Prabuddha Bharat: Understanding Ambedkar in the Passage of Time

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Remembering Dr. Bhimrao Baba Saheb Ambedkar on the occasion of his 125th birth anniversary is really an important juncture in the life of our nation facing a number of very sensitive sociopolitical issues being posed at the moment. I am not sure whether I will overstep a little if I propose to place him in juxtaposition with Mahatma Gandhi at par in the context of trying to evolve a politico-philosophical paradigm while trying to liberate the nation from many of its age old and customarily deduced psychofrenic attachments. Attaining the status of a national messiah, specially to the so-called downtrodden section of Indian population, he stood quite alone pushing the case of today's popularly known social categories i.e. the socalled 'dalits'. The term was perhaps not very familiar in social science parlance during his days. But quite perceptibly, the sociocultural and politico-economic phenomena that Dr. Ambedkar considered, by and large, followed very closely to what we hear in the context of 'subaltern' or even in the backdrop of human rights question in today's scenario. However, I will not go any further on this issue, since some of our experts on the subject have shared their cultivated concern in their respective presentations.

The significant fact about the Hindus is that before they are Hindus they are members of some caste.

Ambedkar's Evidence before the Southborough Committee, 27 January 1919)

...the bureaucracy was too much enlightened to deny the principle that the Backward Classes had a right to education....As the Indian intelligentsia had its roots in the part in which the Backward Class had no recognized rights, the latter were apprehensive that the past may again be made to live in the present.

(Ambedkar's Statement on the Education of the Depressed Classes in the Bombay Presidency, 29 May 1929)

I have agreed to confine the term Depressed Classes to Untouchables only. In fact, I have myself sought to exclude from the Untouchables all those in whom there cannot be the same consciousness of kind as is shared by those who suffer from the social discrimination that is inherent in the system of untouchability and who are therefore likely to exploit the Untouchables for their own purpose.

The political structure must be related to the social structure. The operation of the social forces is not confined to the social field. pervade the political field also.

While we have established political democracy, it is also the desire that we should lay down as our ideal economic democracy....In my judgement, the directive principles have a great value, for they lay down that our ideal is economic democracy.