range of significant issues — the caste system, minority identities, Brahminism, the Muslim question, religious conversion, working class politics, women’s rights — are in fact irreconcilable with their own. At the moment there are too many taboos, pieties and euphemisms in the handling of Ambedkar to permit a genuinely critical conversation between him and those eager to claim him on either end of the political spectrum. Everyone is too busy trying to recruit him into this or that political camp to acknowledge that he never belonged to the Left or Right, something he knew full well in his lifetime, even though it isolated him politically from his own historical context.

Babasaheb on campus

JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s rousing speech, soon after his release from jail in early March, made an elaborate reference to the solidarity that needs to be forged between Left-wing and Ambedkarite politics, calling them the “red” and the “blue” political traditions, and chanting both their slogans, ‘Lal Salaam!’ and ‘Jai Bhim!’, in a wonderful display of old-fashioned oratory that had the whole nation mesmerised for almost an hour on live television. To be fair, this is not entirely an original coinage by Mr. Kumar — on the contrary, it is a convergence that the Marx-Phule-Ambedkar strand of ideology in Maharashtra’s Dalit politics has long tried to popularise, and can be heard even today in the poetry, songs and speeches of local Maharashtrian activists such as Sheetal Sathe and Sachin Mali, associated with the radical Kabir Kala Manch that stands for the annihilation of caste. But Mr. Kumar brought it to the country’s attention in a big way, and put across the message in a vivid metaphor that people could relate to, a rhetorical-polemical accomplishment for which he deserves full credit.

Anyone who participated in the multiple marches, teach-ins and demonstrations that took place in Hyderabad, Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and elsewhere throughout January, February and March, following Rohith Vemula’s suicide and the arrest and subsequent release of JNU students Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, will recall immediately the visually arresting sight of red and blue flags raised, waved and carried by thousands of citizens, and the soaring chants of a coming Left-Ambedkarite revolution that rang out on the streets, in the squares and on university campuses for the first three months of 2016. The novelty and the idealism of these mass protests were clear for all to see; but as a participant in many of these events in Delhi, I can testify that they were also marked by uncertainty and a lack of direction: Who is leading this inchoate Indian Spring? Does it have a clear agenda? Will it develop into a real political alternative in the future? Can a student-led movement, which is by definition transient (like students who enter and pass through the university), acquire a staying power of its own, or will it be subsumed under the banners of existing political parties and held hostage to their failures and limitations?

The bespectacled figure of Ambedkar, with his copy of the Constitution held to his side, stands silently over this moment of popular tumult, rising over a sea of red flags like a lighthouse. But that ship is yet to set sail. Meanwhile, the Modi government, its Ministry of Human Resource Development, its Department of Higher Education, its vice-chancellors at central universities, and the BJP leadership, are busy harassing, silencing, jailing and disciplining Dalit and backward caste students, attacking politically outspoken — and especially Left-wing and Ambedkarite — faculty, trying to dismantle reservations policy and indeed the public university itself as an institution, cutting the budget of the University Grants Commission, rolling back stipends and bursaries for research scholars, curbing intellectual freedom and the right to dissent, and cracking down on student politics, particularly on campus groups that identify themselves with Ambedkarite activism, in ways never before seen in the history of independent India. It’s remarkable how the same administration that apparently spares no expense in “celebrating” Ambedkar’s 125th anniversary also does not spare anyone who actually follows Ambedkar in struggling to create genuine liberty, equality and fraternity.

In a suicide note that may yet become the warrant for a new political formation at the confluence of the Indian Left and the Dalit movement as these have conventionally been understood, Rohith Vemula lamented the inability of caste society to treat a human being humanely. He wrote, unforgettably: “The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust.” To Rohith’s memory and to Babasaheb on his birthday are dedicated these lines from the poem “America”, by Langston Hughes:

Knowing / There are stains / On the beauty of my democracy / I want to be clean. / I want to grovel no longer / In the mire. / I want to reach always / After stars.

Ananya Vajpeyi, the author of Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India (2012), is with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Keywords: JNU row, Ambedkar, Left politics, Modi government, student politics, Rohith Veumula suicide, Hyderabad university

Source: The Hindu, 21-04-2016

Ambedkar against nationalism

For Ambedkar, human dignity mattered more.

Was B.R. Ambedkar anti-national? While we are celebrating Ambedkar Jayanti today, the question sounds absurd as it relates to an Indian statesman who showed constant dedication to the wellbeing of his country and who contributed more than anyone else to the drafting of its Constitution — arguably one of the best in the world. But this is a time of absurd questions, it seems, and the responses may be eye-opening.

The first reason why Ambedkar may be accused of being anti-national has to do with his attitude towards the freedom movement, beyond his antagonistic relationship with Mahatma Gandhi. During the first session of the All-India Depressed Classes Congress (AIDCC), on August 8, 1930, at Nagpur, he opposed the project of India’s independence, which the Congress had promoted a few months before, in December 1929, during its Karachi session, under pressure from Jawaharlal Nehru. The AIDCC argued that “The depressed classes welcomed the British as their deliverers from age-long tyranny and oppression by the orthodox Hindus”.

Ambedkar felt strengthened in these views after the Congress won the 1937 elections and started to rule eight out of 11 provinces, and passed conservative bills, including the Industrial Dispute Bill that made strike illegal under certain conditions in the Bombay Presidency. In 1939, Ambedkar made his stand clear in the legislative council of this province: “Whenever there is any conflict of interest between the country and the untouchables, so far as I am concerned, the untouchables’ interests will take precedence over the interests of the country”.

But by saying such a thing, Ambedkar was not anti-national. First, like Jyotirao Phule, he did not think that India was a nation: “How can people divided into several thousands of castes be a nation?” he asked. For him, the national movement was dominated by an elite, of which the masses were the first victims. For, as he said in 1943 before trade union activists, the working classes “often sacrifice their all to the so-called cause of nationalism. [But] they have never cared to enquire whether the nationalism for which they are to make their offerings will, when established, give them social and economic equality”.

During World War II, Ambedkar continued to collaborate with the colonial power in exchange for concessions to Dalits and the working class at large. In July 1941, he joined the Defence Advisory Committee that had been set up by the viceroy to involve Indian leaders in the war effort and to give to this forced participation of India in the conflict a greater legitimacy. In 1942, he entered the executive council of the viceroy as labour member. In this capacity, he worked relentlessly to develop social legislation. One of the most significant bills that he managed to have passed was the Indian Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill, making compulsory the recognition of a trade union in every enterprise under certain conditions. He also introduced the Payment of Wages (Amendment) Bill and numerous Factories (Amendment) Bills — which were all passed. In fact, many of the labour laws independent India was to elaborate upon after 1947 have been initiated by Ambedkar under the British. He also obtained a larger recruitment of Dalits in the army and, in particular, the reinstatement of the Mahar battalion.

However, Ambedkar, during WWII, had decided to cooperate with the British for another reason. Like Nehru, he thought that the Nazis, the Italian Fascists and Japan were more dangerous than the British. Opposing Mahatma Gandhi’s decision, in August 1942, to launch the Quit India Movement, he declared that the “patriotic duty of all Indians” was rather to prevent such movements from creating “anarchy and chaos which would unquestionably help and facilitate the subjugation of this country by Japan”.

For Ambedkar, there was an “ism” above nationalism: Humanism, with its values of equality and liberty. Hence his collaboration with the British to promote the cause of the Indian plebe and to fight the Axis pow-ers — hence also his conversion to Buddh-ism. While Hinduism tends to be conside-red as the national religion of India par excellence today, Ambedkar looked at it as disrespectful of human dignity, in contrast to Buddhism.

While he considered that religion was “absolutely essential for the development of mankind”, his vision of religion was overdetermined by social considerations.

He rejected Hinduism because he thought that the caste system was co-substantial to this religion, whereas equality was inherent in Buddhism.
He said: “By remaining in the Hindu religion nobody can prosper in any way. In the Buddhist religion 75 per cent bhikkshus were Brahmins. Twenty-five per cent were Shudras and others. But Lord Buddha said, “O bhikkshus, you have come from different countries and castes. Rivers flow separately when they flow in their provinces, but they lose their identity when they meet the sea. They become one and the same. The Buddhist Sangh is like an ocean. In this Sangh all are equal”.
There is probably no better metaphor of the nation that is supposed to be made of peer citizens paying allegiance to the same encompassing body politic, without any intermediate entity.
On October 14, 1956, while he converted to Buddhism in a grand ceremony in Nagpur, Ambedkar said: “By discarding my ancient religion which stood for inequality and oppression today I am reborn”. And one of the 22 oaths that he took on that day, and even asked those who converted like him to take, was: “I thereby reject my old religion, Hinduism, which is detrimental to the prosperity of human kind and which discriminates between man and man and which treats me as inferior”.
Certainly, Ambedkar may be seen as anti-national because of his opposition to the leaders of the freedom movement in the 1930s and ’40s and because of his rejection of the religion that tends to be officially presented today as the embodiment of the Indian way of life, as new laws (including those pertaining to “beef bans”) suggest. But he discarded these brands of nationalism in the name of higher values, arguing that nationalist leaders can also be oppressive and showing the world that human dignity matters more than anything else — including for the making of a proper nation.

Written by Christophe Jaffrelot | Published:April 14, 2016 12:01, Indian Express

Gandhi and Ambedkar, a false debate

It is part of a broader political narrative, one from which it cannot be detached and for which it is in fact accountable. More than the intimacy that exists between opposing accounts of them, it is the uncomfortable familiarity among Gandhi’s enemies that needs considering

Enemies often share more than friends, and may even enjoy a closer relationship. This is certainly the case with those would-be rivals who attempt either to oppose or to reconcile Gandhi and Ambedkar, seen as representatives of caste thinking on the one hand and its repudiation on the other. Instructive about this increasingly vocal rivalry, among activists as much as academics, is the fact that neither side questions the pairing of Mahatma and Babasaheb, which serves as a stereotyped way of joining the two in ideological debate. But while such a relationship makes pedagogical sense in a classroom, I want to argue here that it is not true to history, and dangerously misguided in the context of today’s politics.

Those who would reconcile Gandhi and Ambedkar acknowledge their many disagreements, but point out that Babasaheb’s resignation from Nehru’s cabinet, rejection of the Constitution he had played such a large part in drafting and turn to religion brought him closer to the Mahatma, who also placed more emphasis on faith and social reform than he did upon the state. For his part, Gandhi is said to have approached Ambedkar in his acceptance of intermarriage, the forsaking of caste occupations and legal measures against discrimination. But how different is the intimacy of this reconciliation from that which insists on opposing the two men in such a way as to make Babasaheb the real father India’s freedom, and so nothing more than the Mahatma’s replacement?

Part of a political narrative

The emphasis on paternity and so political legitimacy is a fundamentally conservative one, and part of a narrative that includes the courtroom statement by Gandhi’s assassin, who accused him of being Pakistan’s true founder and therefore India’s illegitimate father. Yet this narrative is also revolutionary, displacing legitimacy from the figure of the son to that of the father, so destabilising paternal authority altogether. To replace Gandhi with Ambedkar, or as Godse did, with Subhas Chandra Bose and Vallabhbhai Patel, is also to mimic those who had sought to replace British by Indian rule. For without renouncing the kind of violence exercised by the colonial state, claimed the Mahatma, these revolutionaries wanted the tiger’s nature without the tiger.

Now the British had also portrayed themselves as paternal rulers, and Gandhi describes them as impotent as much as carnivorous fathers in Hind Swaraj. These were the very characteristics of feebleness conjoined with ferocity that eventually came to define the Mahatma himself in the eyes of his rivals across the political spectrum. If all this tells us anything, it is that the Gandhi-Ambedkar debate is part of a broader political narrative, one from which it cannot be detached and for which it is in fact accountable. More than the intimacy that exists between opposing accounts of the Mahatma and Babasaheb, in other words, it is the uncomfortable familiarity among Gandhi’s enemies that needs considering.

Why is it the case that Muslims, who comprised the Mahatma’s chief political rivals in his own lifetime, are today absent from the ideological battles that pit the self-proclaimed supporters of Ambedkar and Godse against him? And do the latter share anything in common despite their very real differences? After all Godse had argued that unlike Gandhi he was opposed to caste prejudices, and his political heirs have gone further to claim Ambedkar not only against the Mahatma, but also the Muslims whose true father he is seen as having become. Ambedkar’s partisans in the fight against Gandhi have admittedly not gone in this direction, but by refusing to acknowledge the larger context in which their debate occurs are unable to address its implications.

Invoking the Poona Pact

While Ambedkar seems to have promoted his opposition to Gandhi as a principled one, he continued to deploy explicitly Gandhian terms and practices like satyagraha, thus refusing to be defined by this enmity. Rather than a move towards the Mahatma, however, this suggests he recognised their relationship as being neither equal nor exclusive. For while Babasaheb was obliged by political realities to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking and writing about the Mahatma, the reverse was not true, and he is very rarely mentioned in Gandhi’s collected works. It is perhaps because of this asymmetry that those who pose Ambedkar against Gandhi are reduced to relying on a single event, the Poona Pact of 1932, for so much of their argumentation.

Ambedkar himself made of the Poona Pact the chief example of his fight with Gandhi, but at the time it was signed he was assiduous in defending it against all critics, of whom Godse’s fellow ideologues were the most vociferous. The Poona Pact was agreed after the Mahatma went on a fast unto death, ostensibly against the discrimination exercised by caste Hindus against Dalits, but also to protest the British granting separate electorates to them as part of the Communal Award — just as they had earlier to Muslims, and so by default Hindus as well. By its terms Ambedkar relinquished separate electorates for the reservations that in later years he argued were ineffectual, because they made Dalits dependent on caste Hindu votes and support.

Seen by Congress as well as Hindu nationalists as a “divide and rule” policy meant to keep India under British tutelage, separate electorates had also threatened to fragment Hindus as a community and reduce their majority relative to Muslims. Indeed, the grant of separate electorates to Dalits had come out of the Minorities Pact at the Round Table Conference in London, where Ambedkar had allied with Muslim, Christian, Anglo-Indian and other minorities who claimed to represent a plurality of India’s population, thus denying that any majority existed in the country. And if there was no majority in India, then of course there were no minorities either, which meant that these categories could now be redefined beyond the communal identities of Hindus and Muslims.

Ambedkar and others in the Minorities Pact argued that the inequalities of Indian society meant that people’s interests were permanently aligned with their castes or communities. But if Hindus were to become a permanent majority and Muslims a permanent minority after Independence, then democracy was impossible in India, since it required shifting interests that allowed all groups the chance to hold power. Hindus therefore had to be disaggregated by caste, so as to make for changing alliances that produced political rather than communal majorities. The Congress, however, questioned the legitimacy of these minority voices, and maintained that Independence would erase caste and communal distinctions, allowing people to vote along economic lines instead.

While the Poona Pact is much invoked in the battle that sets Babasaheb against Mahatma, interesting about the Minorities Pact is that it is just as regularly ignored. Is this because any acknowledgement of it would immediately reveal that the Gandhi-Ambedkar debate possessed neither autonomy nor integrity, but was instead given meaning by its triangulation with other classes and communities? For although caste relations in everyday life might exclude third parties, they have always been mediated by these latter in the arena of national politics. Thus Godse’s dedication to caste inter-dining was prompted by his fear of Hindu fragmentation in the face of what he saw as Muslim aggression.

By focussing on the relationship between Gandhi and Ambedkar, those who oppose as much as reconcile these men end up confining them to an intimacy that is premised upon caste-like exclusions. And in doing so they are unable to chart the political constellation in which Babasaheb and Mahatma belonged. For if Jinnah has more claim to be Gandhi’s chief rival, he also became an obstacle for Ambedkar, for whom the Muslim League’s domination of opposition politics pushed his Dalit cause into the background. Despite many years of cooperating with the League, Ambedkar also knew that Jinnah would come to an arrangement with Gandhi and his caste Hindu following that would leave Dalits in the political wilderness.

Dalit constituency as model

Following India’s partition and the destruction of Muslim politics there, it was the new Dalit constituency created by reservations that eventually came to serve as a model for this minority that had once claimed to be a nation. And while the high caste interests and leadership of many Muslim organisations have meant that such attempts at alliance building continue to be opportunistic, it has assumed a distinctive reality among youth movements and in student politics. The fact that Rohith Vemula and his friends were declared to be anti-national because they condemned the execution of Yakub Memon is significant in this respect, as was the subsequent and related invocation of Afzal Guru alongside Vemula himself at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Without any Muslim issue or organisation being involved in such controversies, this minority has again come to triangulate caste relations as well as conflict between the left and right. In both cases the Muslim issue allowed students in Hyderabad and Delhi to be accused of anti-national activities. But it is important to recognise that the same logic of mediation also permitted Godse to work for an end to caste discrimination among Hindus. In other words, this logic is a structural one, and can assume opposing political forms. And if Ambedkar is omnipresent in today’s controversies, Gandhi is by the same token absent from them. There no longer exists any relationship, let alone debate, between the two.

(Faisal Devji is Reader in Indian History and Fellow of St. Antony’s College in the University of Oxford, where he is also Director of the Asian Studies Centre.)

Source: The Hindu, 22-02-2016

Archives released by LSE reveal BR Ambedkar’s time as a scholar

That BR Ambedkar was a bright student is known, but what did American and British academics say about his credentials? Archival documents released by the London School of Economics (LSE) cast new light on the iconic leader’s student days here.

After completing a doctorate at Columbia University, Ambedkar wanted to research and study in Britain. His professor, Edwin R Seligman from Columbia, wrote to economist Herbert Foxwell at LSE on September 23, 1920, recommending his star student.

“He writes me that he is desirous of utilising certain research facilities in both London and in Edinburgh and has asked for a letter of introduction to you. This I am very glad to give him, as he is not only a very able, but an exceedingly pleasant fellow, and I am sure that you will do for him what you can,” Seligman wrote.

Foxwell wrote to LSE’s secretary, Mair, in November 1920, “I find he (Ambedkar) has already taken his doctor’s degree & has only come here to finish a research. I had forgotten this. I am sorry we cannot identify him with the School but there are no more worlds here for him to conquer.”

This was Ambedkar’s second attempt to study at LSE after having enrolled for a Masters degree in 1916, when he took courses in geography with Halford Mackinder, political ideas with G Lowes Dickinson, and social evolution and social theory with LT Hobhouse.

(Picture courtesy: LSE History)

The fee for the course was £10 and 10 shillings. At the same time, Ambedkar enrolled for the bar course at Gray’s Inn. His 1916 application form in his handwriting has also been released by LSE, which mentions his permanent address as ‘Bombay, India’.

Ambedkar’s studies at LSE were interrupted as he was recalled to India to serve as a military secretary in Baroda, but in July 1917 the University of London gave him leave of absence of up to four years.

In 1920, Ambedkar returned to LSE after working as a professor of political economy at Sydenham College in Mumbai and giving evidence to the Scarborough Committee preparing the 1919 Government of India Act on the position and representation of “untouchable” communities.

Initially, he applied to complete his masters degree and write a thesis on ‘The Provincial Decentralisation of Imperial Finance in India’. His fees had gone up by a guinea, to £11 pounds and 11 shillings.

College archives show there was a slight glitch in his LSE career in April 1921 when he failed to send in his form for the summer examinations. The school secretary, Mair, had to write to University of London’s Academic Registrar for permission to submit the form late.

(Picture courtesy: LSE History)

In economics, Ambedkar’s tutors included Edwin Cannan and Foxwell. Ambedkar submitted his doctoral thesis, ‘The Problem of the Rupee’, in March 1923 but it was not recommended for acceptance. There were reports the thesis was too revolutionary and anti-British for the examiners. However, there is no indication of this in Ambedkar’s student file. The thesis was resubmitted in August 1923 and accepted in November 1923.

It was published almost immediately and in the preface Ambedkar noted “my deep sense of gratitude to my teacher, Cannan “noting that Cannan’s “severe examination of my theoretical discussions has saved me from many an error”.

Cannan repaid the complement by writing the Foreword to the thesis in which he found “a stimulating freshness” even if he disagreed with some of the arguments.

Source: The Hindustan Times, 9-02-2016

Ambedkar the equaliser

I owe my proficiency as a political journalist to one of my first editors who dismissed my journalism until then as ‘Sunday journalism’. If I wanted to be taken seriously I must choose either politics or business as my specialisation, he said.

Rather reluctantly, I trotted off to Nagpur, my home town, when he set me an assignment on the RSS and the Dalit movement — Nagpur is the confluence of both movements. I sought the help of my political science professor at Nagpur University — he was related to Balasaheb Deoras, the long reigning RSS sarsanghchalak at the time. When I asked him to brief me about the Dalit movement, he gave me the names and numbers of various leaders and experts in the field, “I do not think I am qualified to talk about the Dalit movement,” he said, even as I thought that was a strange confession for a professor of political science to make. Only years later did I realise he was only being circumspect, not wishing to invite allegations of influencing a young mind against Babasaheb Ambedkar who was really no favourite of the RSS at the time.

The word ‘Hindutva’ was yet to enter the Indian political lexicon but people in the RSS did not much care for the Dalit movement, not the least because Ambedkar succeeded in Nagpur as the RSS never had — he had converted lakhs of his followers to Buddhism there and that was reason enough. When I met some Dalit scholars, I realised why —Ambedkar had carefully chosen Buddhism instead of Islam or Christianity, which would have brought his followers more approbation but also a complete alienation from their roots. Choosing Buddhism was a masterstroke because it at once gave his followers room to observe Hindu rituals if they wished without having to submit to all its various restrictions. Ambedkar believed that Hinduism was not designed for liberty, equality and fraternity and that is why he stressed upon those ideals in the Preamble to our Constitution. One quote from Ambedkar that has since influenced my thinking is: “You cannot be liberal in politics and conservative in religion.”

It has shaped my own understanding of Indian politics.

That is why I find December 6 very poignant each year — it is the day the Babri masjid was demolished in Ayodhya but it is also Ambedkar’s punya tithi. He died a few weeks after converting his people to Buddhism in 1956. This year is the 125th anniversary of his birth but also the shashti poorti of his death. There is also a great irony in the fact that the BJP-led government at the Centre should commemorate him in Parliament by fishing out a new date as Constitution Day (to me November 26, though, will always be 26/11, the day of the worst attack by Pakistan on Bombay) but there is also a sort of poetic justice. In towns and villages across Maharashtra, upper caste Hindus hated Ambedkar because the conversion of his followers to Buddhism deprived them of scavengers and a major section of their ‘balutedars’ (village servants who rendered important community duties). Becoming Buddhist gave Dalits the right to refuse upper caste slavery and brought them a great sense of self-worth.

Dalit leaders since have betrayed many of his ideals but there is no one who did more to equalise Indian society than Ambedkar — and not just for his followers alone. The Constitution with all its guarantees is testimony enough. Even Narendra Modi today has described it as a “holy book”. What could be a greater tribute?

Source: Hindustan Times, 3-12-2015