Dr. Jai Maharaj
2014-05-22 00:54:48 UTC
Worshipping A False God
http://www.rediff.com/freedom/29ambed.htm
'There is not one instance, not one single, solitary
instance in which Ambedkar participated in any activity
connected with that struggle to free the country'
The recent furore following the desecration of Dr Bhim
Rao Ambedkar's statue in Bombay has largely been
interpreted as the resurgence of the dalit movement in
India. A phenomenon which first saw its genesis in the
philosophy and personality of Dr B R Ambedkar 50 years
ago.
In his latest book, Worshipping False Gods, Arun Shourie
challenges Dr Ambedkar's contribution to Indian
Independence. The book has already run into controversy
and several dalit organisations in Maharashtra want it
banned.
Ambedkar's public life begins in a sense from a public
meeting held at the Damodar Hall in Bombay on March 9,
1924. The struggle for freeing the country from the
British was by then in full swing. Swami Vivekananda's
work, Sri Aurobindo's work, the Lokmanya's work had
already stirred the country. Lokmanya Tilak had passed
away in 1920. The leadership of the National Movement had
fallen on Gandhiji. He had already led the country in the
Champaran satyagraha, the Khilafat movement, in the
satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act, against the killings
in Jallianwala Bagh and the merciless repression in
Punjab. This National Movement culminated in the
country's Independence in 1947.
In a word, a quarter century of Ambedkar's public career
overlapped with this struggle of the country to free
itself from British rule. There is not one instance, not
one single, solitary instance in which Ambedkar
participated in any activity connected with that struggle
to free the country. Quite the contrary--at every
possible turn he opposed the campaigns of the National
Movement, at every setback to the Movement he was among
those cheering the failure.
Thus, while the years culminated in the country's
Independence, in Ambedkar's case they culminated in his
becoming a member of the Viceroy's Council, that is -- to
use the current terms -- a Minister in the British
Cabinet in India.
The writings of Ambedkar following the same pattern. The
Maharashtra government has by now published 14 volumes of
the speeches and writings of Ambedkar. These cover 9,996
pages. Volumes up to the 12th contain his speeches and
writing up to 1946. These extend to 7,371 pages. You
would be hard put to find one article, one speech, one
passage in which Ambedkar can be seen even by inference
to be arguing for India's Independence. Quite the
contrary.
Pause for a minute and read the following:
All me to say that the British have a moral
responsibility towards the scheduled castes. They may
have moral responsibilities towards all minorities. But
it can never transcend the moral responsibility which
rests on them in respect of the untouchables. It is a
pity how few Britishers are aware of it and how fewer are
prepared to discharge it. British rule in India owes its
very existence to the help rendered by the untouchables.
Many Britishers think that India was conquered by the
Clives, Hastings, Coots and so on. Nothing can be a
greater mistake. India was conquered by an army of
Indians and the Indians who formed the army were all
untouchables. British rule in India would have been
impossible if the untouchables had not helped the British
to conquer India. Take the Battle of Plassey which laid
the beginning of British rule or the battle of Kirkee
which completed the conquest of India. In both these
fateful battles the soldiers who fought for the British
were all untouchables...
Who is pleading thus to whom? It is B R Ambedkar writing
on 14 May 1946 to a member of the (British) Cabinet
Mission, A V Alexander.
Nor was this a one-of slip, an arrangement crafted just
for the occasion. Indeed, so long as the British were
ruling over India, far from trying to hide such views,
Ambedkar would lose no opportunity to advertise them, and
to advertise what he had been doing to ensure that they
came to prevail in practice. Among the faithful his book
What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables is
among the most admired and emulated of his writings. It
was published in 1945, that is just two years or so
before India became Independent.
As we shall see when we turn to Ambedkar's views on how
harijans may be raised, it is an out and out
regurgitation of the things that the British rulers and
the missionaries wanted to be said, of the allegations
and worse that they had been hurling at our civilisation
and people. The book has been published officially by the
education department of the government of Maharashtra,
and is sold at a subsidised price! It constitutes Volume
IX of the set Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and
Speeches. It reproduces the speech Ambedkar made at the
Round Table Conference -- a speech which served the
designs of the British rulers to the dot, and for which,
as we shall soon see, they were ever so grateful to
Ambedkar for it became one of the principal devices for
thwarting Gandhiji.
In the speech Ambedkar addresses the prime minister and
says, "Prime minister, permit me to make one thing clear.
The depressed classes are not anxious, they are not
clamorous, they have not started any movement for
claiming that there shall be an immediate transfer of
power from the British to the Indian people.... Their
position, to put it plainly, is that we are not anxious
for transfer of power from the British to the Indian
people.... Their position, to put it plainly, is that we
are not anxious for transfer of political power...." But
if the British were no longer strong enough to resist the
forces which were clamouring for such transfer, Ambedkar
declared, then his demand was that they make certain
arrangements-- arrangements which we shall encounter
repeatedly in his speeches and writings, the essential
point about which was to tie down the new government of
Independent India.
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
Continues:
'Nationalist leaders were neither surprised that Ambedkar
was on the platforms with Jinnah, nor had they any doubts
about the inspiration behind these celebrations'
Ambedkar and his patrons were dealt a humiliating blow by
the elections of 1937. There were a total of 1,585 seats
in the 11 assemblies in 'British India'. Of these 777
were 'tied'-- in the sense that they were to be filled by
communal or special representation from Chambers of
Commerce, plantations, labour etc. Of the 808 'general'
seats, the Congress, which Ambedkar, Jinnah and others
denounced from the house tops, won 456. It secured
absolute majorities in 5 assemblies -- those of Madras,
United Provinces, Central Provinces, Bihar and Orissa.
And was the largest single party in 4 others-- Bombay,
Bengal, Assam and the NWFP.
From the point of view of Ambedkar and the British -- who
had been holding him up to counter the Congress claim
that it represented the harijans as much as any other
section of Indian society -- worse was the fact that the
Congress did extremely well in the seats which had been
reserved for harijans. Thirty seats were reserved for
harijans in Madras Presidency, the Congress contested 26
and won 26. In Bihar there were 24 reserved seats -- in 9
of these Congress candidates were returned unopposed; of
the remaining 15 reserved seats, it contested 14, and won
14.
In Bombay of the 15 reserved seats, it secured 1
unopposed, contested 8 and won 5. In the United Provinces
there were 20 reserved seats; two of its candidates were
returned unopposed; it contested 17 seats and won 16. In
Bengal of the 30 reserved seats, it contested 17 and won
6. In the Central Provinces of the 19 reserved seats, it
contested 9 and won 5.
The lesson was there for all to see. Reporting to the
Viceroy on the result in the Bombay Presidency, the
Governor, Lord Brabourne wrote, "Dr Ambedkar's boast of
winning, not only 15 seats which are reserved for the
harijans, but also a good many more -- looks like being
completely falsified, as I feared it would be."
The electorate, including the harijans, may have
punctured his claims but there was always the possibility
of reviving one's fortunes through politicking and
maneuvers. Efforts of all these elements were focused on
the objective of installing non-Congress ministries in
Bombay and wherever else this was a possibility.
Brabourne reported to the viceroy that Jamnadas Mehta,
the finance minister "who is chief minister in all but
name", was telling him that the ministry in Bombay would
survive motions on the budget and may even get through
the motion of no-confidence:
"His calculations are based on the fact that he expects
to get the support of the bulk of the Muhammadans, the
whole of Ambedkar's Scheduled Castes Party, and of half a
dozen or so of those individuals who stood as Congressmen
merely to get elected," he reported. But added, "I gather
that he is in touch with Ambedkar, who is carrying on
negotiations for him, but, as you will find from the next
succeeding paragraph, it rather looks to me as if
Ambedkar is playing a thoroughly double game, in which
case Jamnadas Mehta's hopes are likely to be rudely
shattered."
The governor went on to report that he had also had a
long conversation with Jinnah, and that Jinnah had told
him that, in the event of the ministry being defeated,
the Muslim League would be prepared to form a ministry
provided they could secure a majority of even two or
three in the assembly. "He (that is, Jinnah) went on to
say that Ambedkar and his party were prepared to back him
in this," Brabourne reported, "and that he expected to
get the support of ten or a dozen of the so-called
Congress MLAs mentioned above.
He made it quite clear to me that they would not support
the present ministry. The governor was sceptical about
the claims and assurances of all of them. He wrote, "It
is, of course, quite impossible to rely on anything that
Jinnah tells me, and the only thing for me to do is to
listen and keep silent. I obviously cannot tell Jamnadas
Mehta what Jinnah told me, or vice versa, as both of them
are hopelessly indiscreet. The only thing that is clear
is that a vast amount of intrigue is going on behind the
scenes, but, in the long run, I cannot see anything
coming out of it at all, as none of these people trust
each other round the corner. Were to hazard a guess, it
would still be that the present ministry will be defeated
on the budget proposals and the alternative will then lie
between Congress or Section 93"-- the equivalent of our
present-day governor's rule.
Congress ministries were formed. And in 1939 they
resigned in view of the British government's refusal to
state what it intended to do about Indian Independence
after the War. Jinnah announced that the Muslim League
would celebrate the resignations as 'Deliverance Day.'
Guess who was at his side in these 'celebrations'
addressing meetings from the same platforms? Ambedkar, of
course.
Nationalist leaders were neither surprised that Ambedkar
was on the platforms with Jinnah, nor had they any doubts
about the inspiration behind these celebrations.
Addressing the Congress Legislature Party in Bombay on 27
December, 1937, Sardar Patel noted, "We cannot forget how
Sir Samuel Hoare set the Muslims against the Hindus when
the unity conference was held at Allahabad. The British
statesmen in order to win the sympathy of the world, now
go on repeating that they are willing to give freedom to
India, were India united.
The 'Day of Deliverance' was evidently calculated to make
the world and particularly the British public believe
that India was not united and that Hindus and Muslims
were against each other. But when several sections of
Muslims were found to oppose the 'Day of Deliverance',
the proposed anti-Hindu demonstrations were converted
into a Jinnah-Ambedkar-Byramji protest against the
Congress ministries and the Congress high command..."
That rout in the election remained a thorn in the heart
of Ambedkar for long. A large part of What Congress and
Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables which Ambedkar
published in 1945 is a tortuous effort to explain that
actually the Congress had not done well in the election,
that in fact, while groups such as his which had opposed
Congress had been mauled even in reserved constituencies,
they had triumphed, and the Congress, in spite of the
seats having gone to it, had actually been dealt a
drubbing!
Though this is his central thesis, Ambedkar gives reasons
upon reasons to explain why he and his kind have lost and
why the Congress has won! One of the reasons he says is
that the people in general believe that the Congress is
fighting for the freedom of the country. This fight for
freedom, Ambedkar says, "has been carried on mostly by
Hindus." It is only once that the Mussalmans took part in
it and that was during the short-lived Khilafat
agitation. They soon got out of it, he says. The other
communities, particularly the untouchables, never took
part in it.
A few stray individuals may have joined it -- and they
did so, Ambedkar declares, for personal gain. But the
community as such has stood out. This is particularly
noticeable in the last campaign of the "Fight For
Freedom", which followed the 'Quit India Resolution'
passed by the Congress in August 1942, Ambedkar says. And
this too has not been just an oversight, in Ambedkar's
reckoning it was a considered boycott. The Untouchables
have stayed out of the Freedom Movement for good and
strong reasons, he says again and again.
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
Continues:
'Even though he had been heaping scorn at them for a
quarter of a century, the Congress leaders put all that
aside and invited him to join the government'
Independence came. For all the venom he had poured at
Gandhiji and the Congress, Ambedkar was back in the
Cabinet, this time Pandit Nehru's Cabinet of Independent
India. How did he get there?
Ambedkar's own explanation was typical of the man: he had
done nothing to seek a position in the new government,
Ambedkar told Parliament later, it was the new prime
minister, Jawaharlal Nehru who had urged him to join the
new government; the offer had come to him as a surprise,
he said, he had been full of doubts, but in the end he
had yielded to the call of duty and to the plea that he
make his talents available to the new government -- that
is how things had gone according to Ambedkar. Recall the
pleas to Atlee, and set them against Ambedkar's
reconstruction of the sequence in the speech he made in
the Lok Sabha. It was 10 October 1951 and Ambedkar was
explaining his resignation from the Cabinet of Panditji:
It is now 4 years, 1 month and 26 days since I was called
by the prime minister to accept the office of the law
minister in the Cabinet. The offer came as a great
surprise to me. I was in the opposite camp and had
already been condemned as unworthy of association when
the interim government was formed in August 1946. I was
left to speculate as to what could have happened to bring
about this change in the attitude of the prime minister.
I had my doubts. I did not know how I could carry on with
those who had never been my friends. I had doubts as to
whether I could, as a law member, maintain the standard
of legal knowledge and acumen which had been maintained
by those who had preceded me as law ministers of the
government of India. But I kept my doubts at rest and
accepted the offer of the prime minister on the ground
that I should not deny my co-operation when it was asked
for in the building up of our nation...
In a word, the reluctant expert who eventually yields to
the implorings of others so as to help the poor country
that needs his talents. Far from a word of gratitude for
the fact that, even though he had been heaping scorn at
them for a quarter of a century, even though he had been
a most ardent member of the British government which had
thrown them and kept them in jails for years, the
Congress leaders had put all that aside and invited him
to join the government, far from there being any word of
gratitude, there was not a word even of appreciation,
even of a mere acknowledgment at least for their
sagacity, if not their magnanimity, in putting so much of
the past -- of the past that was so recent, of the past
that had been so bitter -- behind them. The new leaders
had implored him to join the government as they had no
alternative, so indispensable were the man's talents --
that was the implicit refrain.
The diary of Indrani Devi, the widow of Jagjivan Ram,
records the exact opposite. In the entry entitled,
Ambedkar ki sifaarish, she records,
And on this side Ambedkar had started coming over to our
house. One day he (Ambedkar) told him to put in a word
with Gandhiji to have him (Ambedkar) included in the
Cabinet. Before talking to Gandhiji he (Jagjivan Ram)
talked to Sardar Patel. Sardar Patel said, do what you
think is appropriate. He (Jagjivan Ram) got into quite a
quandary -- that Ambedkar had always opposed Gandhiji and
the Congress, how could he now recommend his case to
Gandhiji? Even so, given his large-heartedness, he
pleaded with Gandhiji on behalf of Ambedkar, and told him
that as he has surrendered in front of you please request
Nehruji so that he may be taken into the first Cabinet.
In any event, either as a result of his lobbying or
because Pandit Nehru requested him, Ambedkar joined the
government. He broke with Nehru four years later and
denounced the Congress and Nehru. He entered into an
electoral alliance with the Socialists to oppose the
Congress in the 1952 elections. His party was wiped out.
There were a total of 489 seats in the Lok Sabha. Of
these the Congress secured 364, that is almost three-
quarters. Ambedkar's party got no seat in the Parliament,
only one set in the Bombay assembly, and one in that of
Hyderabad.
But presumably the inference to be drawn from this defeat
too is the same. "It was a colossal failure, and Ambedkar
fell like a rocket," writes his admiring biographer,
Dhananjay Keer, about the election result. "It proved
once again that there is no gratitude in politics. The
nation which had conferred so much glory on him seemed
now unwilling to show him gratitude..."
But I anticipate. For the moment we need bear in mind
just a few facts.
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission.Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
Continues:
'Ambedkar was one of the few politicians who supported
the Muslim League demand for Pakistan'
Throughout the twenty-five years of his public life
before the British left India, Ambedkar took positions
which were ever so convenient for the British, throughout
these twenty-five years he hurled pejoratives at the
Congress, in particular Gandhiji. At every turn he put
forward formulae and demands which enabled the British to
counter the national movement for freedom. The British
were fully aware of the use he was to them, and they were
anxious to give him a hand so that he could become even
more the exclusive leader of the scheduled castes.
We shall have occasion soon to see what happened at the
Round Table Conference in 1931, and what happened in its
wake: Gandhiji had to stake his very life to thwart the
maneuver the British made -- in consultation with
Ambedkar, and to his great acclaim -- to split Hindu
society asunder. Gandhiji survived, but he was kept in
jail, as were the other Congress leaders. Ambedkar, of
course, was again on his way to England to attend yet
another Round Table Conference. And as on the previous
occasion, what he said and did was to the full
satisfaction of the British rulers.
On 28 December 1932, the Secretary of State, Sir Samuel
Hoare, was recounting the proceedings for the Viceroy. He
wrote, "Ambedkar had behaved very well at the (Round
Table) Conference, and I am most anxious to strengthen
his hands in every possible way. Coming from a family
whose members have almost always been in the (British)
Army, he feels intensely that there are no Depressed
Class units left. Could you not induce the Commander-in-
Chief to give them at least a Company? Ambedkar tells me
that the Depressed Class battalion did much better in the
Afghan War than most of the other Indian battalions. In
any case, I feel sure that at this juncture it would be a
really valuable political act to make a move of this
kind."
Next, Ambedkar argued long and vehemently that India must
not be given Independence in the foreseeable future. We
have already seen some of his urgings in this regard.
Consider an example from another sphere. As is well
known, apart from the Communists, Ambedkar was one of the
few politicians who supported the Muslim League demand
for Pakistan. One side of his argument was that Muslims
cannot stay in a multi-religious society; the other side
of his argument was that no one can stay with the Hindus
either, by which he always meant "upper-caste
exploiters".
That in brief was the thesis of his book, Thoughts on
Pakistan. In private he was telling the British something
quite different. He had been yearning to be included in
the Viceroy's administration, and in mid-1940 it was
presumed that, in view of what he had been saying and
doing, his induction was just a matter of days.
But those were uncertain times and the calculations of
the British were changing from day to day: they were at
war with Hitler; they knew that opinion within the
Congress was divided, some important elements were of the
view that Britain should be supported even though they
were not prepared to spell out what they would do about
India after the war; so they had to keep in mind the
possibility of strengthening this section within the
Congress. They also knew that inducting a person like
Ambedkar would offend the Congress as a whole no end.
At the last minute, therefore, the Viceroy had called
Ambedkar and the other aspirant, M S Aney, and told them
that he would have to put off the expansion of his
Council for the time being. Not only that, in view of
what he might have to do to win co-operation of the
Congress, the Viceroy had had to tell Ambedkar that he
could not bind himself or his successor about the future.
Recounting his meeting with Ambedkar the Viceroy told the
Secretary of State on 19 November 1940, in a
communication marked "Private and Personal," "I was at
pains to protect my successor and myself so far as he was
concerned by making it clear that while if circumstances
led me to invite him to work with me again, it would give
me personal pleasure to have him as a colleague, I or my
successor must be regarded as wholly uncommitted in the
matter, and under no obligation of any sort."
The conversation had then turned to the demand for
Pakistan. The Viceroy noted, "He (Ambedkar) was quite
clear that Muslims proposed to hold to their demands for
50:50 and so gradually lay the foundation of Pakistan,
and he was perfectly content himself, he said, with that
state of things, and in favour of the Pakistan idea quite
frankly because it meant the British would have to stay
in India. He saw not the least prospect of our overcoming
difficulties here by guarantees of any sort and (like
most minorities) he has, I suspect, little interest in
constitutional progress...."
Eventually, of course, the British had decided that they
would just have to leave. Ambedkar then pleaded with them
that they tie the new government by a Treaty. Then that
they get his organisation a place in the new set up. Then
he went and pleaded with Jagjivan Ram, the sort of man on
whom he had poured scorn for decades.
But today that very Ambedkar is a Bharat Ratna!
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
Continues:
'Ambedkar collaborated with the British to undermine
Gandhiji'
All the facts which have been recounted above were well
known fifty years ago. With the passing of the generation
that fought for Independence, with the total abandonment
of looking up the record, most of all with the rise of
casteist politics, they have been erased from public
awareness. And that erasure has led to the predictable
result: schizophrenia.
To start with, those trading in Ambedkar's name and their
apologists have sought to downplay the struggle for
Independence: the freedom it brought is not "real", they
insist. Exactly as that other group did which teamed up
with the British at that crucial hour, 1942 -- the
Communists. Indeed, as we shall see in the concluding
part of the book, to justify Ambedkar's conduct his
followers insist that British Rule was better.
Next, they have sought to exaggerate the hardship that
Ambedkar had to put up with, to almost rub out the fact,
for instance, that at every step -- for instance in his
education -- he received fulsome help from persons
belonging to the higher castes; by exaggerating the
hardships the apologists seek to explain away Ambedkar's
collaborating with the British, his hankering for office:
these hardships were the sort that are commonplace in
India -- one has only to recall the circumstances in
which Swami Vivekananda matured, one has only to recall
the starvation which stared him in the face, the calumny
and humiliations he had to fight back; but in the case of
one and each of our leaders the hardships became the
crucible which steeled their resolve to rid our country
of British rule; it is only in Ambedkar's case that his
followers and apologists think that those hardships
justify his collaborating with the British against the
national movement.
And, of course, these persons have made a practice of
denouncing and calumnising Mahatma Gandhi: Gandhiji was
the great leader, even more so he was the great symbol of
that struggle for Freedom; as Ambedkar collaborated with
the British to undermine him, as for 25 years he heaped
on the Mahatma calumnies which the British found so
valuable, his apologists abuse and denigrate and belittle
the Mahatma. In doing this they work out their own
poisons -- poisons which, as we shall see, are the
inescapable legacy of leaders who have not cast out the
thorn of hatred before they come to wield influence.
Today the abuse he hurled at Gandhiji provides the
precedent: the apologist's case, as Kanshi Ram said
recently while explaining the venom his associate
Mayawati had spewed at the Mahatma, is, "We are followers
of Babasaheb, we only keep repeating what he used to
say." They are at the same time serving their
convenience: they have made Ambedkar's style, so to say,
as also the facility with which he allied with those who
were out to keep the country subjugated, the
rationalisation for their own politics.
But the facts lurk in the closet. Lest they spill out and
tarnish the icon they need for their politics, lest their
politics be shown up for what it is -- a trade in the
name of the dispossessed -- these followers of Ambedkar
enforce their brand of history through verbal terrorism,
and actual assault.
And intimidation works. Editors and others conclude,
"Better leave bad enough alone."
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
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Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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http://www.rediff.com/freedom/29ambed.htm
'There is not one instance, not one single, solitary
instance in which Ambedkar participated in any activity
connected with that struggle to free the country'
The recent furore following the desecration of Dr Bhim
Rao Ambedkar's statue in Bombay has largely been
interpreted as the resurgence of the dalit movement in
India. A phenomenon which first saw its genesis in the
philosophy and personality of Dr B R Ambedkar 50 years
ago.
In his latest book, Worshipping False Gods, Arun Shourie
challenges Dr Ambedkar's contribution to Indian
Independence. The book has already run into controversy
and several dalit organisations in Maharashtra want it
banned.
Ambedkar's public life begins in a sense from a public
meeting held at the Damodar Hall in Bombay on March 9,
1924. The struggle for freeing the country from the
British was by then in full swing. Swami Vivekananda's
work, Sri Aurobindo's work, the Lokmanya's work had
already stirred the country. Lokmanya Tilak had passed
away in 1920. The leadership of the National Movement had
fallen on Gandhiji. He had already led the country in the
Champaran satyagraha, the Khilafat movement, in the
satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act, against the killings
in Jallianwala Bagh and the merciless repression in
Punjab. This National Movement culminated in the
country's Independence in 1947.
In a word, a quarter century of Ambedkar's public career
overlapped with this struggle of the country to free
itself from British rule. There is not one instance, not
one single, solitary instance in which Ambedkar
participated in any activity connected with that struggle
to free the country. Quite the contrary--at every
possible turn he opposed the campaigns of the National
Movement, at every setback to the Movement he was among
those cheering the failure.
Thus, while the years culminated in the country's
Independence, in Ambedkar's case they culminated in his
becoming a member of the Viceroy's Council, that is -- to
use the current terms -- a Minister in the British
Cabinet in India.
The writings of Ambedkar following the same pattern. The
Maharashtra government has by now published 14 volumes of
the speeches and writings of Ambedkar. These cover 9,996
pages. Volumes up to the 12th contain his speeches and
writing up to 1946. These extend to 7,371 pages. You
would be hard put to find one article, one speech, one
passage in which Ambedkar can be seen even by inference
to be arguing for India's Independence. Quite the
contrary.
Pause for a minute and read the following:
All me to say that the British have a moral
responsibility towards the scheduled castes. They may
have moral responsibilities towards all minorities. But
it can never transcend the moral responsibility which
rests on them in respect of the untouchables. It is a
pity how few Britishers are aware of it and how fewer are
prepared to discharge it. British rule in India owes its
very existence to the help rendered by the untouchables.
Many Britishers think that India was conquered by the
Clives, Hastings, Coots and so on. Nothing can be a
greater mistake. India was conquered by an army of
Indians and the Indians who formed the army were all
untouchables. British rule in India would have been
impossible if the untouchables had not helped the British
to conquer India. Take the Battle of Plassey which laid
the beginning of British rule or the battle of Kirkee
which completed the conquest of India. In both these
fateful battles the soldiers who fought for the British
were all untouchables...
Who is pleading thus to whom? It is B R Ambedkar writing
on 14 May 1946 to a member of the (British) Cabinet
Mission, A V Alexander.
Nor was this a one-of slip, an arrangement crafted just
for the occasion. Indeed, so long as the British were
ruling over India, far from trying to hide such views,
Ambedkar would lose no opportunity to advertise them, and
to advertise what he had been doing to ensure that they
came to prevail in practice. Among the faithful his book
What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables is
among the most admired and emulated of his writings. It
was published in 1945, that is just two years or so
before India became Independent.
As we shall see when we turn to Ambedkar's views on how
harijans may be raised, it is an out and out
regurgitation of the things that the British rulers and
the missionaries wanted to be said, of the allegations
and worse that they had been hurling at our civilisation
and people. The book has been published officially by the
education department of the government of Maharashtra,
and is sold at a subsidised price! It constitutes Volume
IX of the set Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and
Speeches. It reproduces the speech Ambedkar made at the
Round Table Conference -- a speech which served the
designs of the British rulers to the dot, and for which,
as we shall soon see, they were ever so grateful to
Ambedkar for it became one of the principal devices for
thwarting Gandhiji.
In the speech Ambedkar addresses the prime minister and
says, "Prime minister, permit me to make one thing clear.
The depressed classes are not anxious, they are not
clamorous, they have not started any movement for
claiming that there shall be an immediate transfer of
power from the British to the Indian people.... Their
position, to put it plainly, is that we are not anxious
for transfer of power from the British to the Indian
people.... Their position, to put it plainly, is that we
are not anxious for transfer of political power...." But
if the British were no longer strong enough to resist the
forces which were clamouring for such transfer, Ambedkar
declared, then his demand was that they make certain
arrangements-- arrangements which we shall encounter
repeatedly in his speeches and writings, the essential
point about which was to tie down the new government of
Independent India.
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
Continues:
'Nationalist leaders were neither surprised that Ambedkar
was on the platforms with Jinnah, nor had they any doubts
about the inspiration behind these celebrations'
Ambedkar and his patrons were dealt a humiliating blow by
the elections of 1937. There were a total of 1,585 seats
in the 11 assemblies in 'British India'. Of these 777
were 'tied'-- in the sense that they were to be filled by
communal or special representation from Chambers of
Commerce, plantations, labour etc. Of the 808 'general'
seats, the Congress, which Ambedkar, Jinnah and others
denounced from the house tops, won 456. It secured
absolute majorities in 5 assemblies -- those of Madras,
United Provinces, Central Provinces, Bihar and Orissa.
And was the largest single party in 4 others-- Bombay,
Bengal, Assam and the NWFP.
From the point of view of Ambedkar and the British -- who
had been holding him up to counter the Congress claim
that it represented the harijans as much as any other
section of Indian society -- worse was the fact that the
Congress did extremely well in the seats which had been
reserved for harijans. Thirty seats were reserved for
harijans in Madras Presidency, the Congress contested 26
and won 26. In Bihar there were 24 reserved seats -- in 9
of these Congress candidates were returned unopposed; of
the remaining 15 reserved seats, it contested 14, and won
14.
In Bombay of the 15 reserved seats, it secured 1
unopposed, contested 8 and won 5. In the United Provinces
there were 20 reserved seats; two of its candidates were
returned unopposed; it contested 17 seats and won 16. In
Bengal of the 30 reserved seats, it contested 17 and won
6. In the Central Provinces of the 19 reserved seats, it
contested 9 and won 5.
The lesson was there for all to see. Reporting to the
Viceroy on the result in the Bombay Presidency, the
Governor, Lord Brabourne wrote, "Dr Ambedkar's boast of
winning, not only 15 seats which are reserved for the
harijans, but also a good many more -- looks like being
completely falsified, as I feared it would be."
The electorate, including the harijans, may have
punctured his claims but there was always the possibility
of reviving one's fortunes through politicking and
maneuvers. Efforts of all these elements were focused on
the objective of installing non-Congress ministries in
Bombay and wherever else this was a possibility.
Brabourne reported to the viceroy that Jamnadas Mehta,
the finance minister "who is chief minister in all but
name", was telling him that the ministry in Bombay would
survive motions on the budget and may even get through
the motion of no-confidence:
"His calculations are based on the fact that he expects
to get the support of the bulk of the Muhammadans, the
whole of Ambedkar's Scheduled Castes Party, and of half a
dozen or so of those individuals who stood as Congressmen
merely to get elected," he reported. But added, "I gather
that he is in touch with Ambedkar, who is carrying on
negotiations for him, but, as you will find from the next
succeeding paragraph, it rather looks to me as if
Ambedkar is playing a thoroughly double game, in which
case Jamnadas Mehta's hopes are likely to be rudely
shattered."
The governor went on to report that he had also had a
long conversation with Jinnah, and that Jinnah had told
him that, in the event of the ministry being defeated,
the Muslim League would be prepared to form a ministry
provided they could secure a majority of even two or
three in the assembly. "He (that is, Jinnah) went on to
say that Ambedkar and his party were prepared to back him
in this," Brabourne reported, "and that he expected to
get the support of ten or a dozen of the so-called
Congress MLAs mentioned above.
He made it quite clear to me that they would not support
the present ministry. The governor was sceptical about
the claims and assurances of all of them. He wrote, "It
is, of course, quite impossible to rely on anything that
Jinnah tells me, and the only thing for me to do is to
listen and keep silent. I obviously cannot tell Jamnadas
Mehta what Jinnah told me, or vice versa, as both of them
are hopelessly indiscreet. The only thing that is clear
is that a vast amount of intrigue is going on behind the
scenes, but, in the long run, I cannot see anything
coming out of it at all, as none of these people trust
each other round the corner. Were to hazard a guess, it
would still be that the present ministry will be defeated
on the budget proposals and the alternative will then lie
between Congress or Section 93"-- the equivalent of our
present-day governor's rule.
Congress ministries were formed. And in 1939 they
resigned in view of the British government's refusal to
state what it intended to do about Indian Independence
after the War. Jinnah announced that the Muslim League
would celebrate the resignations as 'Deliverance Day.'
Guess who was at his side in these 'celebrations'
addressing meetings from the same platforms? Ambedkar, of
course.
Nationalist leaders were neither surprised that Ambedkar
was on the platforms with Jinnah, nor had they any doubts
about the inspiration behind these celebrations.
Addressing the Congress Legislature Party in Bombay on 27
December, 1937, Sardar Patel noted, "We cannot forget how
Sir Samuel Hoare set the Muslims against the Hindus when
the unity conference was held at Allahabad. The British
statesmen in order to win the sympathy of the world, now
go on repeating that they are willing to give freedom to
India, were India united.
The 'Day of Deliverance' was evidently calculated to make
the world and particularly the British public believe
that India was not united and that Hindus and Muslims
were against each other. But when several sections of
Muslims were found to oppose the 'Day of Deliverance',
the proposed anti-Hindu demonstrations were converted
into a Jinnah-Ambedkar-Byramji protest against the
Congress ministries and the Congress high command..."
That rout in the election remained a thorn in the heart
of Ambedkar for long. A large part of What Congress and
Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables which Ambedkar
published in 1945 is a tortuous effort to explain that
actually the Congress had not done well in the election,
that in fact, while groups such as his which had opposed
Congress had been mauled even in reserved constituencies,
they had triumphed, and the Congress, in spite of the
seats having gone to it, had actually been dealt a
drubbing!
Though this is his central thesis, Ambedkar gives reasons
upon reasons to explain why he and his kind have lost and
why the Congress has won! One of the reasons he says is
that the people in general believe that the Congress is
fighting for the freedom of the country. This fight for
freedom, Ambedkar says, "has been carried on mostly by
Hindus." It is only once that the Mussalmans took part in
it and that was during the short-lived Khilafat
agitation. They soon got out of it, he says. The other
communities, particularly the untouchables, never took
part in it.
A few stray individuals may have joined it -- and they
did so, Ambedkar declares, for personal gain. But the
community as such has stood out. This is particularly
noticeable in the last campaign of the "Fight For
Freedom", which followed the 'Quit India Resolution'
passed by the Congress in August 1942, Ambedkar says. And
this too has not been just an oversight, in Ambedkar's
reckoning it was a considered boycott. The Untouchables
have stayed out of the Freedom Movement for good and
strong reasons, he says again and again.
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
Continues:
'Even though he had been heaping scorn at them for a
quarter of a century, the Congress leaders put all that
aside and invited him to join the government'
Independence came. For all the venom he had poured at
Gandhiji and the Congress, Ambedkar was back in the
Cabinet, this time Pandit Nehru's Cabinet of Independent
India. How did he get there?
Ambedkar's own explanation was typical of the man: he had
done nothing to seek a position in the new government,
Ambedkar told Parliament later, it was the new prime
minister, Jawaharlal Nehru who had urged him to join the
new government; the offer had come to him as a surprise,
he said, he had been full of doubts, but in the end he
had yielded to the call of duty and to the plea that he
make his talents available to the new government -- that
is how things had gone according to Ambedkar. Recall the
pleas to Atlee, and set them against Ambedkar's
reconstruction of the sequence in the speech he made in
the Lok Sabha. It was 10 October 1951 and Ambedkar was
explaining his resignation from the Cabinet of Panditji:
It is now 4 years, 1 month and 26 days since I was called
by the prime minister to accept the office of the law
minister in the Cabinet. The offer came as a great
surprise to me. I was in the opposite camp and had
already been condemned as unworthy of association when
the interim government was formed in August 1946. I was
left to speculate as to what could have happened to bring
about this change in the attitude of the prime minister.
I had my doubts. I did not know how I could carry on with
those who had never been my friends. I had doubts as to
whether I could, as a law member, maintain the standard
of legal knowledge and acumen which had been maintained
by those who had preceded me as law ministers of the
government of India. But I kept my doubts at rest and
accepted the offer of the prime minister on the ground
that I should not deny my co-operation when it was asked
for in the building up of our nation...
In a word, the reluctant expert who eventually yields to
the implorings of others so as to help the poor country
that needs his talents. Far from a word of gratitude for
the fact that, even though he had been heaping scorn at
them for a quarter of a century, even though he had been
a most ardent member of the British government which had
thrown them and kept them in jails for years, the
Congress leaders had put all that aside and invited him
to join the government, far from there being any word of
gratitude, there was not a word even of appreciation,
even of a mere acknowledgment at least for their
sagacity, if not their magnanimity, in putting so much of
the past -- of the past that was so recent, of the past
that had been so bitter -- behind them. The new leaders
had implored him to join the government as they had no
alternative, so indispensable were the man's talents --
that was the implicit refrain.
The diary of Indrani Devi, the widow of Jagjivan Ram,
records the exact opposite. In the entry entitled,
Ambedkar ki sifaarish, she records,
And on this side Ambedkar had started coming over to our
house. One day he (Ambedkar) told him to put in a word
with Gandhiji to have him (Ambedkar) included in the
Cabinet. Before talking to Gandhiji he (Jagjivan Ram)
talked to Sardar Patel. Sardar Patel said, do what you
think is appropriate. He (Jagjivan Ram) got into quite a
quandary -- that Ambedkar had always opposed Gandhiji and
the Congress, how could he now recommend his case to
Gandhiji? Even so, given his large-heartedness, he
pleaded with Gandhiji on behalf of Ambedkar, and told him
that as he has surrendered in front of you please request
Nehruji so that he may be taken into the first Cabinet.
In any event, either as a result of his lobbying or
because Pandit Nehru requested him, Ambedkar joined the
government. He broke with Nehru four years later and
denounced the Congress and Nehru. He entered into an
electoral alliance with the Socialists to oppose the
Congress in the 1952 elections. His party was wiped out.
There were a total of 489 seats in the Lok Sabha. Of
these the Congress secured 364, that is almost three-
quarters. Ambedkar's party got no seat in the Parliament,
only one set in the Bombay assembly, and one in that of
Hyderabad.
But presumably the inference to be drawn from this defeat
too is the same. "It was a colossal failure, and Ambedkar
fell like a rocket," writes his admiring biographer,
Dhananjay Keer, about the election result. "It proved
once again that there is no gratitude in politics. The
nation which had conferred so much glory on him seemed
now unwilling to show him gratitude..."
But I anticipate. For the moment we need bear in mind
just a few facts.
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission.Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
Continues:
'Ambedkar was one of the few politicians who supported
the Muslim League demand for Pakistan'
Throughout the twenty-five years of his public life
before the British left India, Ambedkar took positions
which were ever so convenient for the British, throughout
these twenty-five years he hurled pejoratives at the
Congress, in particular Gandhiji. At every turn he put
forward formulae and demands which enabled the British to
counter the national movement for freedom. The British
were fully aware of the use he was to them, and they were
anxious to give him a hand so that he could become even
more the exclusive leader of the scheduled castes.
We shall have occasion soon to see what happened at the
Round Table Conference in 1931, and what happened in its
wake: Gandhiji had to stake his very life to thwart the
maneuver the British made -- in consultation with
Ambedkar, and to his great acclaim -- to split Hindu
society asunder. Gandhiji survived, but he was kept in
jail, as were the other Congress leaders. Ambedkar, of
course, was again on his way to England to attend yet
another Round Table Conference. And as on the previous
occasion, what he said and did was to the full
satisfaction of the British rulers.
On 28 December 1932, the Secretary of State, Sir Samuel
Hoare, was recounting the proceedings for the Viceroy. He
wrote, "Ambedkar had behaved very well at the (Round
Table) Conference, and I am most anxious to strengthen
his hands in every possible way. Coming from a family
whose members have almost always been in the (British)
Army, he feels intensely that there are no Depressed
Class units left. Could you not induce the Commander-in-
Chief to give them at least a Company? Ambedkar tells me
that the Depressed Class battalion did much better in the
Afghan War than most of the other Indian battalions. In
any case, I feel sure that at this juncture it would be a
really valuable political act to make a move of this
kind."
Next, Ambedkar argued long and vehemently that India must
not be given Independence in the foreseeable future. We
have already seen some of his urgings in this regard.
Consider an example from another sphere. As is well
known, apart from the Communists, Ambedkar was one of the
few politicians who supported the Muslim League demand
for Pakistan. One side of his argument was that Muslims
cannot stay in a multi-religious society; the other side
of his argument was that no one can stay with the Hindus
either, by which he always meant "upper-caste
exploiters".
That in brief was the thesis of his book, Thoughts on
Pakistan. In private he was telling the British something
quite different. He had been yearning to be included in
the Viceroy's administration, and in mid-1940 it was
presumed that, in view of what he had been saying and
doing, his induction was just a matter of days.
But those were uncertain times and the calculations of
the British were changing from day to day: they were at
war with Hitler; they knew that opinion within the
Congress was divided, some important elements were of the
view that Britain should be supported even though they
were not prepared to spell out what they would do about
India after the war; so they had to keep in mind the
possibility of strengthening this section within the
Congress. They also knew that inducting a person like
Ambedkar would offend the Congress as a whole no end.
At the last minute, therefore, the Viceroy had called
Ambedkar and the other aspirant, M S Aney, and told them
that he would have to put off the expansion of his
Council for the time being. Not only that, in view of
what he might have to do to win co-operation of the
Congress, the Viceroy had had to tell Ambedkar that he
could not bind himself or his successor about the future.
Recounting his meeting with Ambedkar the Viceroy told the
Secretary of State on 19 November 1940, in a
communication marked "Private and Personal," "I was at
pains to protect my successor and myself so far as he was
concerned by making it clear that while if circumstances
led me to invite him to work with me again, it would give
me personal pleasure to have him as a colleague, I or my
successor must be regarded as wholly uncommitted in the
matter, and under no obligation of any sort."
The conversation had then turned to the demand for
Pakistan. The Viceroy noted, "He (Ambedkar) was quite
clear that Muslims proposed to hold to their demands for
50:50 and so gradually lay the foundation of Pakistan,
and he was perfectly content himself, he said, with that
state of things, and in favour of the Pakistan idea quite
frankly because it meant the British would have to stay
in India. He saw not the least prospect of our overcoming
difficulties here by guarantees of any sort and (like
most minorities) he has, I suspect, little interest in
constitutional progress...."
Eventually, of course, the British had decided that they
would just have to leave. Ambedkar then pleaded with them
that they tie the new government by a Treaty. Then that
they get his organisation a place in the new set up. Then
he went and pleaded with Jagjivan Ram, the sort of man on
whom he had poured scorn for decades.
But today that very Ambedkar is a Bharat Ratna!
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
Continues:
'Ambedkar collaborated with the British to undermine
Gandhiji'
All the facts which have been recounted above were well
known fifty years ago. With the passing of the generation
that fought for Independence, with the total abandonment
of looking up the record, most of all with the rise of
casteist politics, they have been erased from public
awareness. And that erasure has led to the predictable
result: schizophrenia.
To start with, those trading in Ambedkar's name and their
apologists have sought to downplay the struggle for
Independence: the freedom it brought is not "real", they
insist. Exactly as that other group did which teamed up
with the British at that crucial hour, 1942 -- the
Communists. Indeed, as we shall see in the concluding
part of the book, to justify Ambedkar's conduct his
followers insist that British Rule was better.
Next, they have sought to exaggerate the hardship that
Ambedkar had to put up with, to almost rub out the fact,
for instance, that at every step -- for instance in his
education -- he received fulsome help from persons
belonging to the higher castes; by exaggerating the
hardships the apologists seek to explain away Ambedkar's
collaborating with the British, his hankering for office:
these hardships were the sort that are commonplace in
India -- one has only to recall the circumstances in
which Swami Vivekananda matured, one has only to recall
the starvation which stared him in the face, the calumny
and humiliations he had to fight back; but in the case of
one and each of our leaders the hardships became the
crucible which steeled their resolve to rid our country
of British rule; it is only in Ambedkar's case that his
followers and apologists think that those hardships
justify his collaborating with the British against the
national movement.
And, of course, these persons have made a practice of
denouncing and calumnising Mahatma Gandhi: Gandhiji was
the great leader, even more so he was the great symbol of
that struggle for Freedom; as Ambedkar collaborated with
the British to undermine him, as for 25 years he heaped
on the Mahatma calumnies which the British found so
valuable, his apologists abuse and denigrate and belittle
the Mahatma. In doing this they work out their own
poisons -- poisons which, as we shall see, are the
inescapable legacy of leaders who have not cast out the
thorn of hatred before they come to wield influence.
Today the abuse he hurled at Gandhiji provides the
precedent: the apologist's case, as Kanshi Ram said
recently while explaining the venom his associate
Mayawati had spewed at the Mahatma, is, "We are followers
of Babasaheb, we only keep repeating what he used to
say." They are at the same time serving their
convenience: they have made Ambedkar's style, so to say,
as also the facility with which he allied with those who
were out to keep the country subjugated, the
rationalisation for their own politics.
But the facts lurk in the closet. Lest they spill out and
tarnish the icon they need for their politics, lest their
politics be shown up for what it is -- a trade in the
name of the dispossessed -- these followers of Ambedkar
enforce their brand of history through verbal terrorism,
and actual assault.
And intimidation works. Editors and others conclude,
"Better leave bad enough alone."
Excerpted from Worshipping False Gods by Arun Shourie,
ASA Publishers, 1997, Rs 450, with the author's
permission. Those interested in obtaining a copy of the
book can contact the distributor at Bilblia Impex Pvt
Ltd, 2/18, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110001or
***@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
http://www.rediff.com/freedom/29ambed.htm
More at: rediff.com
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj
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