It was not just Congress Party hypocrisy on display. But BJP hypocrisy as well. In the Home Minister’s speech in which he allegedly ‘insulted’ Dr Ambedkar, he listed the memorials and sundry other things done in his memory since Narendra Modi became prime minister.
Dec 22, 2024 06:30 IST First published on: Dec 22, 2024 at 06:30 IST
What really nauseated me about the shenanigans in Parliament last week was the hypocrisy. Manifest in the attempt by everyone on all sides of the political divide to exhibit their love for Dr Ambedkar in silly ways. There was Rahul Gandhi in a blue t-shirt (instead of his usual white) with his sister in a blue sari and sundry other Congress MPs also wearing Dalit blue, a colour chosen because of the sky under which everyone is equal. They cried “Jai, Jai Bhim” and carried placards declaring “I am Ambedkar” and Ambedkar is my god. From a party with which Ambedkar had serious differences.
It was not just Congress Party hypocrisy on display. But BJP hypocrisy as well. In the Home Minister’s speech in which he allegedly ‘insulted’ Dr Ambedkar, he listed the memorials and sundry other things done in his memory since Narendra Modi became prime minister. And BJP speakers in the debate on the Constitution never failed to mention that Ambedkar had been denied a Bharat Ratna by prime ministers from the Dynasty. What these newly minted members of Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s fan club failed to mention was that the ideology to which they subscribe, the Hindutva that defines the Modi government, is the antithesis of what Ambedkar believed.
If any of the political parties responsible for the disgraceful fisticuffs and hooliganism in Dr Ambedkar’s name had been sincere in their love of him, they would have done more to end the shameful treatment of our Dalit communities that continues to this day. Here are some statistics that should shame us all. Manual scavenging is technically illegal today, but the largest employer of manual scavengers is the Indian Railways.
In nearly half the districts in India, manual scavenging is prevalent. More than 90% of the workers employed to clean sewers and septic tanks in our ancient land come from castes that fall into the scheduled categories. These sanitation workers lack not just dignity, but also protective gear. Too many die simply from doing their job. Rahul Gandhi loves to pretend to do the work of ordinary workers, but has not dared to give this job a shot.
Let us come then to hate crimes against Dalits every year in India, and brood for a moment over this statistic. According to one estimate, a crime against a member of the Dalit community is committed every 18 minutes. The National Crime Records Bureau says that between 2015 and 2020, they noticed a 45% increase in the rapes of Dalit girls. You do not need to be a statistician to know that most victims of gang rapes and other forms of sexual brutality in rural India belong to the Dalit community.
Dalit children are routinely discriminated against in schools and there are any number of Hindu temples that still forbid Dalits from entering their sanctified premises. My point is that as we dream our dream of ‘Viksit Bharat’, we need to remember that the nightmare Dr Ambedkar faced as a child in school still haunts us. He was made to sit at some distance from his upper caste classmates on a gunny sack which he had to carry back home with him. When he wanted a drink of water, he had to wait for an upper caste peon to come and pour it out for him as his very touch was considered polluting. In our cities, untouchability is mercifully hard to practice, but it thrives in our villages. I have personally never been to an Indian village in which the Dalit quarter was not segregated from the upper caste quarters.
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Am I blaming our political leaders for this horrific situation? Yes. Absolutely. They have done far too little in the past 75 years to make casteism socially unacceptable. This is why they need to shelter behind public displays of love for Dr Ambedkar. This is why they need to bang on about increasing reservations for Dalits. It is my humble opinion, expressed in past columns, that reservations have become a crutch for politicians rather than an effective form of affirmative action. It needs to be re-examined and a better way found to elevate the lives of those Dalit communities at the bottom of the heap for whom not even Dalit politicians have done enough.
As for remembering Dr Ambedkar in a way that he truly deserves to be remembered, you need to have been in Mumbai on December 6, when hundreds of thousands of very poor Dalits poured into this city to commemorate the day he died. They came from far and near. Many were too poor to afford hotels, so they slept on pavements and in parks just to go to the memorial called Chaitya Bhoomi that was built like a Buddhist stupa to honour him. They did not need to carry his portrait in their arms or shout slogans to show their love for him. They came like pilgrims do to shrines, quietly and with dignity and devotion. There is so much that our elected representatives can learn from them.
Meanwhile, when can we look forward to peaceful debate in Parliament instead of violent clashes on its doorstep? It is my view that the Home Minister spoke carelessly about Dr Ambedkar. But it is true that it had become fashionable to chant Ambedkar’s name by those who only sought to use it as a political tool at election time.
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