Why Dr. BR Ambedkar is important for all of us?
Just imagine our country before independence. We, all of us,
were slaves of someone. There was a hierarchy of caste system. Each caste was
inferior to some other caste. This system existed on the basis of Manusmriti.
Even on top of this, there were the rulers of that time; be it French,
Portuguese, Adilshahi, Nizamshahi, Britishers, etc. The situation of our
country was pathetic before independence. It was only because of the Indian
constitution which gave us equality, fraternity, justice, brotherhood, sisterhood,
freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom of worship and various
fundamental rights and duties too. This basic structure of democracy was given
to us by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. The irony is that someone has to tell this
thing after 75 years of our independence how important our constitution is.
Once, actor Jitendra said in an event that, “getting the
freedom is one thing and maintaining that independence is a different thing.”
This strong position is very hard to achieve for a country who went under so
much destruction from foreign attackers for thousands of years, the
pre-existing religious slavery which compelled us to remain slaves and we can
just keep counting such sufferings of our ancestors. The constitution of India
is the only thing which made the outstanding progress our nation is making on
global level possible, competing the superpowers like China & USA.
Otherwise, these politicians would’ve sold our nation already for their own
profits and left the country with the civil war. This won’t be happening
because our constitution doesn’t allow to be mean to our own countrymen.
The true meaning of patriotism Isn”t just saying Jai Hind or
Vande Matram; it lies in our constitution. We must know why we’re not still in
slavery, we must think why Dr. Ambedkar has put the articles which tells us the
specifics of our individual freedom as a citizen of this country. Why we must
be curious about these things, is because such freedom & fundamental rights
never existed before for us. Why it is written in our constitution that
everyone will be equal? Because there was no equality amongst us before. We
we’re divided in caste, sub-caste, gotra, religion, region, states, languages,
culture, colour, birthplace, gender, financial status, etc.; we were also racist,
sexist & oppressive, which we are still now. Despite of all these
distinctions, we are a country. We never said “unity in diversity” before. This
thing is given to us by the constitution. These rights are mentioned under
Articles 12 to 35 of the Indian Constitution.
Why Indian women are so ignorant towards Dr. Babasaheb
Ambedkar?
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was the first person who thought
about the birth control, not merely to control the population but looking at
the health of a woman he has suggested the limit on the number of children in a
family. He also advocated birth control to develop the Indian economy, which
later became India’s National Policy for Family Planning.
When he introduced the Hindu Code Bill, it was the women of
this country who opposed it thinking that it’ll disregard & insult Hindu
religion. Even Babasaheb himself was aware that he’s going to be hated for this
because he knew the Indian mentality. The Hindu Code Bill was for the
betterment, upliftment & liberation of Indian women. If we look at the
caste hierarchy, women were treated even worse than the Shudra. This was
happening from thousands of years and women thought this is how it is.
Babasaheb wanted to enlighten Indian women and make them independent. He wanted
Indian women to live life on their own terms, make progress in their lives
without the need of any man. He was a true feminist & first visionary
leader who became a messiah for Indian women by giving rights such as :
1. Voting right to all Indian women
2. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (Inheritance of property
for women)
3. The Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956 (Right to adopt
children)
4. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (Right to divorce &
Right to remarry)
5. The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 (the mother
is authorised to change the guardian of a minor)
6. Maintenance allowance from husband on attaining
legitimate separation.
7. Maternity Benefit Bill (maternity leave for women)
8. Women Labour Welfare Fund
9. Women Labour Protection Act
10. Women & Child-Labour Protection Act
11. Equal pay for equal work irrespective of gender
12. Mines Maternity Benefit Act
13. Restoration of Ban on Women Working Underground in
Mines.
The most important thing to remember here, that all these
rights were not there for Indian women before independence because women were
treated as slaves of men. These rights are given not only for Hindu, Muslim or
Buddhist women, they are for all women living in India. Everyone are enjoying
these rights everyday but we’re not interested in knowing who gave us these
rights.
The caste angle:
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar comes from a community which was
untouchable before India’s independence. After a lot of struggle &
hardships for his basic as well as higher education, he ultimately became the
chief architect of Indian constitution. He abolished the caste system by
criminalising the practice of untouchability. To bring the representation of
untouchables into the mainstream, Dr. Ambedkar gave this community a scope of
representation by giving them the reservation. This system is also called as
affirmative action in other countries. This reservation of seats in various
fields gave this community the right to education, equality, freedom of
profession and many other basic human rights which was denied to this whole
community for thousands of years.
Some members of so called upper caste communities find this
system of reservation (affirmative action) as discrimination to them. Because
they think that they have to pay higher fees than the reserved castes, they
might have to lose their opportunities of jobs, govt schemes and political
elections because a certain part of our population have that “privilege” of
reserved seats for them. And here comes the mockery of this system where the
introduction of Economically Weaker Section (EWS) takes place only because of
the insistence of the so called upper caste groups who claim to be financially
poor. They made this system of representation (affirmative action) a poverty
elimination program, which is an insult of the core values of the constitution.
There are other ways of elimination of poverty but the
reservation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is the only target. There
were numerous attempts by the so called upper caste groups to end this
reservation but they failed because it is the fundamental right of the
historically oppressed castes and it cannot be removed from the constitution.
This is the reason they started demanding reservation for themselves. A
five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court was hearing the case of EWS
quota; where three judges upholds the EWS quota, while two others expressed
their dissent and termed the EWS category as “unconstitutional”.
We have to understand the significance of those two
dissenting views. Justice Ravindra Bhat said, “by excluding the poor among
SC/ST/OBC from economically backward classes, the amendment practices
constitutionally prohibited forms of discrimination.” An important statement in
this dissent comes further – “Our constitution does not permit exclusion and
this amendment undermines the fabric of social justice and thereby the basic
structure. This amendment is deluding us to believe that those getting social
and backward class benefit is somehow better placed. This court has held that
16(1) and (4) are facets of same equality principle. The characterization of
excluding the poor of SEBCs is incorrect. What is described as benefits cannot
be understood as free pass, it is a compensatory mechanism to reparate. The
exclusion is based on social origin which destroys the equality code.”
Looking at this whole scenario, it is very much clear that
the so called upper castes doesn’t think about the progress of our country in a
logical way. Any section of our society which is deprived of their basic rights
makes our whole country backward because it can be seen as the state has
nothing to do with that section of the society. The abolition of reservation
will also lead our country to an economic crisis and this is a chain reaction
which will also affect the upper castes. The best example of this can be seen
in the Kaala movie directed by Pa Ranjith, where the workers of Dharavi stops
working. This leads to a blockade in the whole area. This small action will
affect the economy of the city, and if this continues, whole nation will
suffer. If the reservation system is removed, majority of population will lead
to lack of education, which will lead to unemployment, loss of money, fall of
share market and ultimately economic breakdown.
Those who do not understand this, hates Dr. Babasaheb
Ambedkar only because of his caste. Notably, there are hundreds of castes which
comes under SC category (for example, Balai, Mahar, Maang/Matang,
Chambhar/Chamar, Dhor, Holar, Valmikiki, Mehra, Mehtar, Mala, Madiga,
Mahyavanshi, Dhed, Pasi, Sansi, Vankar, Kaikadi, Khatik, Bhangi, Valmiki,
etc.), but when someone says the word “SC”, majority of people will visualise
only Buddhists community. One more important point is those hundreds of castes
seems to have nothing to do with this debate other than enjoying rights given
to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. They simply say, I’m an SC but I’m not “Jai Bhim”.
Why aren’t we just thankful to Babasaheb Ambedkar for bettering our social
status?
Before reducing Ambedkar to his caste, learn what’s his
contribution to the country by knowing his works other than annihilation of
caste.
Ambedkar’s contribution in establishing
economic/financial institutions & labour laws like :
1. Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
2. Finance Commission of India
3. Election Commission of India
4. Employment Exchange of India
5. Employees Provident Fund (PF / EPFO)
6. Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC)
7. The Khoti Abolition Act
8. Canons of Public Expenditure advised to CAG (Comptroller
& Auditor General of India)
9. Indian Trade Unions Bill for its compulsory recognition
11. Right to Strike (Legal Strike Act)
12. Plenary Conference and Standing Advisory Committee to
settle the industrial disputes.
13. Tripartite Labour Council / Conference
14. Coal & Mica Mines Labour Welfare Fund
15. Labour Investigation Committee
16. Labor Welfare Fund
17. Indian Factory Act
18. Technical Training Schemes
19. Revision of scale of Pay for Employees
20. Reduction of the working hours from 12 to 8 hrs.
His New Water & Power Policies. Land & river
management:
1. Dr. Ambedkar contributed in Land Revenue Tax and Excise
duty policies to stabilise the economy.
2. Proposed interlinking of major south Indian rivers.
3. Developed National Power Grid system.
4. Central Electricity Authority for power supply
5. Central Technical Power Board (CTPB) for analysing errors
of electricity & development of various power stations.
6. Central Water Commission for irrigation.
7. “Inter-State Water Disputes Act” with “River Boards Act”
in 1956.
8. Building the first multipurpose river valley project
known as Damodar Valley Project in Bengal & Bihar and later established
Damodar Valley Corporation.
9. Architect of Bhakra-Nagal Dam (Highest gravity dam),
Hirakud Dam (Longest major earthen dam) and Sone river valley project.
10. Central Waterways, Irrigation, and Navigation Commission
(CWINC)
11. Multi-purpose Plan for Development of Orissa’s Rivers.
12. In his paper, “Small Holdings in India & their
Remedies (1918)” he has suggested state owned cooperative farming &
industrialisation as the remedial measures.
13. State acquisition & consolidation of land & its
equal distribution to original cultivators.
14. Suggested division of MP & Bihar into smaller
regions in 1955 for better development of these states. After almost 45 years
both states were divided.
Do we thank Dr. Ambedkar for giving us the best
constitution?
We were living in a very different world before our
constitution came into existence. India is not just a piece of land. It is a
country which you, me and we together make. Our personal autocratic nature,
behaviour with others, treatment given to all living beings, everything has
been changed gradually after our constitution came into force because
everything is written in it. Before, we were just an another British colony.
But today, we can call ourselves a developing country of educated &
civilized people.
Constitution makes the foundation of the system of a
country. It is a thing which tells us how to behave in a society. Our
constitution tells us to spread scientific temperament in our society, which
will eventually eradicate the fungus of superstition & blind faith and make
us progress. But what religious people thinks that our constitution tells us to
leave our religion behind and become atheist, which is wrong. If our
constitution gives us right to worship any God or religion, spreading
scientific temperament means to think in a logical way. If our constitution
wants us to think with proper reasoning and logic, we should understand that
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar wanted everyone of us to progress in our lives. If we
progress, our country will progress.
Reality:
The word secular has been interpreted wrongly by the right
wing Hindutva clowns. They think that secularism means disregarding the
majority and appeasing minority. Instead, secularism in our context is that the
state shall have no religion. Everyone will be equal before the law and the
state irrespective of their caste or religion. This is the secularism we expect
in our country. But the word “secular” is being misinterpreted badly and
naggingly called as “sickularism” by right wing Hindu fanatics.
In 2017, a union minister of BJP, Anant Kumar Hegde said,
“We’re here to change the constitution and we will change it”. In August 2018,
on Parliament street in capital Delhi, copies of Indian constitution was burnt
by some antisocial right wing Hindutva elements. Two of them were identified as
Deepak Gaur and Abhishek Shukla. Even after the identification of the accused,
the police were very calmly working on this case. During this, no minister in
power spoke against this incident. Even prime minister Modi was deliberately
silent on this issue even after many progressive organizations were holding
protests nationwide. The organisations holding protests were mostly related to
the Dalits and backward castes. Here, we should ask ourselves did we speak
against or discuss this thing with our friends and family? Did we feel insecure
that our country’s integrity is in danger? Why only Dalit organisations were in
majority in these protests? Does constitution belongs only to them? Being
silent on a particular incident means we’re supporting that thing. Why do we
call ourselves patriot if we don’t give heed to such incidents? After all these
questions, are we still eligible to wish each other on independence day or
republic day or any other festive occasions? Burning of constitution by fringe
organisations like Arakshan Virodhi Party &
Youth Equality Foundation (don’t know what equality they want by causing
disharmony in society) should be treated as sedition and we should be shameful
along with the prime minister Modi for not protesting against that incident.
From where did they got this confidence to burn our constitution particularly
on parliament street & why BJP is silent is a topic of debate.
Modi sarkar, majoritarianism, fundamentalism and
undeclared emergency!
Before the 2014 general elections, the Indian media used to
address the government as the government only. But after BJP came to power, the
narrative of Indian politics changed because we started calling the new
government as “Modi sarkar”. Even after Narendra Modi was shouting that he’s a
Pradhan sevak, we still call him and his government as “Modi sarkar”. The
discourse of Indian politics is heading towards presidential democracy (like
USA) from our parliamentary democracy. The greatest example of this was the
“demonetization”. A constitutional bench of the supreme court is hearing public interest litigations challenging the constitutional validity of the
demonetization done by Narendra Modi suddenly without making sure a basic thing
that whether 100% of Indian population was holding a bank account or not.
It’s a delusion created by Indian media that we only have
two prime ministerial candidates i.e. Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. BJP
succeeded in making Rahul Gandhi a “pappu” and in this confusion only one
option left that is Narendra Modi. This is one of the reasons he came to power
again without much efforts. On the other hand, after BJP came to power,
Congress started targeting the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for the incidents
like mob lynching, compulsion of saying Vande Matram, and such other kinds of
promotion of hyper-nationalism. Why didn’t Congress ban the RSS when they were
in power? Wasn’t their government aware that such right-wing organisations will
create mishaps in our country in future? It's a propaganda of normalising the
majoritarianism where I do not differentiate Congress & BJP. They both are
using the news media and digital media to pit each other to further confuse the
nation that we have only these two options, one is pappu and the other one is
the greatest Mahatma after Gandhiji. This is leading all the power into one
man’s hand, that is Modi. Again, don’t take this name by word. RSS can bring
another Modi if they think he becomes overpowering.
We are not off the topic. Our constitution gave us a system
of parliament where we will elect our representatives. If this whole decision
making process goes in one hand, the day will not be far where the people in
power will throw away our constitution or burn it down to bring their own rule.
The recent highlight of this majoritarianism is getting normal is when the
newly elected president Hon. Draupadi Murmu was seen taking blessings from a
Brahmin. If BJP is boasting about making an Adivasi (tribal) woman the
president of India, why didn’t they respect her culture & tradition of
worshipping the nature. Instead, they made her join hands in front of Hindu gods
and even she took blessings from a Brahmin. Tribals are not Hindus, BJP-RSS
calls them Vanavasi. In short, Adivasi means the indigenous/aboriginals living
in the same region until now from thousands of years, we can also call them the
Moolnivasi. Whereas, calling them Vanavasi means reducing their identity to a
mere “residents of the forests”. If their mentality is like bringing a
non-Hindu tribal person to the greatest post needs a purification by a Brahmin,
then we should raise our voice against this to uphold the true identity of the
tribals. Another example is when our ex-president Ramnath Kovind was not
allowed to enter Puri Jagannath temple because he is a Dalit, and BJP doesn’t
speak against it. If this is the treatment the BJP gives to the presidents,
what equality, fraternity and just representation shall we expect from such a
political party.
According to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the right to
constitutional remedies is the heart of the Indian constitution. Article 32 of
the Indian constitution gives us the right to move to the supreme court if an
individual, institution or the state denies someone their fundamental right
which are guaranteed by the the constitution. There are numerous cases of dalit
atrocities, rapes, murders, lynchings in the name of caste and religion. The
biggest examples of such cases are Aurangabad University name change movement,
Ramabai Nagar massacre, Khairlanji massacre, chopping off limbs of Bant Singh
in Punjab, 2002 riots in Gujarat, Nitin Aage murder in Kharda, Sagar Shejwal’s
murder due to mere ringtone, Akhlaq’s mob lynching in Dadri, Rohith Vemula’s
institutional murder in Hyderabad, Asifa rape case in Kathua, etc. Just think
about their sufferings and how many times the ruling parties have stabbed the
heart of our constitution by not doing their job of maintaining law and order.
This has happened during all the governments. Is this “Ram rajya” the Hindutva
forces wants to bring?
Dr. Ambedkar has already warned us saying, “If Hindu Raaj
becomes a reality, then it would be a greatest menace to this country. We
should make all out efforts to stop Hindu Raj from becoming a reality.”
Conclusion:
The fanatics should learn that speaking against Modi is not
equal to speaking against India. Dissent is a thing which is very common in
democracies, where people can speak against the government, and government is
not a country. The people of that country can throw away the current government
(if it’s bad) to protect their country. The recent example is Sri Lanka. Even
if majority Indians are ignorant, at least when it’s a knock on their door,
then they will surely come forward to protect our country to prevent it from
becoming a Hindu Pakistan. One last suggestion to the Aam Aadmi Party is that
they should read Article 51 A(h) of Indian constitution before making any
majority appeasing statements.
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