Tentatively, India’s anti-colonial journey (1858-1947) produced five mentors: M.K. Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Tagore and Bhagat Singh. While Gandhi is still the mentor of Modern India, Nehru is viewed as the architect of “secular and democratic India”. While Tagore is considered as the cultural icon, Bhagat Singh still arouses the passion of the radical youth. However, Dr B. R. Ambedkar (1891-1956)… Read more →
Babasaheb Ambedkar experientially and pragmatically looked at Indian society as structurally unequal because of the caste system that governed what a person born in a particular caste would get. He was naturally attracted to socialism as a system of property equalizer. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the first conscious attempt of mankind towards a socialist future, was welcomed by him… Read more →
( Till 1992, 6 th December was remembered as ‘Parinirvan Divas’ of Dr Ambedkar, legendary son of the oppressed who had clearly recognised the true meaning of Hindutva and warned his followers about the dangers of Hindu Rashtra ; post 1992, 6 th December has an added meaning and it relates to the demolition of Babri Mosque undertaken by these… Read more →
NEARLY a decade ago, I had the opportunity to teach modern Indian history to Class X in a school in Chennai for two consecutive years. The period to be covered was 1857-1947. It was an exam class and I was not sure how much I could do to amplify content given in the textbook. I decided to try in any… Read more →
Caste is no doubt primarily the breath of Hindus, but the Hindus have fouled the air all over, and everybody is infected — Sikh, Muslim and Christian. — B. R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste (1936) ARUNDHATI ROY’s latest piece of nonfiction, “The Doctor and the Saint,” enhances her reputation as the enfant terrible of India’s literary community. This time around she doesn’t… Read more →
A few weeks ago, the Indian publisher Navayana released an annotated, “critical edition” of Dr. BR Ambedkar’s classic, Annihilation of Caste (AoC). Written in 1936, AoC was meant to be the keynote address at a conference but was never delivered. Unsettled by the text of the speech, the caste Hindu organizers of the conference had withdrawn their invitation to speak…. Read more →
Ambedkar, Gandhi and the battle against caste ANNIHILATION OF CASTE is the nearly eighty-year-old text of a speech that was never delivered.* When I first read it I felt as though somebody had walked into a dim room and opened the windows. Reading Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar bridges the gap between what most Indians are schooled to believe in and the reality… Read more →
India’s present political plight is because the political class, lawyers and judges ignore the British Constitutional ethos on which Ambedkar modelled the Constitution. Three books that help us understand that ethos. By A.G. NOORANI “IT would suit the conditions of this country better to adopt the parliamentary system of Constitution, the British type of Constitution with which we are familiar,”… Read more →
TO an outsider, the Hindu caste system appears as a mind-boggling labyrinth of exclusions, injunctions, privileges and contracts. In many ways it is radically unknowable, a tight code that is somehow part of the implicit cultural common sense of every Hindu and yet impossible to convey in formal terms to one born outside its social world. This is not to… Read more →
In the story of modern India, as any schoolkid will confirm, the anti-colonial struggle looms large. Almost all national heroes are men associated with it. To what extent is this because the Congress, which led the anti-colonial movement, ruled in the decades that followed? Why do mainstream histories — by Indians and, for their own reasons, even by the British… Read more →
தமிழில் அம்பேத்கர்‘ என்பது குறித்துப் பேசுகையில், அண்ணல் அம்பேத்கரையும், அவரது அடிப்படைக் குறிக்கோள்களையும் தமிழகத்திற்கு முதன் முதலில் முறைப்படி அறிமுகம் செய்து வைத்தவர் பெரியார் ஈ.வெ.ரா. என்னும் உண்மையிலிருந்தே தொடங்க வேண்டும். பெரியாரின் சுயமரியாதை ஏடுகளான “ரிவோல்ட்‘, “குடி அரசு‘ ஏடுகளில் அம்பேத்கர் பற்றிய முதல் பதிவுகள், எனக்குத் தெரிந்தவரை, 1929 இல் காணப்படுகின்றன. பிரிட்டிஷ் இந்தியாவில் மாண்டேகு செம்ஸ்போர்ட் அரசியல் சீர்திருத்தம் நடைமுறைப்படுத்தப்படுவது தொடர்பாக நியமிக்கப்பட்ட சவுத்பரோ குழுவிடம் 1919 இல் தாழ்த்தப்பட்டோர் நிலைமைகளையும் உரிமைகளையும் குறித்து அம்பேத்கர் சாட்சியம் அளித்த நிகழ்வுதான் – அவரது தீவிரமான பொது வாழ்வின் தொடக்கமாக இருந்தது எனக் கொண்டால், அந்தப் பொதுவாழ்வு… Read more →
மதத்தை அழிப்பது என்று நான் கூறுவதன் பொருள் என்ன என்பதைச் சிலர் புரிந்துகொள்ளா மலிருக்கலாம்; சிலருக்கு இந்தக் கருத்து வெறுப் பாயிருக்கலாம்; சிலருக்கு அது புரட்சிகரமாகத் தோன்றலாம். எனவே நான் என்னுடைய நிலையை விளக்கி விடுகிறேன். தத்துவங்களுக்கும் விதிகளுக்கும் இடையே நீங்கள் வேறுபாடு கருதுகிறீர்களா என்று எனக்குத் தெரியாது. ஆனால் நான் வேறுபாடு கருதுகிறேன். இந்த வேறுபாடு உண்மையானது, மிக முக்கியமானது என்றும் நான் கூறுகிறேன். விதிகள் யதார்த்தமான நடைமுறைபற்றியவை; காரியங்களைக் குறிப்பிட்ட முறைப்படி செய்வதற்கு வழக்கமான வழிகள் அவை. ஆனால் தத்துவங்கள் அறிவு… Read more →
THIS article is about a dialogue that never took place. Bhimrao Ambedkar and Rammanohar Lohia were contemporaries in that their period of political activity overlapped by at least twenty years, between the mid-1930s and mid-1950s. Ambedkar, senior to Lohia by 20 years, did not have any compelling reasons to get to know Lohia, who was not much of a mass… Read more →