April 14 was the 91st birth anniversary of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the rising star of India, hailed by revolutionary sections as the greatest Indian born after the Buddha and first among independent India’s three greatest sons with Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy and Dr. R. M. Lohia. Never before the country has witnessed Ambedkar jayanti celebrations on such a gigantic scale. Dalits vied with each other in celebrating the `birthday of the liberator of India’s vast. Untouchables and tribals constituting almost a third of its 700 million population. No city or town of India went without a function. Never before the enthusiasm had reached such dizzy heights. Certain State Govts. declared it a public holiday. Central Govt, holiday is not too far. Chief Ministers went out of the way to please dalits. For Congress “Harijan” leaders Ambedkar has become bread and butter. Now and newer, bigger and taller statues of Ambedkar are springing up at State expenditure. Important roads are renamed after Ambedkar. ‘In some States Ambedkar jayanti is treated as a Stata function. After 25 years of death of India’s greatest leader of Untouchables and other persecuted minorities and yet the most hated enemy of Hindus, Ambedkar is being re-discovered. What a metamorphosis II His portraits are being unveiled in State legislatures. Bookshop owners say that any book with a cover picture of Ambedkar is a bestseller. Ambedkar calendars are hotcakes. Rings and chains with his emblem are a much-sought-after memento. Libraries are placing orders for his books. Publishing houses are commissioning writers for books of Ambedkar and Ambedkarism. India’s social scientists have started slowly evincing interest after foreign scholars have already made exhaustive studies on modern India’s greatest philospher, thinker and pathfinder who is curdling the stomach of every upper caste Hindu and giving him sleepless nights. A born Marxist. As the scale of Gandhi is going down, Ambedkar is on the rise. The future belongs to Ambedkar. With the end of 20th century, Gandhian Era will come to an ignoble end. The 21st century. only 18 years away, shall be the Ambedkar Era. Universities are 1 starting Ambedkar Chairs. Like Gandhi Bhavan, in every city Ambedkar bhavans are sprining up. Ambedkar road, a despised name, so far reserved for slum areas inhabited by the poorest of the poor, is now being given to fashionable and important roads – much to the chagrin of the high castes. Why this sudden spurt in interest in Ambedkar ? Why high caste Hindus, who did everything to make. Ambedkar miserable when alive, are today going gaga over Ambedkar ? Intriguing. This is what makes us suspicious about the whole thing. The RSS and its-student- wing, ABVP & its Hindu Vishwa : Parishad | also: observed Ambedkar jayanti in a. big. way this year. Can anybody believe this? This makes us all the more nervous about the whole thing. Coming events cast their shadows. From many parts of India dalit comrades have written us anxious letters inquiring about this sudden RSS love for Ambedkar. What made the tiger fondle the poor goat ? They are not only surprised. over this right-about-turn but indeed shocked. Because at Ahmedabad during the 1981 “Gujarat Caste War”” it was these very same RSS boys who had damaged the Ambedkar statue. Ambedkar statues were the target of Hindu attack. In some places his statues are even now guarded by the police. Ambedkar books are not available because we have definite information about RSS boys burning h’s literature. There is no abuse which Hindus did not hurl’at Ambedkar when alive. To put in Ambedkar’s own words : “At present’I am the most hated man in India. 1 am represented as a traitor. l’am denounced as an enemy of the Hindus, I am cursed as a destroyer of Hinduism; and branded as greatest enemy of the country. But believe when. I say that, when after some days the dust settles down and review of the Round Table conference is passionately taken by future historians, the future generations of the Hindus will acclaim my services to the nation.” (Dr. Ambedkar : Life and Mission, Dhananjay Keer, page 195-1954.) Prophetic words. Letters threatening his life came in showers. He was dubbed anti-national, stooge of the British, agent financed by Muslims, and Christians. Even Marxists called him a bourgeois agent. Despite possesing highest academic honours from the world’s greatest universities degrees which no other political leader of India possessed – he was treated with: utter : contempt! just because he was born an Untouchable. When the best of Brahmin brains failed, it was Ambedkar, who was selected to draft India’s Constitution. But he died. a. sad. man, because during his life time Hindus. treated him as dust. A revolutionary who was: destined to shake the country was thrown to the dustbin of history. How cruel the Hindus could be. I. D. A. Katti, a close associate of Ambedkar from. Belgaum and ex-MP of the RPI, had made a shocking disclosure (in a seminar at Ambedkar College, Bangalore, on. Feb. 2, 1980) of an attempt to poison Ambedkar: “Because, Dr. Kurtakoti, Jagadguru of Nasik Peeth, refused to pay Rs. 500 to Beba Savarkar, brother of the famous Veera Savarkar, who had arranged through his servant to get poisoned the food of Dr. Ambedkar by paying the said amount to his cook. The story was published by P. K. Atre, famous Merathi dramatist, poot and writer, in his Marathi daily, Maratha. During the temple-entry satyagraha: also a plot was hatched to kill him”. Baba Savarkar was one among the five: Chitpavan Brahmin founders of RSS in 1925-& all of them belonged to Hindu Mahasabha . But the very same Hindu leaders who tried many times to kill Ambedkar, are today competing with dalits in singing his praise. Organiser (Sept. 3, 1978) said under the heading, “RSS help for Ambedkar School” : The Maharashtra Famine. Relief Committee of RSS: has opened: a seva kendra in Dro Ambedkar High School. Dhule: In Maharashtra, where Ambedkar was born and where the dalit movement is the strongest, RSS is doing its best: to capture Ambedkar. Dhatevi, Asia’s largest slum located in Bombay and inhabited by Tamil dalits, is chosen for this: experiment: Wherever- RSS leader: A. B. Vajpayee goes he has now made it a point to garland Ambedkar statues: Newspapers give wide publicity to this stunt. It is here that we see the danger: RSS has also started rewriting Indian history. In a pictorial series brought by a RSS-financed project Ambedkar is described as “a good Hindu”. Organiser. (June 8, 1980) paid tributes.to: Ambedkar for his “services rendered to Hinduism.” “In fact he chose Buddhism, for getting equal status for the untouchables because it was the nearest religion to Hinduism.”” And for this “services rendered his name should be included in the prata smarana of the RSS”. Ambedkar, the most inveterate enemy of Hinduism who said he would not die a Hindu and embraced Buddhism and also declared that if India has to live Hinduism must die, is being described as a good Hindu. Can there be a greater travesty of truth ? Falsification of history ? Where are we heading ? The latest throat is , to. include Ambedkar’s name in RSS morning prayer. What a fall Il What a tragedy! But there is a method in this madness. We have precedents to say that history is repeating. · Buddhism was destroyed by the very same, Brahmins, who gave up beef-eating, and became pute, vegetarians. just to demonstrate that non-violence is. part of Hinduism. It was only after destroying: Buddhism and driving, it out of India they made Buddha, an atheist, the 10th avatar and, declared: that Buddhism was part of Hinduism. Pejawara Swamy, president of RSS’s Vishwa Hindu, Parishad. said, in a speech, in Bangalore that. “Shankaracharya, drove Buddhism out of India.” One Vidyalanker of Bangalore in a “letter to editor”” in the Indian Express (Aug. 18; 1981) says that after destroying Buddhism the Adi Shankara came to be called as Prachanna Buddha of crypto – Buddhist. Vidyalankar says Buddhism came to be absorbed in Brahminism. Every Hindu today is a potential Buddhist”. Govt: of India records confirm that Adi Shankara himself supervised the destruction of Buddhism. Prof. K. S. Bhagwan of. Mysore University (Sankramana, no. 112) cites the following evidence from the Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, no. 54, The,Buddhist Antiquities,of. Nagarjunakonda, by A. H. Longhurst (Delhi, 1938 P. 6) : The ruthless manner in which all the buildings at Nagarjunakonda have been destroyed is simply appalling Local traditions relate that the great Hindu philosopher and teacher Shankaracharya of medieval times came to. Nagarjuna Konde with a host of followers, and destroyed the Buddhist monuments. A Chitpavan Brahmin in an article in the Organiser (April 5, 81) criticising Tamil Nadu dalits for embracing, Islam asks them to emulate Ambedkar in choosing Buddhism. High caste Hindus did the same thing with Vivekananda, a great non-Brahmin thinker who had passed the most severe strictures on Brahminism. Today Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanyakumari is the RSS arsenal to attack Christians. History repeated in the case of Gandhi. It was leaders like Madan Mohan Malaviya, B. G. Tilak, Veer Savarkar, Dr. Moonje who resented the national leadership slipping out of Brahmin hands and passing into the hands of a non-Brahmin like M. K. Gandhi, a Gujarati baniya (Vaishya). Five Chitpavan Brahmin leaders founded RSS only to counteract the influence of Gandhi. They could not stomach his hobnobbing with Muslims and taking up the temple-entry case of Untouchables. Nor did they like his opposition to partition. Finally when his rise could not be checked, a Brahmin RSS leader, Nathuram Godse, shot him dead in the name of god on Jan. 30, 1948. However, it was this very people who conferred the title of Mahatma for serving the cause of Brahmins. What did they do with Gandhi after killing him ? Gandhi became their exclusive property. Not only they captured all Gandhi an institutions and looted the property (Govt. has just instituted a commission to inquire fraud in Gandhian institutions) but the BJP, the political arm of RSS, has adopted “Gandhian socialism” as its political philosophy. The very kiIlers of Gandhi became the greatest admirers of Gandhi. Can history cite a more glaring volte face thin this ? At Ahmedabad, RSS attack on Untouchables during the “Gujarat Caste War” were engineered from Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram. RSS boys took pledge under the Gandhi statue vowing to fight “Harijans” till death. All over India RSS is in the forefront of anti-reservation agitations. Whenever the property and privileges of high caste Hindus are threatened, they will stoop to any treachery. No holds barred. There is no ethics. No morality. Whether it is Buddha, Basaveshwara, Vivekananda, Narayana Guru, Gandhi or JP. But our fear is whether they will do the same with Ambedkar. Dalit Panther leaders also share our fears about the latest danger to Ambedkarism. The ruling class will do anything to protect and perpetuate its property and privileges which it has been enjoying for centuries. It is prepared to erect any amount of statues to Ambedkar, give holidays, sing his praise. What will it lose ? And it will do anything except print and publish his books. Already they have given him the title of Modern Manu. They know he is the rising star. They also know that future, lies with Ambedkar. Wherever there is sugar ants are sure to come. The sugar is now with Ambedkar. The Gandhian godown is empty. If by singing praise of an Untouchable, their seat becomes more secure and the ruling class gets a fresh lease of life, why should it not do it ? Already Ambedkar jayanti celebrations have pa d high dividends to India’s ruling class. If this could ensure them a new life, why not shout louder ? If praising Ambedkar pieases more dalits, why not praise more? Is Ambedkar worship turning into a big business? We shudder at the very thought of such a possibility. it is up to dalits and the persecuted minorities to keep Ambedkar to themselves. Ambedkar shall remain as the property of dalits. If they allow the ruling class to take over Ambedkar, that will be the greatest tragedy of independent India. If the 21st century has to be the Ambedkar Era this tragedy has to be averted. , Will the Dalit Panthers allow this ? Will the Ambedkarites tolerate this ? Will history repeat itself ?
