DR.AMBEDKAR'S DEMOCRACY?
Ambedkar 's ideology
---------------------
1) He was a staunch Indian Nationalist
He was totally against any separatist movement.
----------------------------------------
2- in sholapur, he advised the oppressed class people that bakthi movement will not solve their problems.
----------------------------------------
3) He had great admiration for Sanskrit language and its literature and treatises in science.
-----------------------------------------
4) He was totally against linguistic chauvinism and regionalism. He wanted every Indian to learn and use Hindi and till all Indians adaopt it, he wanted English to continue.
--------------------------------------------
5) He was a Socilaist but a democratic socialist. He wanted all industries to be in public sector and extended the concept to agricultural co-operatives also.
-------------------------------------------
6) He was totally committed to constitution framed by fully democratic elections without any discrimination based on religion, caste, language and race. He insisted on the rule of law.
he wanted clear separation of legislative, judiciary and miltary . He was against the legislature passing laws which affect the fundamental rights of any group. and he tought that the judiciary has power to strike down any law if it is found to go against the directive principles of state oolicy. He gave least importance to the mitary and stipulated that the miltary is meant for defence against exteral agressors and should not be used in internal strife.
-------------------------------------------
7) He was totally against violent agitaions.He was a firm believer in individual liberty.
-----------------------------------------
8) He considered that the Scheduled castes need reservation in basic education, higher education, government services, and advocated positive discrimination to uplift the SC people .
--------------------------------------
9) He demanded that there must be dual electoral system so that SC people can elect their own choice of leaders.
-----------------------------------------
10) He thought that Casteism and untouchability are bound up closely with Hindu religion and so wanted the SC people to adopt another religion. But like Savarkar, he wanted that religion to have originted in INDIA, like Jainism,Buddhism and Sikhism.
(Savarkar was not a believer in any religion. He was an agnostic. Ambedkar felt that Religion is necessary. )
He rejected Sikhism as he knew that it too had untouchabilty and was martial.
So he chose Buddhism, as it is the religion of Eastern Asia ( Tibet, Ceylon, Burma, Indo-china, Thailand, parts of Indonesia, Japan and China). The Buddhists in all these countries consider Bihar and Bodh Gaya as a sacred place.
( Note: In SriLanka, there is Untouchability among the Tamils of Jaffna and Tricomali and colombo. It exists in Plantation tamils of central province also but there is no untouchability in Sinhalese areas as they are all following the original and pure Buddhism known as Hinayanam . This branch is followed in Burma also. In SriLanka, the buddhist monks can just stay in the mutts but they have to get their daily food from the public . The mutts do not have any other financial resource!)
Jainism does not exist anywhere except India.
-----------------------------------------------
11) He did not approve of Islam as it believed in violence to spread its doctrine.and also because it's holy places were outside India. For the same reason, he did not approve of SC getting converted to Christianity.
He was against 'extra-territorial loyalty'
---------------------------------------------
12) He approved and organized trade unions
--------------------------------------------
13) He was against Stalin's Soviet Union as he believed in democracy as was practised in western countries like USA, England and Western Europe.
-------------------------------------------
14) He believed in Uniform Civil code, irrespective of religion and wanted the state activities to be secular.
-------------------------------------------
15) He wanted inter-caste and inter-religion marriages so that casteism , untouchability and religious intolerance can be done away with.
============================================
16) He was for Partition as he believed that Muslims will dominate and intimidate the timid hindus and will stand in the way of India becoming a modern nation.
============================================
17) He disliked communists as they were all STALINISTS.
============================================
18)He had no agreement with either Jinnah or EVR. as both of them were separatists and while Jinnah was a muslim fundamentalist, EVR was materialistic atheist
=============================================
19) He was against linguistic reorganization of states of India.
============================================
20) He was not an active proponent of land-reforms ( land-to the tiller) and land redistribution to help the lndless agricultural labour.
============================================
part-2
=======
Let us now point out the weak points in his theory.
1) Universal adult franchise, irrespective of language, race, religion caste and gender
is reaaly fine. But let us remember that it does not ensure that the Dalits will get liberation from caste oppression.
Why?------
Because, for many centuries, the dalits were agrarian 'bonded' labourers much like the Russian 'serfs' in Czarist Russia. The feudal class structure in rural india, had kings, lords-mostly military chieftans , landlords of upper castes, rich and poor peasant proprietors and tenants of landlords and all of them used the Dalit both men and women as landless labourers and virtual slaves. In tamilnadu, there are three main sub-groups labelled as SC. one group was actually, poor peasants and not bonded labour. They were wrongly included in the list of Scheduled caste by the British colonialists. Their number is small. but they are still poor peasants. They live in South Taminad districts . The major group of dalits live in eastern and northern districts of tamilnadu. They are mostly landless agrarian labour.
In Western Tamilnadu, there is the third group , who are most depressed. and oppressed people even today.
For hundreds of years, even from sangam period, this has been the state policy. They were called 'kadaisiyar' - the last in social hierarchy.
They were very carefully settled outside the main village and surrounded by upper and middle caste hindus. It was a planned settlement by the feudal state and in every vilage they are only about 15%.
Their lot was to work for their masters and there was a time when they can be sold as cattle. Exact parallels occur in the history of USA too,especially in southern USA states like Florida, Texas, south carolina, north carolina,and Georgia
The blacks were hunted from Africa by slave traders and brought and sold to plantation labour in Southern USA.
Abraham Lincoln had to fight a civil war to abolish this system of bonded labour.
But without education , they remained poor and exploited and abused. This is true even today in USA.
just because here Obama was able to become president in USA, it does not mean that the blacks have become liberated in the true sense. The Harlem slum in NewYork is the exact equivalent of Dharaavi slum in Bombay. For election purpose, theoretically, the dalits have vote but it is not a vote to elect one of their own community except when he is the candidate of the so-called 'liberal' group.
Therefore, a dalit can get power only when he gets support from a setion of the oppressing community. Even in Uttar Pradesh, where Mayavathi has been a major force, her appointments and candidates were mostly from oppressing communities. Though she was chief minister of such a big state twice, not a single meaningful land-reform bill has been passed there giving land ownership to dalits. It is a cruel deception. If we carefully analyze the caste background of SC legislators in UP aassembly over the past few decades, they are all from reserved constituencies. Perhaps, their lot is better than their brethern in BSP .
Even in the recently concluded US elections, the voting percentage is never anywhere near 75 %een. even when they can vote by post. If that is the situation in most advanced and rich country like USA, how do we expect fair share for Dalits?
The upper and middle caste hoologans will prevent the Dalits from voting and will fill up the ballot box with bogus votes. Sometimes, they will destroy the ballot boxes. Before counting, they will do all kinds of fraud to change the result.
The minister will order the collector and officials to do anything to conceal the true result.
( Even in USA--TRUMP)
-----
In no country of the world, the ideal of Universal and free election has been a success. so far as the minority group is concerned.
The reality is that the oppressed people are given a choice to choose either this or that goon. both of whom are of the ruling classes. The only satisfaction for the slave is that a less tyrannical goon slightly sympathetic to him has been selected!
Once the elections are over, for the next four or five years, they cannot do anything. If atall, any reform occurs, it is more due to the advantage of a section of the ruling class. Crumbs of the table.
This is very advanced computer technology era. EVM ( Electronic voting machines can be very very easily manipulated). Ambedkar could not have foreseen such developments!
He was an idealist dreamer.
Was he not defeated in his own place?
Ambedkar did not have a solution to this problem.
----------------------------------------
Even if the poor workers somehow manage to send a representative to the assembly. there is the problem of horse-trading and defection. We have seen that being done repeatedly by Modi in Goa, Madhyapradesh, and states like Assam and North East.
Anti-defection laws are not all that effective.
Ambedkar with all his good intention and legal acumen, could have arranged for proportional representation . This system is being followed in SriLamka.
Thr ideal democratic solution will be that parties only can contest the election. Independents cannot. Independents can be easily purchased.
There shoud be no candidates in election. Only parties can contest. On the basis of the total votes polled, the party cental committee will send representatives to the law-making assembly . If the member thus nominated violates party whip, it will be invalid. automatically. If a fellow has dfference of ideas with the party line, he will be immediately recalled by the party and another candidate will be sent to the assembly. Prtioes should contest elections independently. No united front should be allowed. If the elections had been conducted on these lines, factors like money power, muscle power, caste support and horsetrading could be acvoided. Ambedkar should have framed the law accordingly.
If necessary, united front cab formed after the election in the assembly or parliament.
Just because a party has absolute majority in the prliament or assembly. the laws made by them bneed not be legal. Before implementing, the Supreme court can stay the law. and ask for re-debate and referedum.
---------------------------------------
What then is a solution? As dalits cannot win anywhere solely on their own numerical strength, they have to form a united front with similar oppressed people from other communities . This can occur only on class-basis and not caste-basis.
Dalits are poor peasants and landless labour mostly. Does it mean that there are no landless labour and poor peasants in other BC communities? Speaking for my state Tamilnadu, there are crores of landless labourers and poor peasants from other communities like Vanniyars, Mukkulatthor , Taadhavas and Nadars also. The only point is that those communities have very rich and super rich people of their caste also. The poor in those communities follow such rich leaders out of caste pride and loyalty. In class terms, poor dalts have dual uppression being landless labour as well as oppressd class. But the poor people in other castes are not oppressed claas. after the land-reforms.
The rich peasants and middle peasnts are from OBC and due to the backward rural culture, are able to get the support of the poorpesants and landless labour of their own community.
------------------------
Without a sweeping and seere landreform to give land to the landless of all communities and formation of co-opertives,
dalts cannot get the social status and economic independence and dignity. But this can be achieved only by creting class solidarity with similar poor workers from other peasant communities.
Dalit liberation depends on able leadership capable of winning over the poor from other agricultural communities and breaking the caste solidarity of the OBC.
Dalit activists should join ALL the parties and try to educate the people there in correct policies. They should not talk iin daslit language but the langauge in which they are working. This can be done only by spreading the message of landreform ( land should be owned only by people who actually work in the field, three stadard acres is the ceiling, )
Dalits should learn to mix and mingle with the poor from other communities and mak them raise the demand for land reform.
Dalit liberation also needs education and jobs. Poor people from OBC also need that.
But, as Supreme court has mentioned in Mandal commission case, the rich section of OBC must be excluded from the benefits of reservation. The poor in OBC should be shown that it is the ruicher section in their community that is grabbing all the benefits of education and jobs. The same rule applies to Dalit families also.
========================================