My Ambedkar vs Yours
By Poonam I Kaushish
We’ve been through this before. Year after year. Of how Parliament is increasingly being devalued. Becoming a tamasha amidst acrimonious pandemonium where politically motivated bashing has become order of the day and agenda a luxury taken up when lung power is exhausted. If one thought on had seen it all, one was mistaken. Last week our MPs broke the last bastion reducing it into an akhara: a riotous scuffle between BJP-Congress landing two BJP MPs in hospital and FIR against Rahul. On the latest buzz word: Ambedkar. Standing testimony to lots of noise over Father of the Constitution.
Basically this bloated rhetoric about Ambedkar bandied by all Parties during Parliament’s Constitution debate is essentially an intra-Party affair, all wanting to cement a winning bond with the Dalit icon and capitalize on it. Understandable, as the community accounts for 20% vote bank and its votes would tilt the winning scales in polls.
While Prime Minister Modi accused Congress of hypocrisy and historical negligence toward Ambedkar’s contributions denying him Bharat Ratna and getting him defeated in elections twice, Home Minister Shah, mocked its rival for using his legacy for political gain “BJP honors Babasaheb’s contributions, Congress has turned his name into a ‘fashion’ chanting Ambedkar, Ambedkar. Itna naam agar bhagwan ka lete to saat janmon tak swarg mil jata.” Retaliated Congress, “BJP- RSS have ‘hatred’ for Ambedkar” demanding Modi sack Shah.
Raising a moot point: Does our polity divided by caste, splintered by religion, riven by political-ideological differences and bereft of statesmen with vision and concern for tomorrow, really genuinely believe in Ambedkar’s ideology? Not at all. The first give-away is their response to caste. Congress-led India bloc hoots for caste census, BJP tip-toes stealthily around it.
Merrily forgetting Ambedkar words, “I feel caste system must be abolished if Hindu society is to be reconstructed on basis of equality. Untouchability has its roots in the caste system.” Alas, the caste genie unleashed three decades ago, which Ambedkar was against, is now devouring the country.
Two, response over enacting Uniform Civil Code. While BJP plums for it as it would help national integration by removing contradictions based on ideology, lambasting Congress for insulting God of Dalits by deliberately distorting religion to suit narrow personal and political ends which have vitiated the country, threatening its unity, integrity and solidarity.
Congress-led so-called ‘secular’ Parties on their part, vehemently oppose its enactment on grounds it would interfere with right of religious freedom and in personal laws of religious groups unless religious groups are prepared for change, (sic) Secularism is in danger under Modi, they yell. Read Muslim votes.
Never mind Ambedkar was a strong advocate of UCC. He felt there was no connection between religious and personal law in civilized society. Or why it should be viewed as encroaching on right of religious freedom? Or being anti-minority? “I like religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity. A Constitution which knits us into a sovereign, socialist, secular and democratic republic assuring dignity of individuals and nation’s unity and integrity.”
Babasaheb’s advice is dismissed as utopianism hypothesis. Successive Governments have failed to draw a distinction between politics, caste and religion. Shouldn’t they support his middle path of a voluntary civil code?
Arguably, in today’s political climate wherein deliberate distortions of religion are being pursued to suit narrow personal-political ends which have vitiated the country and shamelessly has everything to do with vote-bank politics. Whereby, Ram-Rahim have been reduced to election cut-outs. Should this make Ambedkar communal, even a Hindu fundamentalist?
From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Maharashtra to Manipur communal and caste explosions and exploitations rule the roost. Wherein, this C2 has become the most luscious mistress to be measured through the prism of power glass politics. With Parties defining it according to their own warped and selfish needs.
Not just that. With everyone propounding their own recipes of communal-caste harmony, the nation is getting sucked into vortex of centrifugal bickering. So caught up are our leaders in their frenzied pursuit of political nirvana through separatism they confuse themselves and history.
In his over 30 years of public life, Ambedkar contested ideas and actions of almost every Party: Congress, Jan Sangh and Hindu Mahasabha. His ideological clash over Hindu Code Bill pushed him to resign from Nehru’s Cabinet.
Another example: Article 356 which gives President emergency power to dismiss State Governments, dissolve Assemblies and impose President’s rule. Ambedkar would surely be turning in his grave. His apprehensions about its misuse have come true.
Not many know Babasaheb opposed Article 370 which gave Jammu and Kashmir special status. It was enacted against his wishes. History records, him telling Sheikh Abdullah: “You wish India should protect your borders, she should build roads in your area, she should supply you food grains and Kashmir should get equal status as India. But the Union Government should have only limited powers and Indian people should have no rights in Kashmir. To give consent to this proposal, would be a treacherous thing against India’s interests and I, as Law Minister will never do it.”
Abdullah went to Nehru who directed him to Dr Ayyangar, who told Sardar Patel to do something as it was a matter of Nehru’s prestige as he had promised Abdullah. Patel got it passed when Nehru was on foreign tour.
This apart, it is a testament to Ambedkar’s prescience that six decades after his death, nearly every Party profess to embrace him. The growing tide of social justice since 1990’s and imperative of every Party to reach out to the marginalized and oppressed means his ideas are part of Left, Right and Centre’s discourse.
Modi has often averred without Ambedkar he would not have been Prime Minister and his Party has worked overtime to woo Dalits and exploited regularly invoking Babasaheb in its outreach to the community as underscored by Maharashtra and Haryana victories. Congress too speaks of his legacy to restore its fraying links with the Dalit constituency. “Never forget we made him in charge of drafting the Constitution.”
Undoubtedly, his appeal and significance transcend his original constituency. That’s why competitive populism even posturing co-exist with campaign for Constitutionalism and social justice in Ambedkar’s name.
Either which way, the contesting claims to his legacy attests to the vibrancy of democracy that he helped secure. Certainly, impassioned debates, even raucous ones, would have made him proud but the unseemly push-and-shove and deafening sound-byte tokenism don’t do him justice.
In the ultimate, is our polity willing to carry forward and enact Ambedkar’s legacy? It all depends on whether our leaders are willing to get rid of their excess baggage of isms and instead bank on genuine secularism. But given today’s politico-social reality, Ambedkar’s sound advice is more than likely to be dismissed as an utopian hypothesis.
High time our netas recall and ponder over his wise assertion, “Humans are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die”. So instead of going through the circus of hypocritical drivel of serenading his legacy we need to see actions rather than words. India and its citizens deserve a lot better. What gives? — INFA