B.R AMBEDKAR

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Dr. BR Ambedkar & his contributions

• He was independent India's first Minister of Law and Justice.
• He was also the chief architect of the Constitution of India.
• He campaigned against social discrimination towards the untouchables (Dalits).
• He established the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha to promote education and socio-economic improvement of the untouchables.
• He also founded the Independent Labor Party (1936) and Scheduled Castes Federation (1942).
• He led the Mahad Satyagrah or Chavdar Tale Satyagraha to fight for the right of the untouchable community to draw water from the main water tank of the town.
• He was invited to testify before the Southborough Committee, which was preparing the Government of India Act 1919.
• At the hearing, Ambedkar argued for creating separate electorates and reservations for untouchables
• In 1930, Ambedkar launched Kalaram Temple movement.
• In 1932 he signed Poona pact.

Poona Pact was signed by Ambedkar on behalf of the depressed classes and Madan Mohan Malviya on behalf of the Upper Caste Hindus as a means to end the fast of Gandhi. Gandhi was undertaking the fast in jail as a protest against British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s decision to give Separate electorates to depressed classes for the election.

• He was appointed as the Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee.
• He resigned from cabinet in 1951, when parliament stalled his draft of the Hindu Code Bill.
• The bill sought to enshrine gender equality in the laws of inheritance and marriage.

Books and Journals

• Annihilation of Caste,
• Buddha Or Karl Marx,
• Buddha and His Dhamma,
• Who were the Shudras,
• The Rise and Fall of Hindu Women among others.
• Mooknayak,
• Bahishkrit Bharat,
• Samatha,
• Equality Janata among others

 

Relevance of Ambedkar in Present Times

• 70 years has passed since Independence but the state machinery is inherently inept and it is being manipulated by caste and class biases.
• Caste system against which Ambedkar fought throughout his life is still a contested terrain.
• Dalits continue to bear the brunt of violence and discrimination.
• Today politics is all about caste, race, religion, polarisation and mudslinging. Ideology has taken a back seat in political discourses.
• Caste survives despite globalisation, scientific development and mass political mobilisation of the Dalits.
• Constitutionally guaranteed reservation for education and employment has no doubt made a mark.
• But the social and economic justice that is due to the Dalits and tribals is still elusive.
• The narrative of the development of SCs and STs is blemished by recurring instances of rape, corruption, exploitation, exclusion, denial of justice, displacement and deprivation.

The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker section of the people, and in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation." -Article 46 of the Indian Constitution.

Key issues

Dalit women

• A significant proportion of India’s Dalit women face verbal abuse, physical assault, sexual harassment and assault, domestic violence and rape.

Bonded labour

• The use and abuse of Dalit bonded labourers remains endemic within a range of occupations. Children are particularly vulnerable.

Forced prostitution

• Young Dalit girls suffer systematic sexual abuse in temples, serving as prostitutes for men from dominant castes.

Manual scavenging

• An estimated 1.3 million Dalits in India make their living through the vile, inhuman and outlawed practice of manual scavenging.

Political participation

• Dalits are often limited from equal and meaningful political participation.

Non-implementation of legislation

• Legal mechanisms to protect Dalits are in place, but their implementation remains very weak. Consequently, atrocities against Dalits are almost inevitably committed with impunity.

Some statistics

• According to a 2010 report by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the Prevention of Atrocities against Scheduled Castes, a crime is committed against a Dalit every 18 minutes.
• Every day, on average, three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits murdered, and two Dalit houses burnt.
• According to the NHRC statistics put together by K.B. Saxena,
  • 37 per cent Dalits live below the poverty line,
  • 54 per cent are undernourished,
  • 83 per 1,000 children born in a Dalit household die before their first birthday,
  • 12 per cent before their fifth birthday, and
  • 45 per cent remain illiterate.
• The data also shows that Dalits are prevented from entering the police station in 28 per cent of Indian villages.
• Dalit children have been made to sit separately while eating in 39 per cent government schools.
• Dalits do not get mail delivered to their homes in 24 per cent of villages.
• And they are denied access to water sources in 48 per cent of our villages because untouchability remains a stark reality even though it was abolished in 1955.
• A crime is committed against a Dalit every 16 minutes and on an average 1,500 Dalit women are raped every year.
• The tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Ph.D Dalit student in the Hyderabad Central University who hanged himself is a testimony to our failure.
• Blaming his birth as a "fatal accident" in a chilling final note he said -we could not be any further away from what the Constitution had demanded from a free and fair India.
• Even today, more than 90% of the employees in the sanitation and cleaning sector are Dalits.
• In villages and urban slums, segregation is rampant to this day. A stark example of this is Sunpedh in Ballabhgarh, Haryana, barely 40 kilometres from Delhi. Untouchability is practised widely in Sunpedh.

Way ahead

• India’s Dalit community should not look forward to the reincarnation of Ambedkar.
• Rather, each member of it must transform himself/herself to an Ambedkar so as to put an end to the evils of the existing caste system. Untouchability must go in entirety.
• Mere political representation and a reservation system used by few Dalits would neither uplift the whole community.
• Ambedkar’s essence lies in heralding a systemic change, instead of craving for political freedom.
• To bring this in and practice his philosophy in true sense, we need massive socio-political awareness.
• Also, economic strength of the Dalit community must be enhanced.
• Instead of arguing for radical change in the Indian social system, a “piecemeal engineering” can be much better in finding a way to achieve “social engineering” for the Dalits in the days to come.
• The annihilation of the caste may take longer, but nimble steps towards the same can start from right now.