In a classic case of the devil misquoting the scriptures, “the JNU unit of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) — the student wing of the RSS — extensively misquoted Dr. Ambedkar in its posters put up to mark Dr. Ambedkar’s birth centenary. Posters misquoting Dr. Ambedkar as having said, “Don’t call them Dalits, call them Protestant Hindus or non-communist Hindus”, were put up all over the Jawaharlal Nehru University, here by the ABVP. These sinister posters to mislead the Dalit students, have deliberately misquoted Babasaheb. In fact, Dr. Ambedkar’s actual statement was as follows — “We think that they should be called Non-caste Hindus, Protestant Hindus or non-conformist Hindus or some such designation, instead of Depressed Classes” (p. 672, Vol 2 Writings and speeches of Dr. Ambedkar, Govt. of Maharashtra, Bombay 1982). It is important to note that this statement was made in a memorandum presented by Dr. Ambedkar and Rao Bahadur Srinivasan to the minorities sub-committee of the 2nd Round Table Conference in 1931. And since then, “Dr. Ambedkar revised his opinion and ‘said Untouchables are not Hindus and never Hindus.
In this statement of 1931, Dr. Ambedkar had actually asserted that the SCs should not be referred for by the degrading term “Depressed Classes”. But the ABVP, very cunningly, has substituted the word DALIT for “DEPRESSED CLASSES” and its posters proclaim that Dr. Ambedkar was against the word Dalit. But this is far from truth. In fact, Dr. Ambedkar usually referred to the SCs as Untouchables (the English equivalent of the Hindi word Dalit) so that the SCs may always remember that they were and still are being oppressed by the Hindus. But the label Dalit (meaning oppressed) so that the SCs can now forget that they are actually oppressed (Dalit). The ABVP wants the SC students to forget that they are – actually Dalits (oppressed) precisely because of the oppression by the Savarna’s, whose interests the ABVP upholds.
Communism alien to Hinduism: Secondly, if the ABVP was actually such an ardent champion of Dr. -Ambedkar, surely its posters should have at least been able to spell his name correctly. But a large number of the ABVP posters had even mis-spelt Babasaheb’s name whose because they now claim to champion.
Further, the ABVP posters proclaim that Dr. Ambedkar preferred the term “non-communist” Hindus for the SCs. Now this is utterly preposterous, Dr. Ambedkar, in his 1931 memorandum actually suggested the label “non-conformist” and certainly not “non-communist.” But, the ABVP has again, very cunningly, changed “non-conformist* to “non-communist”, in a bid to wean away Dalit students from radical ideologies.
And to follow the curious logic of the ABVP, if the SCs are “non-communist Hindus” it would imply that the non-SCs were, therefore, “communist Hindus”! The truth is, however, that, broadly speaking, the non-SC Hindu society is as alien to and as different from a communist society as is chalk from cheese.
Untouchables, a separate entity: It is interesting to note that the ABVP posters have selectively quoted (and mis-quoted) only from the statements of Dr. Ambedkar made during the early part of his political career, when he still had some slight hope of the Dalits being given their due respect under Hinduism. In 1935, however, Dr. Ambedkar was led to believe that this was not possible and it was then that he publicly declared that he was born a Hindu but would not die a Hindu. From then on, his endeavor was to give a separate religious identity to the Dalits, and is culminated in his conversion in 1956, in a mass renunciation of Hinduism. But the ABVP conveniently chose to ignore, in their posters, the statements that Dr. Ambedkar made regarding the separate religious, social, ethnic and political identity of the Dalits after 1935. This is part of the Hindu communalists’ strategy to Hinduism even Dr. Ambedkar and destroy the radical potentialities of the Dalit students.:
Times Editor at Nazi function: In addition, the JNU unit of the ABVP held a “social equality conference” to mark Dr. Ambedkar’s birth centenary. Swapan Dasgupta, Asst. Editor of the Times of India, noted for his pro-Nazi writings, was invited to be the chief guest.
The ABVP tried its best to woo the students of the JNU during the recently held students’ union elections. The king-pins of the BJP were invited to address the students – K: R. Malkani, Arif Baig, Sushma Swaraj, Sikander Bakht and a host of others descended upon JNU to spread their communal poison.
The ABVP, not surprisingly, has played a role of supporting and strengthening the forces of the status- quo. They, along with the Congress Party’s NSUI, were in the forefront of the opposition to the Mandal Commission. They screened Jain’s film on the killings of the “Kar Sevaks” in Ayodhya in a bid to communalize the students. But at the same they have maintained a studied silence on the killings of innocent Muslims all over the country. Nor are they concerned about the heinous killings of Dalits.
