I have chosen the subject of “Hurdles & betrayals facing Dr. Ambedkar mission” for my keynote address. “Independent” India has not produced a thinker, scholar, and philosopher of the stature of Dr. Ambedkar.
M.K. Gandhi, described by Brahminical people as the “Father of the Nation” was discarded by the Hindus themselves for whom he worked and died after making them rulers of India. History has finally thrown him into the wastepaper basket.
Babasaheb Ambedkar has emerged as the country’s tallest intellectual titan and history has given the highest place, calling him the “Father of India’, meaning the father of all the castes and communities of the country. But Gandhi remains merely as the “Father of nation” — meaning just one among India’s many nations. But this one ungrateful nation, the nation of Hinds, itself has rejected him.
Our considered opinion is that the Dalit community, comprising the country’s single largest population of 20%, could not make use of Babasaheb’’s burning thoughts because of the serious failures on the part of the Dalit leadership.
For want of time we are citing only the three important “betrayals” committed by us:
(1) The greatest hurdle which our Hindu enemies put before Dail it is the Reservation in (1) education, (2) jobs and (3) elected posts. Not only the Hindu rulers of India led by Gandhi cheated us, but they used this important constitutional measure to hinduise (enslave) the non-Hindu, if not anti-Hindu, Dalits.
Remember, Babasaheb had never asked for reservations. His demand for “separate electorate”, was scuttled by the cunning Gujarati Bania (Gandhi) by going on his “epic fast” (in which he did not die). Reservations killed the very future of Dalits and made us the permanent slaves of Hindus.
As the orphaned children of Babasaheb we should have fought for “separate electorate” but we betrayed our Father and opted for reservations which produced a “creamy layer” that was co-opted by the Hindus and thus got totally alienated from the community itself. Reservations have benefited not even 5% of the community even after 60 years of “independence”. Reservations helped the Hindu rulers to divide the community. More than that, the reservations made us permanent beggars before Hindus, and we lost our revolutionary fervour.
Reservations -also made us forget our own uneducated, poverty- stricken brothers (95%). Today, a wide gulf has developed between the two. The village-dwelling Dalit masses consider us as their enemy.
In the political field, those elected from reserved seats have committed the greatest crime in the community. So much so we have sent 120 donkeys to the Lok Sabha to carry the dirty laundry of Hindus — their mouths gagged by their Hindu bosses.
It is the failure of the educated and employed Dalits that has come as the greatest betrayal of Babasaheb. We are deeply worried over this problem.
(2) The second most serious betrayal came when we disobeyed the “final words” of Babasaheb.
We have described these *final words” as “Three Commandments” of Babasaheb, namely “Educate, Agitate, Organise”. (V.T. Rajshekar, When Dalits Disobeyed Final Words of their Father, DSA-2005).
For about 20 years (until we corrected the order), our educated Dalits continued to subvert the order either consciously or unconsciously.
What are those “final words”? Educate, Agitate, Organise. That is the order.
This is not Babasaheb’s invention. He took it from Budhist Thri Saranas: Buddham, Dhammam, Sangham. It means Educate, Agitate, Organise. But our educated Dalits twisted it out of shape and put “Organise” between the two and thereby stunted the growth of militant Dalit movement.
Dalit movement will become genuine and revolutionary only if it is born out of “agitation” like the Andhra Dalit Mahasabha born out of the Karamchedu and Tsundur bloody violence by Khammas and Reddis. Otherwise, it will be a fake Dalit movement. After our powerful campaign in Dalit Voice, we finally corrected the order. But by then enough damage was done. We have no time to elaborate the meaning and implication of each command. We have written a booklet itself on this — available outside.
Because of the twisting of the order, putting “Organise” before “Agitate”, some Dalit leaders misguided the innocent Dalit masses, formed hundreds of rubber stamp- organisations — conveniently making a short-cut to name, fame and quick money. Just see how many Republican Parties, Samata Sainik Dals, BAMCEFs are there. Every Dalit leader is having his own pocket organisation with hardly any followers.
Because of this, Dalit movement suffered terrible damage once for all. Even today, there are several hundreds of Dalit organisations sticking to the wrong order — even while calling themselves Budhists.
(3) The third “betrayal” of Babasaheb by us is in refusing to follow his call to quit Hinduism and embrace Budhism.
Not even 10% of India’s Dalit population has taken to Budhism. This is partly because the illiterate Dalit masses are not even told anything about Budhism and its revolutionary content. Except in Maharashtra and parts of UP, we have hardly any Budhism.
In places where Dalits took to Budhism, they fell into the Brahminical trap of no beef-eating, vegetarianism, Marwadi Goenka’s Vipassana (meditation) and idol worship. So much so Brahmins today do not consider Budhism, as practised by our people, as danger to them.
But remember, Adi Shankara’s violent war against Budhism and killing thousands and thousands of Budhists and the burning of Budhist viharas then. The Tirupati temple was once a Budhist vihara which the Adi Shankara destroyed and made into a Hindu temple.
Here again our educated Dalit leadership betrayed Babasaheb.
(4) Fourth and the most important: we have committed the greatest crime against Babasaheb by converting Dalit movement into a male-dominated affair. We men should be put to shame when women academics led by Vice- Chancellor Veena Das and Sister Thummapudi Bharati put a mirror before our ugly faces.
Conclusion:
As the Editor of Dalit Voice, the country’s largest circulated Dalit journal and an uncompromising follower of Babasaheb, we see before us total darkness all over India as far as the Ambedkarite movement is concerned. We see no signs of hope when Dalits are getting wholesale Hindu and slaves of Hindus.
Babasaheb said Untouchables are not Hindu and were never Hindu. But the constitution called us Hindu, and the Brahmins have made us super Hindu by using us as the weapon to kill Muslims.
The educated and employed sections have totally betrayed Babasaheb, caught in the jaws of gandhism, marxism, naxalism, Hinduism and Goenka’s Budhism.
We see all-round gloom.
But there is a silver lining: The Brahminical rulers have decided to totally scrap reservation which has already come to end. Perhaps once the fish is thrown out of the water, and the Dalits start facing mass unemployment, starvation and driven to the wall, only then they will get angry and revolt against the existing Dalit leadership. And the Hindus.
Contradictions between Hindus and Dalits will sharpen only when the reservations are totally scrapped.
Khairlanji in Maharashtra has shown such a glimmer of hope. More such revolts will come soon.
