Remembering Dr B R Ambedkar On His Birthday On April 14

By D. Raja

Dr. B R Ambedkar’s apprehensions that minorities can be tyrannised have come true. His treatment that Hindus ought to come ahead to resolve it wants pressing consideration in our instances. “Minority communities could also be crushed. If not crushed they could be tyrannized and oppressed. They’re certain to be discriminated towards and denied equality earlier than legislation and equal alternative in public life.” These prescient strains have been written by Dr B R Ambedkar within the chapter “Majorities and Minorities” in his ebook “Ideas on Linguistic States”. He authored these strains within the context of elections and noticed voting happening on communal strains and within the course of candidates of the bulk group normally getting elected.

Tragically, minorities of our nation are witnessing denial of equality earlier than legislation and equal alternatives in public life. That is being trumpeted earlier than the bulk group for the aim of successful elections by polarizing the citizens. Use of polarising narratives by BJP leaders together with the Prime Minister within the not too long ago held election in UP and the brazen method through which UP Chief Minister appealed to majority sentiment through the use of disparaging narratives towards minority communities are crystal clear testimonies to what Dr Ambedkar prophetically wrote.

The alarming situation we’re seeing in BJP-ruled states was apprehended by Ambedkar with respect to the situation of minorities in impartial India. The way through which women in instructional establishments in some components of Karnataka have been denied their basic proper to entry schooling simply because they placed on Hijab painfully introduced out the discrimination heaped on them on the grounds of their religion. Now Muslim merchants are banned from collaborating in festivals organized in Karnataka on the event of Hindu non secular festivals clearly testify to their financial boycott solely on the premise of their religion. That is towards the elemental proper of each citizen to pursue commerce and commerce. Modi regime and different BJP-ruled states are trampling on the elemental rights of residents simply because they profess another faith, which is totally different from the faith of the bulk group and never in conformity with Hindutva challenge of Hindu-Rashtra.

That is nothing however majoritarianism in full show mocking the provisions made within the Structure of India guaranteeing the elemental rights to all residents no matter faiths. This politics flowing from obsessive issues of the ruling celebration with Hindutva and making it the central plank of its public insurance policies has lowered politics, within the phrases of Ambedkar, to “theology in motion.” Improvement in India now will not be politics in its standard sense however as an integral side of an exclusionary theology that has nothing to do with structure and constitutional morality. When Modi assumed workplace of the Prime Minister and took oath on the identical Structure, he proudly proclaimed that his regime can be rooted in “Minimal Authorities and Most Governance.” Authorities and governance are actually pushed to the margins by polarised narratives and divisive politics with a view to reap electoral dividends.

This poisonous majoritarianism being practiced in new India conjured up by the RSS is a by-product of V.D. Savarkar’s philosophy and imaginative and prescient of Hindus and Muslims having unbridgeable variations. Savarkar sowed the seeds of division by furthering the notion that these born in India solely would contemplate it as their father land and people whose locations of pilgrimage are exterior India couldn’t contemplate it as their holy land. In doing so he was successfully excluding Muslims and different minorities, whose locations of pilgrimage remained exterior India, from the scope of equal citizenship. Ambedkar wrote that V.D. Savarkar visualized a structure through which the “Hindu nation will probably be enabled to occupy a predominant place that is because of it and the Muslim nation made to dwell within the place of subordinate co-operation with the Hindu nation.” Ambedkar then warned that “Mr. Savarkar in advocating his scheme is admittedly making a most harmful scenario for the protection and safety of India”. Equally, the head-priest of the RSS, M.S. Golwalkar advocated second-class citizenship for Muslims. Sadly, the Modi regime and BJP dominated states are actually implementing this imaginative and prescient of Hindus and Muslims constituting watertight sections.

This separation between the bulk and minority is enabling the Hindutva vanguard to disclaim minorities the precise to equality earlier than legislation and dignity. The best way Muslims and different minorities are being handled with contempt by Modi regime and degraded to a standing far beneath that of residents enshrined within the Structure clearly show the purpose that rabid communalism is getting priority over the imaginative and prescient of the liberty fighters and the Structure of India. Thus, as Ambedkar foretold, we are actually face-to-face to probably the most harmful scenario for the protection and safety of India.

Financial boycott of Muslims on any appreciable scale was by no means witnessed within the historical past of the nation. Such perverse steps are being inspired by BJP leaders and brought ahead. Such insurance policies mixed with the manufactured narratives like love Jihad are dividing India on communal foundation and creating circumstances conducive to animosity and hate. It’s tragic and unlucky that neither the Prime Minister nor every other high chief of the Union authorities uttered a single phrase condemning the open calls by so known as holy males for genocide of Muslims, as a substitute BJP got here to their safety.

By no means ever in its historical past, India witnessed elected leaders accountable for the functioning of the state equipment indulging in actions which are inflicting a large gulf amongst individuals based mostly on religion. Beneath the tutelage of the Manuvadi RSS, assaults and discrimination with Dalits, tribals and girls are happening and the perpetrators are going scot-free. An RSS pracharak sitting on the PM’s chair has emboldened such parts. This must be fought tooth and nail and that too based mostly on ideology celebrating pluralism and constitutional values.

We have to contemplate the next passage authored by Dr Ambedkar. He wrote “if we need to construct up unity, it’s not by devising a day, nevertheless sacred that day could also be, when each Hindus and Mahomedans will come to the identical polling sales space. If we would like actually to plan some means to construct up unity, what we should always do is to interrupt up the social barrier. I say that on this matter the lead must be taken up by the Hindu group, as a result of they’re a really unique group. If different communities dwell a separate life, it’s as a result of the Hindu group regards sure pursuits as its personal pursuits and the fault is solely because of the Hindu group.”

On this mild, everybody who prefers democracy over communal majoritarianism, equality over exclusion, our Structure over theology should come collectively to ascertain a long-lasting progressive unity to successfully neutralised the agenda of RSS-BJP. We’d like a motion within the sample of freedom motion to forge the unity of our individuals to defend the concept of India enshrined within the Structure. In our independence wrestle, political liberation went concurrently with social reform. We fondly keep in mind the herculean work finished by reformers like Ram Mohun Roy, Ishwarchand Vidyasagar, Jyotiba Phule, Mahatma Ayyankalli, Sree Narayana Guru and EVR Periyar for bringing reforms within the society. This time too, political unity amongst democratic individuals ought to go hand-in-hand with liberating the society from the homogeneity of the RSS. Hinduism as a faith was a various and subtle set of practices with nice regional variations and the absence of a centralised establishment.

Hindus themselves ought to take away RSS from their self-appointed position as the only custodian of all Hindus, East-West and North-South. Different organised religions also needs to make house for reforms and make their practices democratic. Mass schooling on these pertinent points, and spirit of agitation towards the darkness of majoritarianism and a sturdy democratic unity can obtain these targets. On this combat, Dr. Ambedkar’s slogan of “Educate, Agitate and Organise” ought to develop into our path for political and social liberation. (IPA Service)

The author is Normal Secretary, Communist Occasion of India (CPI).

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