Revised the Asian Independent 16 oct to 31 oct 2019

24 16-10-2019 to 31-10-2019 WORLD
www.theasianindependent.co.uk
Learn to build the future of our mission
from the Life of Manywar Kansiram
At the moment when the Bahujan
politics is in deep crisis, we desperately
miss Manywar Kanshiram ji. The man
who gave the Ambedkarite politics a
new confidence and brought it to power
structure. It is important to understand
what was his politics and how he won
the confidence of the people. It is clear
that there can not be any other
Kansiram as he was a man of ideas and
action, a man who had close association
with his workers and who trusted them.
The distance between politicians and
janata as well as their workers is growing
in the current time. Politics has
become a game of managing contradictions.
The brahmanical parties realised
the growing assertion of the
Ambedkarite activism will be the
biggest threat to their survival and
therefore in the last few years a large
number of spontenous protests that
emerged from the universities and in
rural India, where the lead was taken by
the Ambedkarite students, was used by
the Hindutva parties for their own purposes.
It looked that the Ambedkarite
anger would ultimately benefit the
Bahujan parties but at the end the anger
could not be politically mobilised.
Right from Rohit Vemula’s death to
Una, Saharanpur and now Ravidas
Mandir controversy actually aimed at
creating
numerous
power
structure
inside the Dalit polity to harm the BSP.
Not that we blame the groups fighting
for the Dalit rights but the complete
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
social and human rights activist
failure of BSP leadership in bringing
them to a platform. It resulted in disillusionment
of a large number of
Ambedkarite activists, scholars as well
as other opinion makers with BSP politics
at the moment. Many of them feel
that the activists and those who really
believe in Manywar Kanshiram’s ideals
are being sidelined as the party is more
keen to cater the upper caste votes. The
whole attempt to defend the government
position on Kashmir by Ms
Mayawati, using Dr Baba Saheb
Ambedkar’s was nothing but aiming at
Uttar Pradesh politics and through it the
upper caste votes.
If we look at the working pattern of
Manywar Kanshiram, it was clear that
he brought youngsters and community
leaders as he had more faith in those
who were working tirelessly for years.
BSP became a platform of diverse
Ambedkarites as well as those castes
too, who were victims of brahmanical
order yet might not even heard about Dr
Ambedkar and his monumental work. In
politics, you need to bring all together
and Kansiram Saheb was able to do so.
It was the big job. After the demise of Dr
Ambedkar, with so many outfits
emerged though
RPI was a strong
force in many
states but never as
a challenge to ruling
parties. The power of Kansiram was
Back channel exercise
for Modi-Imran meet in
SAUDI ARABIA ?
Islamabad : Intense back channel exercise by Indian side is
underway to arrange a meeting of Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi with his Pakistani coounterpart Imran Khan, a Pakistan
media report claimed on Tuesday. The report said that both Modi
and Imran Khan will take part in International Conference on
Economics and Business Research to be held in Saudi Arabia's
capital Riyadh on October 29, and efforts are allegedly being
made by India to get the two South Asian leaders to meet on the
sidelines of this Conference. The Pakistani media report claimed
that India is making all efforts to fix the meeting of the two Prime
Ministers. If not Riyadh, then it could be the occasion of the inauguration
of Kartarpur Sahib corridor in November.
According to the report, some 'other' heads of states also want
to see Modi and Imran Khan to meet, but Pakistan has some 'reservations'
to the proposed meet. The report claims that India has
offered some 'concessions' to Pakistan for the meeting to happen
but so far Pakistan has shown little interest in them.
to reach to diverse Bahujan communities
who were out of reach for
Ambedkarites. That was the biggest
contribution of him to bring all these
diverse segment to one identity of
Bahujan Samaj. Unfortunately, after his
demise things are taking different
shapes. Parties now realise that they
dont need activists and more managers
who can ‘do’ things for leaders. All parties
are doing it but BSP is different as it
emerged from Bahujan movement and
unfortunately it was also ‘mainstreamed’
or ‘manustreamed’. With so
Chandrayaan-2
Director gets honorary
doctorate from LU
Lucknow : Chandrayaan-2 Mission Director Ritu
Karidhal Srivastava was on Tuesday awarded a honorary
doctorate by her alma mater, the Lucknow
University (LU). Governor Anandiben Patel conferred
the honorary doctorate on Srivastava at a special
function held here.
Srivatava finished her post-graduation in 1997
and got enrolled in a doctorate course in the Physics
Department in Lucknow University. She later taught
in the same department, and has made her university
and the entire nation proud by playing a key role in
India's second moon mission. LU Vice Chancellor
S.P. Singh said that university officials and all professors
unanimously wanted to honour her contribution,
hard work, and excellence. Srivastava had completed
her schooling from Navyug Girls College and
joined LU prior to cracking the prestigious Graduate
Aptitude Test in Engineering. She was a research
scholar at LU for six months and left after clearing
GATE. She joined IISc, Bangalore, to pursue masters
in aerospace engineering.
many young
Ambedkarites emerging
from different
protest movements,
raising their voices
against oppression and
exploitation as well as
seeking accountability
from the government
and a fair representation
in power structure,
it was the most opportune
time for BSP to
give space to all these
young voices. If
Kansiram were alive
today, he would have
used this opportunity
more accurately, giving
huge responsibilities
to our young
Ambedkarites in the
party to take lead but
very unfortunately, it
has not happened in
the party. Young
Ambedkarites felt disturbed and deeply
disappointed. They cant trust the brahmanical
parties and their own party does
not trust them then what do they do ?
Hindutva forces used this very well.
The growing Ambedkarite disenchantment
with their own polity and it is a
great risk. I have always maintained
that it is difficult to make a party in
these times when everything is money
and media oriented. Kanshiram ji build
the whole edifice of BSP on people’s
trust and that legacy has to continue.
BSP has loads of problems and it has
also disappointed but if possible, I
would request youngsters to democratise
the party, built it again and reach
wider audiences of the Dalit Bahujan
Samaj as Kansiram Saheb had done.
A majority of political leaders today
have so many cases. Narendra Modi has
been able to target his opponent for
‘bhai-batijawaad’ and dynasty. There is
no doubt about the fact that political
parties have become private limited
companies and family outfits. The one
man, who could have challenged
Narendra Modi and was able to build a
movement beyond his family and relations,
was Kanshiram. His life was dedicated
to the movement and till end his
fulfilled that promise which none of his
predecessors were able to do so which
was absolute dedication to Ambedkarite
mission and complete delinking of family
from his political issues. If he had
done so, he would also have faced barrage
of questions from brahmanical
media but they cant do so. He was able
to build so many new leaders for the
future but alas that does not seems to be
the agenda of the current leadership. It
is a wake up call. We might never have
another Kansiram as it is not a simple
thing to discard all the pleasures of life
and families, but we can take lessons
from his work and missionary life to
build the future of our movement.
Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social
and human rights activist. He blogs
at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com
twitter @freetohumanity
Email: vbrawat@gmail.com