In New India, No Ambedkar Readings?

Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha, Maharashtra is again in the news for wrong reasons. It has been more than around four months that a unique initiative of doing readings from Ambedkar has been forcibly stopped, show-cause notices being issued and even punitive action being taken against Dalit teachers, but there is no murmur of protest about it and despite being in the know of these developments, the top bosses of the UGC or University Grants Commission are silent over it.

Stop readings on Ambedkar in open in University Campus, it could endanger the “safety and health of (participating) students and reputation of the university'

The news of this unbelievable diktat by an educational institution remained dormant for a day.

Expectedly, the tremendous nationwide uproar about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election speech in Banswara, which is considered his most 'divisive' in last 30 years, overshadowed other similar urgent issues.

The institution under scanner for this diktat to teachers is Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha, Maharashtra, a Central university. You would recall that some time ago, this institution had similarly attracted eyeballs when a team of Hindi research scholars from China had visited it. A visit that was followed by this team's meeting with RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) leaders at their headquarters in Nagpur.

What is rather troubling to note is that it has been more than four months that this unique experiment of doing readings from Ambedkar, in open, which was an initiative undertaken by the Dalit teachers of the vishwidyalaya, under the informal group called Ambedkar Study Circle India, stands forcibly stopped, show-cause notices being issued to teachers involved and even punitive action taken against three of them, but a conspiracy of silence has pervaded it.

What must have prompted this action by the University administration against the teachers, who were were just following the UGC recommended Code of Professional Ethics? 

..'The teacher should participate in extension, co-curicular and extra-curricular activities, including community service... Teacher should work to improve education in the community, and strengthen in the community's moral and intellectual life.'..

(Excerpted from the response of the concerned teachers to the University administration.}

The vindictive attitude of the administration was also visible when it allegedly even used the old and tested method of 'punishment posting' against few teachers, relieved a few senior professors of their important responsibilities etc., shunted some staff to different departments etc.

Second, why is there no corrective action till date on the part of UGC or those top bureaucrats in the Education Ministry or those self-proclaimed disciples of Dr Ambedkar, about these undemocratic actions against teachers who were merely discussing Dr Ambedkar's writings?

Would it be too much to expect that they get up from deep slumber and initiate action so that Ambedkar reading sessions are resumed, teachers who faced punitive action are duly compensated?

There is nothing shocking or surprising as far as 'stigmatisation of the whole endeavour of reading Dr Ambedkar in public' is concerned.

Anyone who entertains tremendous hatred for Dr Ambedkar's worldview or the way he analysed society and proposed radical solutions for its rectification, can easily resort to such arbitrary actions against honoured teachers.

Anyone, who feels that spread of such ideas among broad masses of people would be a subversive or destablising act, which would be detrimental to their long-term project of building a Hindu Rashtra, would have no qualms in humiliating Dr Ambedkar or punish carriers of his ideas.

There have been umpteen examples since the ascent of Hindutva supremacist forces at the Centre, when the ruling dispensation has talked of they being 'disciples' of Dr Ambedkar, but in actual social-political life, he has been humiliated, his ideas diminished or distorted.

It was in 2017, when the nation celebrated the 90th year of ‘Mahad Kranti’, as it is termed in Dalit folklore, when we were witness to a very disturbing spectacle. Billboards were put up across New Delhi railway station where Ambedkar was presented as an icon for cleanliness. It showed an Ambedkar look-alike leading a group of people toward a dustbin to throw garbage and the banner headline asked people to ‘Wake up the Spirit of Babasaheb Ambedkar and participate in this great campaign of cleaning rubbish (Áap ke andarke Babasaheb ko Aap Jagrut Karein . Gandagi ke khilaf is Mahan Abhiyan mein apna yogdan dein)

This was an oblique way of communicating the understanding much prevalent among dominant castes that for them Ambedkar’s historic contributions in drafting the Constitution or his more than three-decade-long struggle for equity means nothing?

For example, 2016 happened to be the year of Dr Ambedkar's 125 birth anniversary and plans were afoot to celebrate it not only in India but in other countries as well. The Maharashtra government had even planned to spend Rs 500 crore on a grand memorial for Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar at Dadar in Mumbai, and a statue at Indu Mills in Dadar. It was the same year when Dr Ambedkar Bhavan and the building next door that housed a printing press, in Dadar, Mumbai, was demolished in the dark of the night (June 25, 2016).

Whatever be the explanation offered by the government -- when it had to go on the defensive because of this demolition -- it cannot be forgotten that the Bhavan was situated on prime land and the then Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government had made plans to erect a 17-storeyed building there.

What was rather disturbing to note was that the Bhavan was built by Dr Ambedkar himself and '[t]his place was witness to many a movement of Ambedkar. ..the building was a treasure trove of documents and manuscripts of Dr Ambedkar, which now lie buried in the debris.”

A few years ago, the Gujarat textbook board, in the 5th standard textbook, vulgarised a slogan 'Educate, Organise, Agitate' -- which is synonymous with the Ambedkarite movement in India,  and replaced it with 'Educate, Organise and Self-Reliance as true assistance'.

This tweaking of Ambedkar's key slogan -- which he had used in his inspirational speech addressing a meeting of All India Scheduled Castes Federation in 1945 as well -- created an uproar in Ambedkarite circles and the state government was compelled to rectify its mistake.

We can also recall how the then Anandiben Patel-led Gujarat government had withdrawn (2015) and later pulped the book on Dr Ambedkar commissioned by her government itself, because it discussed Ambedkar’s radical thoughts on Hinduism and the 22-point pledges he took to convert to Buddhism in 1956. The said book was commissioned by the government itself, which was to be distributed in government schools as supplementary reading.

What prompted the pulping of a few lakh copies of the book?

It contained those pledges administered by Ambedkar himself to lakhs of his followers at the time of conversion to Buddhism, which the government found ‘explosive’ enough to pulp the book itself.

To summarise, the pledges talked of having ‘no faith in Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, no faith in Rama and Krishna, no faith in Gauri’, and resolved not to worship them. It also talked about not believing ‘in the incarnation of God’ and maintaining distance from religious ceremonies that are part of Hinduism and performed by brahmins. While resolving to follow the ‘noble eightfold path’ of the Buddha, it also talked of belief in ‘the equality of man’ and one's endeavour to 'establish equality'.

There are reasons to believe that formally the Right wing has declared Ambedkar as an icon and keep singing paeans to him, but they have not moved far away from the assessment done by one of their ideologues in the 1990s. A few 100-page monograph titled, Worshipping False Gods, which had come out in the mid-90s spews venom against Ambedkar -- an act for which one is yet to see any apology or self-criticism from them.

What is the root of this ‘apathy towards the real Ambedkar?

Is it because in the early 1940s itself, Dr Ambedkar had rejected the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha as “reactionary” organisations. The political manifesto of the Scheduled Castes Federation itself— the political outfit which was set up by him in 1942 -- had clearly stated:

“The Scheduled Castes Federation will not have any alliance with any reactionary party such as the Hindu Mahasabha or the RSS,”

(See Vol 10 of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar Charitragranth, a Marathi book by Changdev Bhavanrao Khairmode)

Or, in his historic monograph, Pakistan or Partition of India, Ambedkar had reiterated his fears vis-a-vis the possible majoritarian turn at the hands of those who vouched for 'Hindu Raj'

“If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country. No matter what the Hindus say, Hinduism 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, Pakistan or Partition of India, p. 358)

One can go on discussing why RSS and its affiliated organisations detest Dr Ambedkar, how they proposed that Manusmriti be made the Constitution of a ‘Newly Independent India’ and there was no need to draft a fresh Constitution. We can discuss how they opposed formation of the Hindu Code Bill - which for the first time in the written history of India tried to give Hindu women right in property or marriage

Of course, that is not the aim of this article.

To conclude, if The Telegraph newspaper had not brought to the fore this story, this blatant humiliation of Dr Ambedkar and carriers of his ideas would not have come to the fore.

Why did the local/regional media not report about this injustice, despite best efforts by the Dalit teachers?

Why were there no protests about this forcible stopping of Dr Ambedkar's readings - despite the fact that Wardha is hardly 85 kilometres from Nagpur, a part of Vidarbha in Maharashtra -- that was once a stronghold of the Dalit movement? As an aside one can recall that Nagpur is the same place where Dr Ambedkar had embraced Buddhism in 1956 with lakhs of his followers. Every year, lakhs of followers of Dr Ambedkar assemble at Deekshabhoomi on Dusshera.

Could one say that this is a sign of the movement losing its militant spirit or a sign that like (once radical Dalit leaders) Ramdas Athavale or (now deceased) Ram Vilas Paswan or Mayawati, even young followers of Ambedkar have no qualms in his being reduced to another icon in the Hindutva pantheon of Pratah Smaraniya (worth remembering in the morning) or his being reduced to social reformer, like RSS founder Hedgewar?

The writer is an independent journalist. The views are personal.