THE FATHER (MOTHER?) OF THE NATION
What was Ambedkar to you?
I would often ask myself-
A man who crossed the desert, the seas
A parrhesiast, no doubt
Speaking truth to power.
Somebody who understood
Hinduism from its lacunas,
Pitfalls, the harder way
And had turned to Buddhism.
Somebody who held everybody as equals
And rejected subordination and humiliation.
He went to Europe
To LSE for his studies, yes
And knew his sociology and Economics only too
well
That crime was his.
But others, including Gandhi had done their
studies abroad
And were influenced by western thought
A matter long forgotten
But his thought or action was never
Taken in that light.
He knew his society well enough
And its double standards
It had a way of putting people down
And elevating others.
He refused to accept it
And knew that the streams of thought that had
Composed the Indian's early beliefs
His approach to his neighbor
Was tainted by the hierarchies
And the injustices proclaimed as dharma
That gave the Brahmin his power
And curtailed the movements
And shattered those held to be lower in caste
And women, branding them as backward.
He knew his intellect to be
At par with anybody else’s
And that he had seen
Where the things fall apart.
He knew very well
That the strictures had to be challenged
frontally
And the truth told.
Yes, he did betray those beliefs
Since he knew that the trickery and cheating
That had destroyed others
And subordinated the common people
Were not godsend.
In a country of vast differences
They founded the falsity
Of hierarchy and subjugation
Made other people carry their crap
And thought themselves pure
Forgetting that they carried that very shit
in their bowels
When they entered their temples
And shat it out as others do.
They wanted dalits to carry their shits
To clean up the world for them
Dipping themselves in manholes and misery
To live deprived lives
Denied love or respect
While they waxed eloquent
About their nation in speeches abroad.
A nation built on its slaves bones
And casteism, murderous in every way.
A nation in which women were secondary
And only sex toys.
He organized the sex workers
And stood with the demands for their rights.
To take water from a pond
Was a struggle
If he had burned a book,
It was not because he rejected knowledge
But abhorred falsity
And because that book would only give him
A dogs place.
To find a place to live
Among equals
To live a respectable life
He fought back
And did not mind it
That the elite
Called him a British stooge for that.
In a nation where
Egalitarianism was banished
By its foundational thinkers
He exposed its crevices, aporias
And asked why millions of
Buddhist and Jain texts where burned or
destroyed
To suit the elite
And they had no complaints.
If he converted to Buddhism,
And thought of the religious minorities as
friends
It was because he had no faith in this nation
That would drive him and his folks
Away from every
right.
To be a panchama,
an out caste
Or a Muslim
Where the worst affairs
In a land where faith
Was reduced to mere ritual
And democracy or equality
Remained a distant dream.
Ain’t I an Indian?
He would have to ask
For the toiling people.
He wrote many texts
Challenged Ramas and Krishnas of old
And exposed the stark injustices
Practiced in the name of ‘Dharma’.
God’s benevolence was for every one
Said he, when he converted himself
To the
Buddhist Dhamma.
People disliked his being dressed up
The way he did, like a European
But what would have been his fate
If he where to be clad in a dhothi
And had followed the caste occupations of a
Mahar?
Would they have respected him?
He fought back and gained respect
Showing us that Philosophy
Was not merely a contemplation
About the perennial questions of life and
death
But had to do with everyday life
And an argument had to be examined for its
‘Function’ and ‘Trace’.
He showed us so many of our towering figures
Had feets of clay
Howevever they were clothed,
Or whatever empty rhetoric
Filled their mouths.
He did not fight a war with weapons
Or go in for annihilation
But like a true Multi- culturalist
Openly challenged ideas with ideas
Trying to enter into a conversation with
Even those who were totally opposed to him
Calling for an end to segregation.
Ambedkar, to me is not just a Jurist
Who compiled a constitution for India
The limits of which he was well aware of
The legalese with which they trampled
The question of rights
Was not the end in itself
Since equal rights could not be extended
To properties and holdings,
Still Gandhi trusted him more than anyone else
To write the constitution
Because he knew that when Colonialism ended
There was still a war that had to be fought on
all fronts
And none other than Ambedkar was equipped enough
For that.
He had organized trade unions
And knew the marks that caste left
On ordinary people’s lives.
A thinker of rare courage and integrity
A thorough multi- culturalist
Far before it became fashionable
And having the rare spirit of endarkenment
Still stands tall
The one who could have fathered this nation
Or rather nursed it as a mother
More than anybody else.
Photo credits: Ambedkar.org
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