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Ambedkar-Philosophy of Hinduism

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AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM AND CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES<br />

PROF. M. M. NINAN<br />

<strong>Ambedkar</strong> Barrister-at-Law<br />

While practicing law in the Bombay High Court, he tried to uplift the untouchables in order to educate them. His first<br />

organized attempt to achieve this was the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha, which was intended to promote education<br />

and socio-economic improvement, as well as the welfare <strong>of</strong> "outcastes", at the time referred to as depressed<br />

classes.<br />

By 1927 <strong>Ambedkar</strong> decided to launch active movements against untouchability. He began with public movements<br />

and marches to open up and share public drinking water resources, also he began a struggle for the right to enter<br />

Hindu temples. He led a satyagraha in Mahad to fight for the right <strong>of</strong> the untouchable community to draw water from<br />

the main water tank <strong>of</strong> the town.<br />

He took part in an event in which casteist text Manu Smriti was burned by a Brahmin G.N. Sahasrabuddhe.<br />

He was appointed to the Bombay Presidency Committee to work with the all-European Simon Commission in 1925.<br />

This commission had sparked great protests across India, and while its report was ignored by most Indians,<br />

<strong>Ambedkar</strong> himself wrote a separate set <strong>of</strong> recommendations for future constitutional recommendations.<br />

Poona Pact<br />

Due to <strong>Ambedkar</strong>'s prominence and popular support amongst the untouchable community, he was invited to attend<br />

the Second Round Table Conference in London in 1932. Gandhi fiercely opposed separate electorate for<br />

untouchables, saying he feared that separate electorates for untouchables would divide Hindu community into two<br />

groups.<br />

When the British agreed with <strong>Ambedkar</strong> and announced the awarding <strong>of</strong> separate electorates, Gandhi began a fast<br />

while imprisoned in the Yerwada Central Jail <strong>of</strong> Pune in 1932 against the separate electorate for untouchables only.<br />

Gandhi's fast provoked huge civil unrest across India, and orthodox Hindu leaders, Congress politicians and<br />

activists such as Madan Mohan Malaviya and Palwankar Baloo organized joint meetings with <strong>Ambedkar</strong> and his<br />

supporters at Yerwada. Fearing a communal reprisal and genocide <strong>of</strong> untouchables, <strong>Ambedkar</strong> agreed under<br />

massive coercion from the supporters <strong>of</strong> Gandhi This agreement, which saw Gandhi end his fast, was called the<br />

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