On Baba Saheb's 125th Birth Anniversary
The RSS is terribly busy re-writing history these days. It will be more appropriate to call it guillotining of history, as these are facts and realities of history which are being sacrificed in this process at the altar of the political ambitions of the Hindutva gang.
So far this creativity was restricted to the works and words of Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Sardar Patel but of late Baba Saheb Ambedkar appears to have become the latest victim of malafide manufacturing of history by the flag-bearers of Hindutva. Dr Ambedkar becomes the newest victim of the RSS game plan being presented as a leader in league with K.B. Hedgewar and M.S. Golwalkar defending the cause of Hindu Rashtra in India.
In 2003 it was Vinay Katiyar, the former head of Bajrang Dal and a diehard RSS cadre who declared that Ambedkar was a great supporter of Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra like KB Hedgewar, the founder of RSS. In the recent past, this attempt for hijacking of Dr. Ambedkar got accelerated with the coming of power of RSS/BJP in India in 2014. In the true Hindutva tradition, the RSS 'thinkers' started manufacturing history and shamelessly went to the extent of penning words which Baba Saheb never spoke wrote or believed. On the eve of the 124th birth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar RSS came out with special issues of its English and Hindi organs. In one of the articles by RSS joint general secretary, Krishna Gopal wrote that Untouchability was not part of Hinduism but originated during the 'Muslim' rule. According to Gopal:
"He (Ambedkar) says Untouchability encrypted Hindu society 12 to 13 hundred years ago."
It is really astonishing to hear this kind of bizarre thesis about Dr Ambedkar who renounced Hinduism in 1956 for its repressive elements and converted to Buddhism. In his remarkable polemical piece, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, he wrote,
“To put the matter in general terms, Hinduism and social union are incompatible. By its very genius, Hinduism believes in social separation which is another name for social disunity and even creates social separation. If Hindus wish to be one, they will have to discard Hinduism. They cannot be one without violating Hinduism. Hinduism is the greatest obstacle to Hindu Unity. Hinduism cannot create that longing to belong which is the basis of all social unity. On the contrary Hinduism creates an eagerness to separate”.
It will be a great injustice to Dr Ambedkar and his legacy to parade him as a supporter of Hindutva. In fact, throughout his life he was a great opponent to the politics of Hindutva and the Muslim League both. His book, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1940) is a living testimony against the nefarious designs of communal elements in India. His ideas and warnings on Hindutva contained in this book can work as a great bulwark in checking the resurgence of forces of Hindu communalism.
Contrary to what likes of RSS 'thinkers' in the Hindutva gang are telling us, Dr Ambedkar felt,
“If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country No matter what the Hindus say. Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity. On that account, it is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost.”
According to him the pet slogan of Hindutva—Hindustan for Hindus—is not merely arrogant but is arrant nonsense.
Ambedkar was of the firm opinion that Hindutva was nothing but a ploy of high caste Hindus to maintain their hegemony over the resources of the society. While comparing them with Muslim communalists he said:
“The Hindus are the more difficult of the two parties to the question. In this connection, it is enough to consider the reaction of the high caste Hindus only. For, it is they who guide the Hindu masses and form Hindu opinion.
Unfortunately, the high caste Hindus are bad as leaders. They have a trait of character which often leads the Hindus to disaster. This trait is formed by their acquisitive instinct and aversion to share with others the good things of life. They have a monopoly of education and wealth, and with wealth and education, they have captured the State. To keep this monopoly to themselves has been the ambition and goal of their life. Charged with this selfish idea of class domination, they take every move to exclude the lower classes of Hindus from wealth, education and power...This attitude of keeping education, wealth and power as a close preserve for themselves and refusing to share it, which the high caste Hindus have developed in their relationship with the lower classes of Hindus, is sought to be extended by them to the Muslims. They want to exclude the Muslims from place and power, as they have done to the lower-class Hindus. This trait of the high caste Hindus is the key to the understanding of their politics.”
Ambedkar as a leader and fighter for a secular India did not differentiate between flag-bearers of Hindutva and the Muslim League. He treated them as two faces of the same coin bent upon destroying India. He wrote:
“Strange as it may appear, Mr Savarkar and Mr Jinnah instead of being opposed to each other on the one nation versus two nations issue are in complete agreement about it. Both agree, not only agree but insist that there are two nations in India—one the Muslim nation and the other Hindu nation.”
Baba Saheb did not mince his words when he wrote,
“It must be said that Mr Savarkar's attitude is illogical, if not queer. Mr Savarkar admits that the Muslims are a separate nation. He concedes that they have a right to cultural autonomy. He allows them to have a national flag. Yet he opposes the demand of the Muslim nation for a separate national home. If he claims a national home for the Hindu nation, how can he refuse the claim of the Muslim nation for a national home?”
Dr Ambedkar was fully conscious of the real designs of Hindutva toward minorities. He believed there would not have been any problem if Hindus and Muslims were allowed to live as partners with mutual respect and accord. But according to him,
“this is not to be, because Mr Savarkar will not allow the Muslim nation to be co-equal in authority with the Hindu nation. He wants the Hindu nation to be dominant nation and the Muslim nation to be the servient one.”
Ambedkar as a true secularist stood for
"forming mixed political parties based on an agreed programme of social and economic regeneration, and thereby avoid the danger of both Hindu Raj or Muslim Raj becoming a fact. Nor should the formation of a mixed party of Hindus and Muslims be difficult in India. There are many lower orders in the Hindu society, whose economic, political and social needs are the same as those of the majority of the Muslims and they would be far more ready to make a common cause with the Muslims for achieving common end than they would with the high caste of Hindus who have denied and deprived them of ordinary human right for centuries.”
It is to be noted that Dr. Ambedkar was forced to resign as firs law minister of India in 1951 due to aggressive campaign against him by the Hindutva organizations which were opposed to his draft of the Hindu Code Bill which aimed at providing share to Hindu women in property and gender equality. Why is it that despite Hindutva gang's immense hatred towards the egalitarian agenda of Baba Saheb and such strong anti-Hindutva ideas of Dr. Ambedkar RSS is trying to indulge in while lie about his legacy? The problem with the RSS is that it played absolutely no role in the freedom struggle of the country and with its present political ascendancy it is under great pressure to show that it was part of that great struggle and heroic heritage.
Interestingly, it needs Dr Ambedkar for another reason too. Despite the bluff game it has been playing about globalization, the Indian Government led by its favourite swayamsevaks has been functioning as true stooges of the foreign forces of globalization. Dalits of this country have been the worst victims of this process of liberalization and globalization as these are they who have mainly lost jobs, homes and other means of livelihood. The present breed of Hindutva rulers by creating public facade of love for Dr. Ambedkar wants to hide its real anti-people face.
How much Hindutva leaders respect Baba Saheb and Dalit sentiments has been made clear on the eve of the 125th birth anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar. The RSS/BJP rulers of Haryana have decided to change the name of its major city Gurgaon to Gurugram. This change has been justified on the ground that this area was the abode of Guru Dronacharya during Mahabharata times so this change was being made to honour him. There could not be the worst humiliation of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, a Dalit icon on his 125th birth anniversary. Guru Dronacharya was the Guru who deceitfully deprived the thumb of a lower Caste fine archer, Ekalavya, by asking his thumb as 'guru dakshina' so that he could not compete with Guru's high Caste Kaurav and Pandava students. It shows brazen insensitivity of RSS/BJP rulers to the Dalit sentiments on Dr Ambedkar's very birthday. It shows once again that nobody can beat Hindutva gang in hypocrisy!
Shamsul Islam
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