Editor V.T. Rajshekar’s comment on the proposed award for Dalit journalism is profound yet agonising.
Dr. Ambedkar sprang up like a lotus from the filthy conditions of his birth in the Mahar community to become the shining star and champion for all the deprived peoples of India and throughout the world. The narrow-minded attitude of some conceited Mahars claiming Dr. Ambedkar exclusively as their own had turned many non-Mahar Dalits hostile to Dr. Ambedkar movement even in Maharashtra. The latest attempt to identify Dalits and Dalits alone as Ambedkarites is likewise a dangerous exclusivist attitude. It also hurts when Dr. Ambedkar is shown as a liberator without the means of liberation that he advocated. Few people want to recognise that the pinnacle of Ambedkar mission is abandonment of Hinduism and embracing of Budhism.
In the present context, trouble arose when the sponsors of the Award first aired the criteria for selection on the website of Ambedkar.org. If they had mentioned
“Ambedkarite” instead of “Dalit” for the award, it would have been more appropriate not only for the website which bears Ambedkar’s name but for the broader cause of Ambedkarism which included Budhism. Budhism is against discrimination and all kinds of exclusiveness. Few Dalits even those who embraced Budhism exhibit right view, right thinking, and right speech -leave alone right action. What we see often are the verbal fights against the ghosts, real and imagined of a caste system in a religion which Dr. Ambedkar had exhorted us to abandon. We should at least recognise the nobility of the sponsors of the Award who felt the need to honour literary works in the cause of Ambedkarism. The criteria they listed are tentative because they have themselves welcomed suggestions for amendment of the criteria. I wish that the sponsors in their wisdom would consider giving such awards to a few every year, rather than to a single writer with a well prepared presentable citation which will be a treasure to keep more than the monetary component of the award. (lakshmanpp@hotmail.com)
