In his review of Anand Teltumbde’s pathbreaking book Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Ambedkar, Jayaseelan Raj faults Teltumbde for not seeing that “the iconisation of Ambedkar for many Dalits also serves as a resistance against the erasure of their history, binding various sub-caste communities together through a sacred thread of shared experiences”.
Asserting that the book itself is a ‘faulty gaze’ (at Ambedkar and Dalits), Raj concludes by claiming that Teltumbde’s “dismissing Dalit movements as overly fixated on cultural struggles is not only inaccurate but also reflective of a detached, armchair analysis.”
While a longer and more thorough review of Iconoclast will surely be seen in the months to come, it is useful to engage with Raj on the issue of iconisation and iconoclasm and clear the air about why Raj’s critique of Teltumbde is misplaced on at least three counts.
Iconisation needs to be opposed
First, nobody disputes the importance of icons, particularly for any social movement for liberation. Icons play a critical role in mobilisation of masses and of celebrating their struggles. But when the same icon is hijacked by the enemy forces, it must worry intellectuals. It is not the icon of Ambedkar that Teltumbde is problematising (although his book does complicate our perception of the icon); it is the iconisation of Ambedkar, especially as promoted by ruling classes and their state that he exposes in a careful manner foregrounding his deepest concerns for the Dalit future, and as a key organic intellectual.
Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Anand Teltumbde, India Viking, 2024
Can the role of the political class and the state be denied in the process of Ambedkar’s iconisation? Can Ambedkar be coopted, made palatable, hollowed out, made manageable, shorn of substance? This is precisely what Teltumbde warns us about in writing this book.
Far from being a ‘faulty gaze’ at Ambedkar as Raj labels the book, Iconoclast is Teltumbde’s way of showing how to keep Ambedkar alive by being unfazed iconoclast rather than celebrate inanimate icons. Take for instance, Teltumbde’s central rationale for his book. As he clearly lays it out, Iconoclast is for us to remember Ambedkar as the iconoclast that he was and wished to be remembered as, and not to iconocise him. In his evocative words,
“His [Ambedkar’s] greatness is to be internalised by people, not so much for his extraordinary academic accomplishments, rising to high echelons of state power, not for writing the Constitution, and parleying with powers of his times but for being an iconoclast, for courageously challenging the hegemonic social order, for taking cudgels for the most downtrodden people, for being a bold experimenter with varied meliorative ideas, for being in the belly of the beast and fighting it, for being in the eye of turbulence and trying to change the course of history and lastly, not for giving answers but raising questions, not for being successful but unsuccessful while doing all that.” (Iconoclast p. 462)
Teltumbde’s book is against deification (making of a god), iconisation (making of an icon), and reification (making of a king). Gods, icons and kings gain a higher status in society through their relative proximity to what is seen as ‘sacred’ and hence beyond questioning or reproach. In this respect, Teltumbde takes Ambedkar’s expressed repugnance of iconisation more consistently than Ambedkar himself.
Demonstrating the power of his analysis of iconisation, Teltumbde shows in a recent article how the historic site and symbols of Bhima-Koregaon and Ambedkar are coopted by ruling classes. He notes how the recent overtures of the Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadanvis in promoting Bhima Koregaon congregation without any of its radical historical context and with huge cost to the exchequer. The same Fadnavis, in 2018, had notoriously turned the 200th anniversary that Dalits wished to celebrate into a ‘Maoist conspiracy’ and skilfully deflected from the Hindutva violence that was at its roots. This helped create what has come to be known as the infamous Elgar Parishad case where hundreds of Dalits and scores of intellectuals and human right defenders were and continue to be falsely implicated and incarcerated for several years. Now, the same person (Fadnavis) goes overboard promoting celebrations over a week.
In this context, Teltumbde argues that it is incumbent upon Dalit social movements to recognise and be vigilant about iconisation by the ruling classes especially by those responsible for the Bhima-Koregaon incarcerations. That Ambedkar will be, nay, has been already, coopted by the ruling classes of India and the current ruling ideology of Hindutva is Teltumbde’s chief worry. And that Dalits – the chief inheritors of Ambedkar’s legacy but more importantly, the only objective class of Indians capable of leading a struggle against caste and class exploitation – would also be consumed by the social processes of iconisation underway that defang Ambedkar. The state would like to turn Dalits into inert devotees to Ambedkar.
Thus, Raj’s claim in his review that Ambedkar’s iconisation took place through a ‘bottom-up process’ is strongly disputed by Teltumbde who has provided several instances in the book of how and when this process of iconisation began being amplified by the ruling classes to reduce Ambedkar into an icon to be manipulated and misrepresent Ambedkar.
Does Raj dispute that Ambedkar is not saffronised – and hence, defanged and domesticated and even distorted – by the current dispensation? And that this process of iconisation holds great seductions and ideological power?
It would be amusing, were it not tragic, that Raj calls Teltumbde, who has been one the foremost civil rights activists in this country, an “armchair” critic. Contrary to many armchair critics, Teltumbde has not only academic credentials as well as occupied high positions in the corporate world but interwoven his life work struggling with the masses. As is well-known, Teltumbde was incarcerated under the same Elgar Parishad case by the state for 31 months. Iconoclast was made in these conditions. It is only Teltumbde whose intellectual honesty and courage continues to expose such pretensions as really anti-Dalit machinations of the ruling classes.
Religious codes, texts, and scriptures do not produce a social system
Raj finds fault with Teltumbde’s book for its observation that Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste problematically located caste entirely in the Hindu Dharmashastras. But in doing so, Raj avoids engagement with Teltumbde’s powerful argument spread across several pages of his book critiquing Ambedkar’s view on the centrality of Hindu scriptures. Teltumbde, to his credit, offers his critique even while recognising Ambedkar’s nuances on this question (for example, Ambedkar’s distinctions between Dharmashastras and other part of Hindu scriptures). Nonetheless, there is no question here that Ambedkar believed and acted upon his belief that in order to annihilate caste the basis of Hindu religion would need to be dismantled.
Teltumbde acknowledges that the Hindu Dharmashstras did provide justification for the exploitative structure of caste, but he questions the view – held by Ambedkar – that the Dharmashastras produced caste system or are still sustaining it. In Teltumbde’s words, “There is not much problem in accepting that the Hindu religion with its plethora of texts, customs and rituals has fortified the caste system. But to see that it birthed the system, and still sourced its sustenance may be problematic” (p.217). Consequently, Teltumbde argues that caste, as a social system, cannot be born from a “text, or code, or scripture” but is born from changes in what he calls “material contentions” – a broad concept that includes such entities as forces of production, relations, and their organisation.
For Teltumbde, identifying ideologies such as religion which are part of what he calls “superstructure” (a term that Teltumbde uses rather unproblemtically) does not capture the reality of caste. Indeed, caste scholarship has long established that origins of caste lie not in religion but in changing political economic conditions and social organisational dynamics, all of which take recourse to symbolic constructions and structures but not simply as “text, code, or scripture.”
As Teltumbde asks in the same pages, “Do people observe caste because the Hindu shastras ask them to or do they do it by sheer inertia of custom and tradition or caste becomes an easy tool to exploit the Dalit labour?”
Further, continues Teltumbde, there are numerous empirical challenges to the view of a religious origin for caste and its continued persistence – that caste atrocities are seldom perpetrated by actors driven by the Dharmashastras, that caste exists across religions, and most importantly, and that a realistic assessment of religious conversion shows how little it has impacted caste.
Teltumbde’s critique is in line with much extant scholarship on caste which has shown that the sacred basis of caste, even to the extent it ever existed, has further declined. Termed as the ‘secularisation of caste’, this view is now a standard scholarly view. It does not deny the role of symbols of religion (such as purity and pollution) in strengthening caste, but instead shows how caste thrives even without recourse to religion.
Culture as ‘difference’ plays a key role in a secularised context of caste to provide legitimacy to caste in an age of multiculturalism, and caste continues to play a key role in not only acting as a “division of labourers” (as Ambedkar argued), but actually shapes the labor process through allocation of labor and the extraction and distribution of surplus. Indeed, attention to patriarchy, class, capital and ecology as intersecting processes is a much more fruitful way to explain how caste sustains itself than any recourse to religious texts.
Can iconoclasts be iconicised?
It is useful here to clarify the term ‘iconoclast’ as the title of Teltumbde’s book. As Teltumbde points out, Ambedkar labeled himself an iconoclast – to characterise his consistent and continuous opposition to the established shibboleths, and as a breaker of icons (and idols) of his time. For instance, in his Marathi speeches, Ambedkar insisted that he was not a “murti-pujak” but a “murti-bhanjak”. Murti is a term that is translable as both, idol and icon, both of which share the Greek etymology of eikos or eidos which means ‘likeness’ or ‘resemblance’.
Icons/idols are one type of what semioticians call, a sign – an entity that stands for something to someone. Iconic signs evoke a sense of resemblance with the object they supposedly represent (such as the iconic image of the trash bin on any desktop or laptop). Icons draw their power by appearing to be replicas of the original. They are unlike a symbol which is another kind of sign whose meanings are not so fixed and hence necessarily debated, contested, and sought to be fixed through convention. Symbols are far more common in any culture; icons far less. And with good reason. They are special and evoke awe and imitation due to their special status.
Ambedkar observed his own iconisation by his followers (e.g., in the post-Mahad period onwards) and he was opposed to it. Thus, at the 15th year of celebrations of his birthday, Ambedkar asked his followers to stop the celebrations commenting that “over-regard for leaders saps self-confidence of the masses, leaves them helpless when left leaderless in the hour of trial or when led by unscrupulous leaders” (cited in Iconoclast p. 212).
Yet perhaps Ambedkar was not as consistent or sharp in denouncing iconisation. Teltumbde thus points out that Ambedkar’s criticism of iconisation was not enough. The process of iconisation of Ambedkar the iconoclast continued. And continues to this day.
However, it needs to be mentioned that this process is not restricted to Dalits alone. Raj notes correctly that iconisation has “long been integral to India’s political culture.” We can go further and argue that iconisation accompanies power and is an enabler of power. For status power – the power that accrues through status or the mode of approval/disapproval or attribution of prestige to a person—actively seeks legitimation of that power and iconisation assures the icon of this. Consequently, there is a huge backlash whenever any scholar or writer seeks to break the frame or mould within which an iconic leader, thinker, public persona is represented.
In a different context, witness the pushback from segments of society to two recent publications; one on the legendary Carnatic singer M.S. Subbalakshmi by the singer-scholar T.M.Krishna, and the other on the legendary spiritual thinker and reformer Swami Vivekananda by journalist-scholar Govind Krishnan V. Both texts are erudite and painstakingly peel away the layers of myth, branding, and marketing of M.S. (as she is fondly called) and Vivekananda. Both texts explore uncomfortable truths about the life and works of the human beings behind their iconicity. One shows how caste (Brahmanism in this case) and patriarchy shaped the iconic form of M.S. and shows how much more complex a figure she was in the process bringing to the fore non-Brahmanical aesthetics and a less strait-jacketed view of gender and sexuality. The other shows how Vivekananda’s essential teachings were firmly opposed to the current messaging of the icon shaped by Hindutva. Both are examples of struggles against iconisation of complex figures by ruling elites who have used the icons in pursuit of their ends. Both texts rescue a much more believable, interesting, loved, and appreciable human behind the icon. More importantly, both illuminate the working of forces of marginalisation, exclusion, and ideological dominance in creating institutions of art and thought. Both produce reactions from sections of the population that find the unveiling uncomfortable.
The difference with Ambedkar and Iconoclast, is that the task of de-iconisation is even more necessary given the historical subjectivity of Dalits in the making of history.
Throughout his own long engagement as a scholar, public intellectual and participant in popular struggles against caste and class exploitation, domination and oppression, Teltumbde has shown a consistent iconoclasm. No dogmatic theory, tradition, or thought has held him back from using his razor intellect to critique what needs to be critiqued. Like Ambedkar, Teltumbde is focused on the ultimate end – annihilation of caste and freedom from capitalist exploitation. He therefore demands that Dalits be followers, students, critics, and active engagers with ideas, and not lapse into becoming bhakts, devotees, worshippers like much of the rest of Indian society.
In this, Teltumbde holds Dalits upto the highest standards (perhaps far more than any other class in society) because they are the historical subjects of/for true change in India and capable of taking Ambedkar’s legacy forward. And deeper, and in ways uncharted. Indeed, this is why Teltumbde opposes iconisation – for it prevents creative contributions and innovations suited for current day problems from the followers of Ambedkar (Iconoclast p.462). In page after page of the book one gets glimpses of how Ambedkar the human thinker and leader jockeys with the representations of him and his work by ruling castes and classes, and over a period of time, Dalits as a collective subject of history. Each of these forms part of Teltumbde’s sculpting, chiseling, and unveiling.
Balmurli Natrajan is professor of Anthropology, William Paterson University of New Jersey, USA and author of Culturalization of Caste: Identity and Inequality in a Multicultural Age.