Rajendra Singh on Ambedkar In the past decade, the Sangh Parivar has gone all out to applaud Ambedkar, de-emphasizing the conversion episode except for its nationalist motivation. Its publishing-house Suruchi Prakashan published a laudatory biography in 1991: Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, an outstanding Patriot, by C.S. Bhandari and S.R. Ramaswamy. BJP lawyer Rama Jois has dedicated his booklet about social justice, Our Fraternity, to �Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Great Patriot and Social Reformer�. Both publications are aimed at incorporating Ambedkar�s egalitarianism into hoary Hindu tradition, to the extent that they discuss Ambedkar�s relation with Hinduism at all. The BJP and RSS party-line is that if you go back far enough in the Vedic tradition, you reach a point where the medieval caste relations were not yet attested, so there need be no incompatibility of a Hinduism fresh from its rediscovered sources with an Ambedkarite concern for social equality. During his visit to Europe in 1995, the RSS Sarsanghchalak Prof. Rajendra Singh spoke at a celebration of Dr. Ambedkar�s 104th birth anniversary hosted by the Friends of India Society International in London. He started by emphasizing that the RSS was quite serious about propagating the glory of Dr. Ambedkar: �Sangh celebrated the [centenary] of late Dr. Ambedkar four years ago. In that one year, many functions were arranged by our Parivar. We also published a small life & work sketch of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, outlining his key achievements. We could distribute twenty million copies of that small booklet throughout the country.�44 Rajendra Singh also enlisted Ambedkar in the RSS programme of �character-building� by presenting Ambedkar�s life story as an inspiring example: �Dr. Ambedkar never got disappointed with difficult tasks, but faced the situation with great courage. I am especially appealing to the younger generation of students to take a leaf out of Dr. Ambedkar�s life. At difficult times, his life can be a great inspiration.�45 This boy-scout type of appeal to personal character marks the difference between the RSS and the parties claiming Dr. Ambedkar�s legacy, such as the Indian Republican Party in Maharashtra and the Bahujan Samaj Party in North India, which believe in unsentimental power (and muscle) politics. After going through Ambedkar�s life story, the Sarsanghchalak does the usual number of extolling Ambedkar�s role in drafting the Constitution: �His contribution in drafting the Constitution is therefore unparalleled and bears the stamp of his erudition and hard work.�46 Having made this captatio benevolentiae, he feels ready to take on the delicate point of Dr. Ambedkar�s break with Hinduism: �In 1935, because of the highly discriminatory treatment meted out to the Dalits, he announced that though he was born a Hindu, he would never die as one. This caused a lot of commotion in the country, and it is rumoured that he was offered millions of Rupees by the Nizam if he brought the Dalits to the fold of Islam, and similarly by the Christian missionaries. He outright told these group leaders that these religions were alien to the Indian soil [and] these religions would take away his culture from him. (�) He gave a very important message to the Dalits before embracing Buddhism. He said that he was embracing Buddhism because it promised equality to all and was a path of this very soil with many common features and thereby not taking the Dalits against the culture of this country.�47 The RSS supremo enlists Ambedkar as an argument of authority in favour of his own organization: �He came to the RSS camp in Pune and appreciated its patriotism, discipline and complete absence of untouchability. But he said he was in a hurry and Sangh work appears to be a little slow.�48 Read: Ambedkar certified that the RSS was on the right path, the only difference being the speed with which they intended to get untouchability abolished throughout Hindu society. The RSS could only influence its volunteers and their families, not the recalcitrant traditionalists, whom Ambedkar wanted to force to abandon the practice of untouchability immediately by political and legal means. Prof. Rajendra Singh concludes his eulogy: �We salute the Architect of our Constitution, his erudition and hard work, his great patriotism and practical outlook. But it was natural that he could not stomach the indignities heaped on the Dalits and the attitude of our upper castes in the Hindu society appeared to change too slowly. Let us take a vow on this occasion to make the Hindu society free from aberrations, a society full of harmony, self-confidence and knowledge, so that it can carry the message of the great Rishis to the whole world.�49 If incorporating a declared enemy into your own pantheon is a virtue, a compliment for being unusually virtuous cannot be denied to the Hindus in general or to the Sangh Parivar in particular.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 07:33:59 +0000
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