While speaking in the Rajya Sabha on the constitution, on its 75th anniversary, the Union home minister Amit Shah said, “Abhi ek fashion ho gaya hai – Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. Itna naam agar bhagwan ka lete to saat janmon tak swarg mil jata (It has become a fashion to say Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar’. If they took god’s name so many times, they would have got a place in heaven for seven births).”
Ambedkar a cult figure
Those outrageous utterances of Shah unabashedly displayed intense contempt and disdain for Ambedkar with haughtiness which does not behove of a minister holding the crucial home ministry portfolio and often unfairly accusing the Congress party of not honouring Ambedkar and his legacy.
Shah’s remarks suggested that utterances of Ambedkar’s name constituted a futile exercise and in contrast the invocation of the name of god would pave the way for heaven. Millions of people across India and specifically the Dalits consider Dr. B.R. Ambedkar as a cult figure commanding their reverence. So Shah’s derisive remarks that utterances of Ambedkar’s name amount to a fashion much inferior to the recitation of the name of god has sharply offended them and their sensibilities at a time when the 75th anniversary of the constitution is being celebrated.
Shah’s remarks form part of RSS legacy
Shah’s deafening silence in face of the protest launched by opposition parties in the parliament and outside demanding his unconditional apology and resignation testify to his stubbornness in sticking to his shameful remarks.
A peep into history reveals that the egregious act of Shah spewing contempt on Ambedkar flows from the historical record of Hindutva forces and leaders – specifically that of RSS and Hindu Maha Sabha – heaping hatred and venom on him for his role in drafting the constitution and the Hindu Code Bill, the latter for progressive reforms of the personal laws governing the Hindus and people of other faiths such as Buddhism, Sikhisim and Jainism.
Gandhi behind Ambedkar becoming chairman of the Drafting Committee
It is a lesser known fact that Mahatma Gandhi prevailed on Jawaharlal Nehru to initiate the process of entrusting the responsibility of drafting the constitution to Ambedkar as the chairman of the drafting committee of the constituent assembly. Bhikhu Parekh in his book Debating India gave an account of how Nehru was contemplating inviting British constitutional expert Ivor Jennings to draft the constitution for India and abandoned that idea after Mahatma Gandhi intervened and suggested Ambedkar’s name for that historic task.
The constitution was adopted and enacted on November 26, 1949, and Ambedkar was hailed across the country and globally for playing a monumental role in drafting its progressive and secular contents, and convincingly explaining its far reaching significance for our society marked by entrenched inegalitarian features and rigid caste stratifications representing, in his words, “graded social inequality.”
Also read: The Ambedkar Millstone Around the Sanatan Neck
RSS’s attack on constitution
It is tragic that four days later on November 30, 1949. RSS mouthpiece Organiser in its editorial discarded the constitution and attacked its framers for not including the laws enunciated in the Manusmriti which it claimed “excite the admiration of the world and the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity”. Such denunciatory remarks of RSS in spite of the assurances of its chief M.S. Golwalkar on July 10, 1949, to Sardar Patel that it would respect the national flag and constitution of India reflected the shallowness of their commitments. In fact, Amit Shah’s aforementioned derogatory statement on Ambedkar echo those words stated in the Organiser in 1949 itself.
Nehru, Ambedkar and Hindutva leaders
It is instructive that when Ambedkar piloted the Hindu Code Bill in late 1940s he was abused by Hindutva leaders who referred to his caste identity in the process. His effigy along with that of Nehru was burnt in a meeting in Delhi’s Ram Leela ground on December 12, 1949, almost a fortnight after the adoption and enactment of the constitution. Ramachandra Guha in his book India After Gandhi gave a detailed account of it and wrote that on December 12 they shouted the slogans “May Pandit Nehru perish” and burnt effigies of Nehru and Ambedkar, and then vandalised the car of Sheikh Abdullah.
Swami Karpatriji Maharaj, one of the leaders of the agitation, according to Guha, expressed his condemnation of the Bill on the ground that it was piloted by Ambedkar and stated that “a former Untouchable had no business meddling in matters normally the preserve of the Brahmin”.
Such highly offensive remarks in the name of caste against Ambedkar in 1949, after the constitution was framed and Hindu Code Bill piloted testified to the deep seated bias against Ambedkar, who was a victim of caste system representing, in his words, “an ascending order of reverence and descending order of contempt.”
After the constituent assembly framed the constitution, both Nehru and Ambedkar tried their best to push the Hindu Code Bill so that it could be passed and enacted. But there was opposition from right-wing members within Congress and RSS. Nehru and Ambedkar were very sharply attacked for their initiatives and it was best manifested by Ramnarayan Singh who said that the personal laws of Hindus flowed from the Vedas and Vedic religion which withstood the challenges posed by Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. He then charged that Pandit Nehru’s administration and its representative Dr Ambedkar wanted to scrap all those eternal rules which endured from the beginning of the world. These accounts taken from Guha’s book clearly prove that the Hindutva forces never spared neither Nehru nor Ambedkar.
RSS opposition to constitution endures
During a 2000-2001 interview of former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) sarsanghchalak (chief) K.S. Sudarshan to Karan Thapar, Sudrashan remarked, “Indian constitution is alien to our ethos and culture” and made it amply clear that he does not endorse or support it. He did so on the golden jubilee of the operationalisation of the Constitution on January 26, 1950.
And Amit Shah as part of the Hindutva leadership and representing the inglorious legacy of RSS is reiterating that attack by uttering those derisive remarks on Ambedkar when the 75th anniversary of the constitution is being celebrated.
Ambedkar’s prescient words
In his book Who Were the Shudras, published in October 1946, two months before the constituent assembly commenced its work, Ambedkar presciently wrote in its Preface, “…[I]f the Hindus of this generation do not take notice of what I have to say I am sure the future generation will. I do not despair of success. For I take consolation in the words of the poet Bhavabhuti who said, “Time is infinite and earth is vast, some day there will be born a man who will appreciate what I have said”.”
Now generations of people are appreciating his work and his vision. No serious political discourse is complete without invoking Ambedkar’s name and ideas. There can only be anger and anguish at Amit Shah’s remarks.
S N Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to former President of India, K.R. Narayanan.
