In this chapter we will examine four of the principles discussed in the earlier chapter in relation to the Indian context. (The principle of balance is discussed in a separate chapter.)
Living Word
The very essence of Ambedkar’s call was to give up the words of the Vedda’s and the Sastras which were worshipped as sacred words and to abandon them in favour of contemporary interpretation of life. To take this position was the worst heresy that a Hindu could commit. There were several approaches he suggested on this issue. One was to try to reinterpret these texts. However this was not possible as these books prescribed such interpretation as heresy. Thus, such a practice was not to have much success with the masses. Mahatma Gandhi even suggested that the parts of the texts which supported caste practices are later interpolations and therefore not authentic. Ambedkar’s reply was whether authentic or not, these texts were what the people were taught and they believed; therefore what the people were taught was important.
Ambedkar was not alone in seeing the incapacity of the Indian mind to break away from the dead letters to the living word. A very important thinker in that direction was Siri Aurobindo, whose thought is often compared to the Catholic thinker, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Aurobindo who was known to the British as a fierce freedom fighter, retired from active politics and spent his efforts to bring the Indian mind back to the creativity for which it was once known. The difference between the two essentially was that Ambedkar connected resistance to change to as arising from the caste system which was sanctioned by the sacred texts. Ambedkar was himself a Dalit and knew the bitterness of caste. Aurobindo was a Brahmin and was himself deeply rooted in the Brahmin tradition. Siri Aurobindo, while admitting the deadening of the Indian mind and Sprit could not identify its cause as the Hindu theological views imposed through its caste system. Aurobindo tried to bring about a synthesis of Hindu and Western liberal views. However, these two worldviews were contradictory as the caste system implied theoretical rejection of liberty, equality and fraternity, which were basic notions on which liberalism rested. The attempt to revive the creativity of the Indian mind without forcing it to come to terms with causes of its paralysis was an artificial one. For Ambedkar who was existentially too deeply rooted in caste as a victim, it was not possible to separate creativity from oppression and Indian creativity from India’s ordinary people. Most writings on the need to recreate Indian creativity deal with the elite rather than the ordinary people. However, the result is that the elite understands creativity in terms of business management rather than anything else. That the insights of ordinary people are the main spring of a nations’ creativity is not a position that can be accepted in a society which has denied human status to a large part of its population.
There was an historic aspect to this also. The written word and written literature came to India quite early. In fact the growth of Sanskrit literature during the early period of India history remains a reason for amazement. Great poets like Kalidasa had produced poetry that has endured the test of time. In fact it is said that this development of the written word in history has no parallel in the world.
However, it was this same written word which was used by the Brahmins to establish their supremacy. Once this supremacy was established they became the owners, the sole owners, of this written word. In their hands the written word did not grow. They kept mastery over the written word by controlling the system of transmission and making it a rule to transfer it to their own caste only. This unwillingness to share culture became a Brahmin tradition.
Ambedkar wrote, “the higher-caste Hindus have deliberately prevented the lower castes who are within the pale of Hinduism from rising to the cultural level of the higher castes. I will give two instances, one of the Sonars and the other of the Pathare Prabhus. Both are communities quite well known in Maharashtra. Like the rest of the communities desiring to raise their status, these two communities were at one time endeavouring to adopt some of the ways and habits of the Brahmins. The Sonars were styling themselves as Daivadnya Brahmins and were wearing their ‘dhotis’ with folds on and using the word namaskar for salutation. Both, the folded way of wearing the ‘dhoti’ and the namaskar were special to the Brahmins. The Brahmin, did not like this imitation and this attempt by Sonars to pass off as Brahmins. Under the authority of the Peshwas, the Brahmins successfully put down this attempt on the part of the Sonars to adopt the ways of the Brahmins. They even got the president of the councils of the East India Company’s settlement in Bombay to issue a prohibitory order against the Sonars residing in Bombay. At one time the Pathare Prabhus had widow-remarriage as a custom of their caste. This custom of widow-remarriage was later on looked upon as a mark of social inferiority by some members of the caste especially because it was contrary to the custom prevalent among the Brahmins. With the object of raising the status of their community some Pathare Prabhus sought to stop this practice of widow-remarriage that was prevalent in their caste. The community was divided into two camps, one for and the other against the innovation. The Peshwas took the side of those in favour of widow-remarriage and thus virtually prohibited the Pathare Prabhus from following the ways of the Brahmins. The Hindus criticise the Mohammedans for having spread their religion by the use of the sword. They also ridicule Christianity on the score of the inquisition. But really speaking who is better and more worthy of our respect-the Mohammedans and Christians who attempted to thrust down the throats of unwilling persons what they regarded as necessary for their salvation or the Hindu who would not spread the light, who would endeavour to keep others in darkness, who would not consent to share his intellectual and social inheritance with those who are ready and willing to make it a part of their own make-up?” [22]
Buddha who inspired Ambedkar, had told his followers not even to follow his teaching simply because he taught them. Each had to learn and to discover the truth in their own living. Ambedkar more than any other Indian writer linked the Indian path to democracy with the respect for primacy of the living word.
Enlightenment of Life
A close look at Ambedkar’s work for eradication of caste would show it was no mere political activity that he was advocating. He called the Indians to abandon living a life by fixed rules to living one with real meaning. He expressed his own life mission thus.
“My Personal Philosophy”
“Every man should have a philosophy of life, for everyone must have a standard by which to measure his conduct. And philosophy is nothing but a standard by which to measure.
“Negatively, I reject the Hindu social philosophy propounded in the Bhagvat Geeta based as it is, on the Triguna of the Sankhya philosophy which is in my judgment a cruel perversion of the philosophy of Kapila, and which had made the caste system and the system of graded inequality the law of Hindu social life.
“Positively, my social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality and fraternity. Let no one, however, say that I have borrowed my philosophy from the French Revolution. I have not. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my master, the Buddha. In his philosophy, liberty and equality had a place: but he added that unlimited liberty destroyed equality, and absolute equality leaves no room for liberty. In his philosophy, law had a place only as a safeguard against the breaches of liberty and equality; but he did not believe that law could be a guarantee for breaches of liberty or equality. He gave the highest place to fraternity as the only real safeguard against the denial of liberty or equality or fraternity which was another name for brotherhood or humanity, which was again another name for religion.
“Law is secular, which anybody may break while fraternity or religion is sacred which everybody must respect. My philosophy has a mission. I have to do the work of conversion: for, I have to make the followers of Triguna theory to give it up and accept mine. Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set out in the preamble to the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion, denies them.”
Dr. B.R.Ambedkar
(All-India Radio broadcast of speech on Oct. 3, 1954)
Buddhism makes enlightenment the sole aim of life. This was the philosophy that Ambedkar accepted and tried to revive.
People’s Enlightenment
From the latter part of 19th century there grew in India many movements to bring enlightenment for the people. The impact of these movements on the rise of the Dalit movement must not be underestimated. There were movements to revive local languages, which had become neglected due to non-recognition. English was the all-important language and the local languages had no status-value. The imitation of ‘the White man’ was eating into the Indian culture. There were many that began to perceive that and tried to regain the use of these languages. There was also a revival of local traditions of dance and music. Above all there were movements for spreading education to the rural masses and this included adult education. Without background support, which came from the development of these movements, the Dalit movement may not have had the momentum it did.
Ambedkar’s specific contribution in this regard is that when he talked of the people he meant the lowest castes. He was not speaking of people in general but of the people who were at the very bottom of society. In South Asia this word -people- was corrupted when the elite began appropriating the word. The elite began to dress like peasants and use the customs of peasants. This was not for the purpose of subordination of their interest to those of the people. Their purpose was the very opposite. The real people, the neglected people, still remained neglected. There was a great deal of hypocrisy in the process.
Ambedkar’s movement was a genuine people’s movement trying represent the people’s interest by enlightening the people themselves. Answering the question as to why he was loved so much by these people while others who wanted to work for them were not, Ambedkar replied it was a relationship like that of a mother and a step mother. He was their own and he had no other interest except their own. To give them the light was the aim of his movements.
Ordinary People – Source of Enlightenment
Perhaps the low caste people did not come under the ordinary people as the term is usually used in India. They were the worst of the oppressed in the Indian society. Yet Ambedkar pinned his hopes for the future of India on them. This again was no surprise. There was no other section of society that he could trust. The Brahmins who were in charge of India had shown no capacity for enlightenment. The middle layers were subordinate to the Brahmins. For Ambedkar only source of new life was from those who stood at the bottom.
Besides this there was another reason. Buddha, whose life and movement Ambedkar had studied, was a believer of the educatability and the creativity of the people. Under the influence of those teachings, the most rejected peoples of India has once risen and uplifted their life as well as that of the whole society. If that was once possible in India, it must be possible again. He had a solid historical basis to trust India’s ordinary folk as India’s future democrats.
Enlightenment and Withdrawal
The caste practices create the deepest forms of withdrawal of people from society. In fact there was nothing that was recognized as the common society. One’s own caste community was all that each person recognized. The members of one caste were totally withdrawn from the rest of the caste groups. As the reasons for withdrawal were religious notions, such a withdrawal was not considered as anything bad but rather as necessary and as an ideal. Is it an accident that Indian forms of religiosity often imply complete individual withdrawal from society?
What is more relevant is that this withdrawal is the greatest challenge the modern Indian State has faced from its inception. The state cannot draw legitimization when people withdraw into their groups. To draw this legitimacy the state must break this withdrawal. However, the Indian state is incapable of doing so as it is the religious notions themselves that create the conditions for such withdrawal.
Here again we can see that there is much more to Folk Schools created in the 19th century than meets the eye. It was a medium through which such withdrawal was broken creatively and constructively. However, it must be noted that such a break is possible only when a genuine consensus has room to grow and is respected. If due to whatever reason people begin to withdraw into themselves, this would be shown in places like folk schools. If objective conditions create a crisis of legitimisation, people’s withdrawal becomes inevitable. There is much to learn from Indian history about this aspect of the social and political behaviour of the people.
