Ambedkar in India

Introduction

We will acquaint about the Ambedkar’s life struggle, movements led by him, political carrier and his conversion to Buddhism. After Ambedkar returned from the US, he went to Baroda in September 1917 as part of the agreement to serve the Maharaja of Baroda for at least 10 years. The Maharaja wanted to appoint him as the finance minister after giving him a chance to gain some administrative experience. So, to begin with, he appointed him the Military Secretary to the Maharaja. On reaching Baroda, Ambedkar faced a grave problem. The Maharaja had instructed his officials to receive Ambedkar from the railway station. But no official went to receive him as he was an untouchable. He confronted more difficulties when he tried to look for a place for boarding and lodging. Wherever he went to look for a house, he was refused on account of being an untouchable. Finally, he stayed in a Parsi lodge for a few days, hiding his identity.

His office environment was suffocating. In spite of his high education and position, the clerks and peons in the office threw files at him from a distance, to avoid touching an untouchable. No drinking water was provided to him in the office. Carpets were removed from his office lest they be polluted through his touch. All this was unbearable to him. He sent a note to the Maharaja appealing for his attention to his discomforts. The Maharaja referred it to the Dewan. But the Dewan expressed his inability to do anything in the matter. The situation got worse when the Parsis came to know about his untouchable identity and ganged together to beat him and made him vacate the place. Ambedkar had no other option but to leave. He wandered on an empty stomach and getting tired, sat under a tree in a park and wept profusely. Depressed and indignant, he returned to Mumbai in November 1917. He informed the Maharaja about the circumstances that forced him to leave Baroda, through his teacher Keluskar.

In the meantime, Professor Joshi, a friend of Keluskar from Baroda, wrote to Ambedkar saying that he was ready to accept him as a paying guest in his house. Ambedkar jumped at this offer and reached Baroda. At the railway station he received a note from Professor Joshi which stated that his wife was against having an untouchable in their house. Without wasting any time, Ambedkar took the next train home from Baroda station. He never went to Baroda again.

Ambedkar’s Struggles in Life

Soon after Ambedkar’s return from Baroda in 1917 his stepmother passed away. Around the same time, a few upper caste Hindus arranged two conferences of the Depressed Classes in Mumbai. One of the conferences took a resolution appealing to the government to protect the interests of untouchables by granting the depressed classes the right to elect their own representatives to the legislatures in proportion to their population. Ambedkar did not take part in either of the conferences. He needed money to take responsibilities of his growing family. So, to tide over his financial situation, he accepted two private tuitions which a Parsi gentleman arranged for him.

He also set up a firm for providing consultancy to the share brokers in the stock market. But when his customers came to know that the consultancy was run by an untouchable, no one came to consult him. Ambedkar, then for a while, worked as an auditor for a Parsi gentleman. During this period Ambedkar wrote a critical review of Bertrand Russell’s book, Principles of Social Reconstruction and published it in the journal, Indian Economic Society. His essay “Caste in India” was republished.

In November 1918 Ambedkar was appointed an economics professor in the Government Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Bombay on a temporary basis at a salary of Rs. 450. Ambedkar gave a fixed amount of his salary every month to his wife Ramabai to run the household expenses. The rest of the amount he was saving to go back to England and complete his unfinished studies at the London School of Economics. He continued to live a very simple life in the two rooms in the Improvement Trust chawl at Parel which his family had been occupying since his father’s days.

As a professor of economics, Ambedkar took his teaching seriously. He worked hard to give his best. But his caste came as a hurdle here too. Dhananjay Keer writes about how Ambedkar had to face discrimination even in a place of higher education:

At first the students in Sydenham College did not take this new professor seriously. What could an Untouchable teach the caste Hindu students and others from advanced societies? They knew not what happened when a man stood before them with sincerity and serious behind him. By and by Ambedkar’s deep study, exhaustive exposition and thoughtful style gripped the minds of his students. The young professor with his fine dress, his profound studies, his serious glowing eyes became well known in the circle of students of economics and as a result student from other colleges also attended his classes with special permission. The notes and other material which he had collected for preparing his lectures, it is said, were vast enough for the production of an exhaustive work on Economics. But his success as a professor could not mitigate the evils of untouchability in the holy atmosphere of the place of learning. Some Gujarati professors objected to his drinking water from the pot reserved for the professorial staff.

On 27 January 1919, Ambedkar was invited to testify before the Southborough Committee which was preparing for the Government of India Act 1919. Ambedkar argued in writing that the government create separate electorates and reservations for untouchables and other religious communities. Ambedkar came in contact with the Maharaja of Kolhapur, Shahu Maharaj, who had been trying to do his best to break down the barriers of the caste system and help the untouchables. Ambedkar helped the Maharaja to start a fortnightly paper Mook Nayak (Leader of the Voiceless). The first issue of the paper came out on 31 January 1920. Ambedkar made full use of it to expose, with his brilliant logic, the irrationality and basic injustice inherent in the caste system.

In July 1920, to complete his unfinished degree in Law and Economics, Ambedkar left for London. He returned to India in April 1923.

In June 1923 he started his practice as a barrister. But again, his caste stood in his way. The upper caste litigants were not willing to hire him in spite of his high qualifications. People who came to hire him for their cases were mostly from the poorer sections who could pay either very little or no money at all for his services. Ambedkar naturally felt depressed, but his spirit was undaunted. He was determined to work for a better India.

Ambedkar’s Social Movements

Ambedkar’s education in the USA, England and Germany broadened his horizon and strengthened his resolve to free his community from the thraldom of misery through rational and progressive means. He wanted equality in religious, social, economic and political spheres. A radical reconstruction of Indian society, as Ambedkar imagined, could not come without the intensification of the caste/class struggle. Since Hinduism was founded on scriptures which sanctioned a caste-based social order, a just solution could only be possible through a new edifice, that is, through the annihilation of the Indian caste system. To this end, Ambedkar launched several satyagrahas.

On 9 March 1924 Ambedkar convened a meeting at Damodar Hall, Bombay, to discuss the need for establishing a central organization for removing the innumerable handicaps from which untouchables suffered and for placing their grievances before the government. Following this meeting, a society named Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha was formed to promote the interests of the untouchables. In 1926 after getting nominated as a member of the Bombay Legislative Council by the Governor of Bombay, Ambedkar started the Mahad tank satyagraha to allow untouchables to use water from public tanks. In April 1927 he started a Marathi fortnightly, Bahiskrit Bharat.

In a conference in late 1927, Ambedkar publicly condemned the classic Hindu text, the Manusmriti, for ideologically justifying the system of caste discrimination and untouchability. On 25 December 1927, thousands of people burnt copies of Manusmriti under the leadership of Ambedkar.

In 1930 the temple entry movement was launched with the attempt to enter the Kalaram temple at Nashik. About 15,000 volunteers participated in the satyagraha. The procession was lead by soldiers marching to a military band. They were followed by a batch of scout boys and girls. Women and men walked in discipline and order, determined to enter a temple for the first time. When they reached the temple, the gates were closed by the Brahmin authorities.

The Janata, a weekly was published by Ambedkar during this period. He also formed the Samata Sainik Dal to dislodge values which fostered anti-human attitude in the name of traditional and cultural heritage.

On 8 August 1930, Ambedkar presided over the All-India Depressed Classes Congress at Nagpur. In his speech he endorsed dominion status for India and criticized M. K. Gandhi’s salt march and civil disobedience movement as inopportune. He also criticized the British Government for their bad governance.

The sole motive of Ambedkar’s movements was to establish equal status in religious, social, economic and political matters to all classes, offering untouchables an opportunity to rise in the scale of life and creating conducive conditions for their advancement. For the upliftment of untouchables, Ambedkar came to realize that unless this socially suppressed section of the Indian society secured political power it was not possible to completely wipe out all social, legal and cultural disabilities from which they suffered. That is why his slogan was: “Be a ruling race.” But the political power which Ambedkar wanted for untouchables during the British rule could not be obtained due to the stiff resistance from the Congress with its caste Hindu character. Unfortunately, most of the oppositions came from Gandhi.

Ambedkar and Gandhi embraced different positions on the issue of untouchability. Gandhi, for example, believed that untouchability was excrescence, a pathological growth that had nothing to do with the essential nature of the caste system which was a framework for the division of labor. He maintained that caste had existed in the past without untouchability and it could be purged from the caste system without doing damage to its fundamental design. Gandhi advocated a purified varnashrama dharma in which untouchables would be restored to their rightful place as Shudras.

Ambedkar took a position that was diametrically opposite to that of Gandhi. Ambedkar considered the abolition of the caste system as indispensable for the abolition of untouchability because he thought that the outcastes would be outcastes as long as there were castes. And nothing could emancipate the outcastes except the destruction of caste. This made Ambedkar to demand a separate electoral system for the untouchables from the British Government. Gandhi’s fast unto death forced Ambedkar to a compromise agreement, known as the Poona Pact of 1932.

The Poona Pact was an outcome of Gandhi’s opposition to Ambedkar’s demand for a separate electoral system for untouchables. The British Government was a party to it. When Indians rejected the Simon Commission’s report in 1930, the British invited leaders of different parties for Round Table Conferences between 1930 and 1932 to draft a new Constitution involving self-rule for native Indians. Ambedkar and Rao Bahadur Srinivasan, representing the depressed classes, were among the 53 Indians. Gandhi, who represented the Congress Party, did not attend the first and last but attended the second of the Conferences. Ambedkar demanded separate electorates for untouchables as similar provisions were already available for other minorities, including Muslims, Christians, Anglo-Indians and Sikhs. The British Government agreed to Ambedkar’s proposal and British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald announced the Communal Award. Gandhi strongly opposed the Communal Award on the grounds that it would disintegrate the Hindu society. He began an indefinite hunger strike at Yerwada Central Jail from 20 September 1932 till a compromise, the Poona pact was made.

On 27 May 1935, Ramabai passed away. Soon after his wife’s death, Ambedkar was offered the post of the Principal of the Government College of Law, Bombay. He joined the post on 1 June 1935. Although in mourning, Ambedkar with his usual determination, not only took classes but also looked after the administration of the college.

The All-India Depressed Classes Conference was held at Yeola on 30 October 1935. It was attended by over 10,000 untouchables from all over India. The Conference was chaired by Shri Rankhambe. Ambedkar in his speech strongly condemned Hinduism. Since the indignities and humiliations to which untouchables were subjected, arose from the fact that they were Hindus by the accident of birth, he posed the question before the delegates of the Conference, whether it would not be better for them to leave the fold of Hinduism and to embrace some other religion which would give them an honorable and equal status. Ambedkar’s announcement of conversion shook up the entire country.

Political Career

The Government of India Act, 1935 promised provincial autonomy to the people of British India and announced that elections to the provincial assemblies would be held in 1937. Ambedkar rallied his friends and lieutenants and founded a political party called Independent Labor Party in August 1936. The party contested the 1937 Bombay election to the Central Legislative Assembly for the 13 reserved and 4 general seats out of which it secured 11 and 3 seats respectively. Ambedkar contested from Bombay and came out victorious by beating his rival by a large margin of votes.

On 17 September 1937 at the Poona session of the Bombay Assembly, Ambedkar introduced a Bill to abolish the Khoti system of land tenure in the Konkan area of the Presidency. Ambedkar, thus, was the first Indian who introduced a Bill for the abolition of serfdom of agricultural tenants. He published his book Annihilation of Caste in the same year.

Ambedkar joined the Viceroy’s Executive Council as Labor Member in July 1942. Accordingly, he took in-charge of labor portfolio. In his capacity he moved an amending Bill in April 1944 proposing paid holidays for industrial workers employed in ‘perennial’ factories. He resigned from the membership of the Viceroy’s Executive Council in the last week of May 1946 when the British Government decided to set up a new government.

The British Parliament passed the Acts of Indian Independence on 15 July 1947. On 3 August 1947 the names of cabinet ministers were announced. Nehru invited Ambedkar to serve as independent India’s first law minister. However, Ambedkar resigned from the Nehru Cabinet on 27 September 1951 because the Hindu Code Bill, which he so painstakingly drafted, could not be passed in Parliament. Had the Hindu Code Bill been passed, Indian society would have gone through a remarkable transformation in terms of gender equality.

But the most important political assignment was when he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of India by the members of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1946. He was elected to the Drafting Committee and later appointed its chairman. Under his Chairmanship the Indian Constitution incorporated some of the best features found in other constitutions, such as nationalism, centralization, a strong executive, secularism and a welfare state.

Conversion to Buddhism

As the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, Ambedkar worked hard for a new constitutional order based on equality and social justice. This resulted in a provision for adequate representation of the underprivileged classes in both political and educational fields. Ambedkar also believed that democracy was meaningless if it did not enable members of the deprived and the depressed classes to be dignified citizens of the country. Doubting the credentials of Indian democracy, Ambedkar felt the following were needed:

• A strong opposition
• Equality before law
• Constitutional morality in administration
• A strong and active moral sense in society
• Presence of public conscience

As he had feared, Ambedkar witnessed during his life, the failure of Indian democracy. Being dismayed and frustrated with the negative attitude of the caste Hindu people, Ambedkar, towards the end of his life rejected Hinduism and embraced Buddhism. Ambedkar along with his followers embraced Buddhism on 14 October 1956 at Nagpur. His decision to change his religion was not sudden. Way back in 1929 at the Jalgaon conference of the Scheduled Castes he had already announced his dismay towards Hinduism.

Ambedkar adopted Buddhism because it advocates a casteless and classless society as against Hinduism which is based on graded inequality. Buddha’s opposition to human exploitation is, perhaps, the main reason for which Ambedkar finds in Buddhism an alternative. After a very hectic but a fulfilling life, Ambedkar passed away on 6 December 1956.