AMBEDKAR Saw RSS’ Idea of ‘Hindu Nation’ as the ‘Worst Calamity’. As we enter upon the year of the 125th birth anniversary of Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, his worst apprehensions regarding Indian society and polity seem to be coming true as never before.

“If Hindu Raj does become a fact” -- he wrote in Pakistan or Partition of India (1945) “it will no doubt be the greatest calamity for this country. It is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity. On that account it is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost.”

Ambedkar had the foresight to spot the danger of Hindu Rashtra on the distant skyline some 70 years ago; today that danger is at our gates, in the shape of the Modi Raj, essentially a corporate-communal fascist rule.

 

RSS, BJP Cannot Appropriate Ambedkar

Modi is fond of using Ambedkar as an alibi for every assault by his Government and his party on the Constitution drafted by Ambedkar. With his Government in the dock for the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula, the Ambedkarite Marxist student activist branded anti-national by Modi’s Ministers, the Prime Minister is trying hard to redefine Ambedkar’s legacy to suit the BJP’s agenda.

Laying the foundation stone for an Ambedkar Memorial at Delhi, Modi said that Ambedkar called for labour reform as well as industrialization. In fact, Ambedkar staunchly opposed every reform that the colonial regime introduced to discipline and enslave labour, and today Modi’s Government is introducing labour reforms’ that take a leaf from the colonial book!

Modi said that Ambedkar resigned from the Congress Government’s cabinet over the issue of women’s rights. This is a reference to the Hindu Code Bill that Ambedkar drafted; he felt betrayed at its truncation and dilution by the Nehru Government. But Modi omits to mention that the staunchest opponent of the Hindu Code Bill was the RSS, which backed the Anti Hindu Code Bill Committee. Historian Ramchandra Guha has noted that the RSS organized a public meeting at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on the 11th of December, 1949, “where speaker after speaker condemned the bill. One called it ‘an atom bomb on Hindu society.’” (Ramchandra Guha, 'Bhagwat’s Ambedkar', Indian Express, 10 December 2015)

Moreover, Ambedkar had burnt the Manusmriti as a symbol of casteism and patriarchy, while the BJP, RSS and ABVP defend the Manusmriti. Even Modi himself, in an article he wrote on Golwalkar in 2006, had the audacity to refer to Ambedkar as a modern Manu in a deliberate attempt to reconcile Ambedkar with Manuvad - the same Manuvad that Ambedkar was committed to annihilating.

The fact is that Ambedkar was not just a law-giver or Constitutionwriter but a political visionary and activistleader. His political and social vision as well as the Constitution he drafted are under the worst possible attack today from communal-corporate fascism.

Modi, even while laying the foundation stone for Ambedkar’s memorial, displayed his own characteristic arrogance and self-centeredness. The foundation stone had Modi’s name twice in large fonts, dwarfing Ambedkar’s own name! Modi claimed that it was his historic mission to fulfil Baba Saheb’s dreams. The fact, however, was that Baba Saheb’s dreams were not for memorials for himself: his dream was to annihilate caste and transform India into a truly democratic and egalitarian society.

Ambedkar’s dream was to usher in an “ideal society” founded on “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, with the three canons seamlessly integrated into a “way of life” and a form of government known as democracy. The onus of achieving this, he insisted, rests primarily on the dalit masses, who must lead the campaign of “annihilation of caste” armed with the motto “Educate, Agitate, Organise”. And on that basis alone will India become a modern nation with a robust constitutional morality.

ROHITH Vemula on Modi and Ambedkar On November 12th 2015, Modi was greeted with protests in London and parried questions from the press on his Government’s intolerance by quoting Ambedkar. A post by Rohith on the same date reads: “Wherever Modi was welcomed with strong protests, he brings out Ambedkar’s name. Modi’s mentioning of Babasaheb’s name and social justice term in UK Assembly is frustratingly ironical when his party members kill Dalits and Muslims on a daily basis.” Indeed BJP leaders like VK Singh call Dalits ‘dogs’, and BJP leaders have been exposed by a sting operation as having funded the antiDalit terrorist outfit Ranveer Sena which massacred Dalits in Bihar.