Book review :Ambedkar : Towards an enlightened India

Book review :Ambedkar : Towards an enlightened

Little known facts about a known figure
By
Raja Sekhar Vundru

Book review
Ambedkar : Towards an enlightened India
2004,
Penguin,
Pages 188,
Price 295

(Published in Deccan Chronicle , Hyderabad, on 23 May, 2004)

Dedicating his book What Congress and Gandhi have done toUntouchables (1945) to ‘Miss F’, Dr B R Ambedkar writes“As you know, I am drawn in the vortex of politics whichleaves no time for literary pursuits. I do not know whenI shall be out of it.” For Ambedkar who could not write anautobiography unlike many national leaders of his times,any biography on him should be refreshing and welcome.

To aid her in her first attempt on a biography of Ambedkar,Omvedt had access to the most authentic biography onAmbedkar by Dhananjay Keer (1954), Khairmode’s MarathiBiography (1968 – 2000), Ambedkar’s PersonalAssistant Nanak Chand Rattu’s writings (1997), Ambedkar’sletters by Surendra Agnat (1993) and 17 Volumes ofAmbedkar’s writings by Maharashtra Government (1979 – 2003).

However, Omvedt missed out on the authentic biography byVasant Moon (1991/2002) and Christophe Jaffrelot’s Frenchbiography Dr Ambedkar. Leader intouchable et père dela constitution indienne (2000) . Fitting Ambedkar’slife and philosophy into 162 pages is not an easy task.

The book starts well with a clearly composed early lifeof Ambedkar, however, the mystification of Ambedkar’sbirth could have been avoided. And the author committeda glaring faux paus by writing Rao Bahadur RettamalaiSrinivasan’s name — who attended Round Table Conferenceswith Ambedkar — as untouchable representative in 1930s.

Ambedkar in his various books wrote about his feelingsand sometimes described events which were autobiographical.His rendering of events of Poona Pact, which haunted himrest of his life and his opinions about untouchable leaderslike M C Rajah who betrayed Dalits, should have beeused. After a lengthy discussion on theoretical aspects ofBuddhism, the author provides few details about the 1956conversion. Half way through, author shifts into more onthe ‘essential writings’ of Ambedkar. She gives an overdoseof Maharashtra, Phule and Buddhism, but misses out on‘Riddles in Hinduism’.

Omvedt attempts to relate life of Ambedkar with contemporaryDalit situation to make it more easier to understand thecomplexities of the times he lived in. While Ambedkarbased most of his premises on Varna based society, theauthor puts it across in a Jati framework whiledescribing caste.

Even so, the book is interesting as the writer focuses indetail on lesser known facets of Ambedkar. Drawing fromKhairmode, author provides great details of events, whilequoting heavily from Janata, a paper published byAmbedkar. She tries to make it different from earlierbiographies and succeeds in doing so. The growth of hispersona is etched well, interspersed with events hithertowent unwritten and unexplored.

Omvedt excels in bringing out Ambedkar’s growth of ideas,his scholarship and the theoretical premises he built uponwithin few pages. The book firmly re-establishes theintellectual supremacy of Dr B R Ambedkar. Omvedt’s languageis clear, succinct and racy. The book is a quick andeasy, non-stop read, worth its buy.

(Raja Sekhar Vundru is an IAS officer presently posted as Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment,Govt. of India, New Delhi)

Caste Enclaves

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1600662.cms

Published in Times of India June 1, 2006

Caste Enclaves

by

Raja Sekhar Vundru

Sociologist Andre Beteille recently wrote in these columns about caste reservations vitiating educational institutions. He blames Indian politicians for bringing caste consciousness into universities (as if it never existed there) and found that caste prejudices were actually declining in campuses in the early 20th century.

It is surprising that Beteille, who once wrote that inequality can be studied not only as a mode of existence but also as a mode of consciousness and that in traditional systems these inequalities are closely related to inequalities of caste, is now blaming government for having vitiated the social atmosphere of universities.

The reservation issue does not seem to be a political crisis anymore. It has become a deep academic crisis marked by the fast surfacing biases of the intellectual class.

The rot that has set in in Indian academia can be traced to the history of modern education in India. History of education in India is replete with incidents of imperialists using policies to enslave natives.

Though the Anglicists represented by Ram Mohun Roy brought some semblance of modernisation in education, it was totally confined to the bhadralok of Bengal.

The East India Company and later the British government believed in divide and rule. They instituted a system where a handful of dwijas (twice born) had an absolute control over the majority.

The education system that we inherited from the British never represented Indian society. The educational dispatches of the British officials amply prove this.

One of the dispatches said that education and civilisation may descend from the higher to inferior classes and so communicated may impart new vigour to the community, but it would never ascend from lower classes to those above them.

If education is imparted solely to lower classes, it would lead to general convulsion where foreigners would be the first victims. The mindset of some contemporary intellectuals and journalists reflects the trend initiated by European colonisers.

Jothirao Phule started the fight against caste exclusion in our education system. His book titled Slavery took the Marathi world by storm in 1873.

It was Phule who told the Hunter commission in 1882 that the British were collecting revenue from shudras (backwards) and ati-shudras (Dalits) to educate upper caste Brahmins. This, he claimed, was atrocious and the remedy he suggested was universalisation of primary education.

Later, his disciple B R Ambedkar demanded equality of opportunity from the Simon commission in 1928. It is from his memorandum one discovers that enrolment of lower castes in colleges was zero in 1882 and just one per cent in 1923-24.

These facts have never been discussed in our mainstream discourses, though economist K S Chalam brought out the nature of apar-theid in education in the 1980s and 1990s. University education in India has remained by and large an upper caste prerogative.

Caste prejudices continued to exist in our university campuses in the first half of the 20th century due to under-representation or no representation of lower castes. There are stories of how university professors used to search for the sacred thread of students to find out the identity of certain castes.

The present anti-quota agitations are a continuation of the legacy of imperialists and few self-centred individuals. It is strange that while social scientists in the West are working out strategies to implement diversity to provide opportunities to different communities on campuses, Indian scholars are busy espousing an imperialist discourse.

It is common knowledge that education and society are inseparable. Society as a whole is reflected in the education system. Education is a change agent. What kind of change and progress can we anticipate if the education system is burdened with stereotypes of the inherited merit of the few? There are only a few scholars who publicly talk about social inclusion.

How do we expect universities to flourish and compete so long as we keep them as islands of caste prejudices and vanities?

(The writer is an IAS officer. Views expressed are personal.)