Dr. Ambedkar a Great Worshipper of Social Equality free essay sample

There have been a number of great people in the world who have dedicated themselves to the struggles of the emancipation and upliftment of the powerless victims of the systems in their countries. Dr. Ambedkar has been a great advocate of equal rights and equal opportunities for all human beings irrespective of any kind of discriminatory elements. Ambedkar is well-known as the champion of the human rights of the voiceless in India. He himself has been a victim of the system although he has been a great scholar in the world because he was born in a Dalit community whose members have been looked down upon for centuries by the people of their country, especially by the caste Hindus. From time immemorial members of the so-called untouchable communities, tribes, nomadic and denotified communities, religious minorities and women belonging to all communities have been the greatest victims of the prevailing conservative system. In the distant past, these people were subjected to all evil practices by the dominant and privileged people in society. They did not have any right to have equal opportunities in any sphere. However, in the course of time change in the existence of the then victims had been brought about to some extent. The presence of the British rulers in India contributed a lot to this kind of progressive change. In modern India people from every community have access to the means of transformation for the better to certain extent. The constitution of India has ensured egalitarian platform for all the citizens in India. Victims of the system like members of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Castes, Religious Minorities and women are found to be excelling in various fields thanks to the constitution whose architect was none other than Ambedkar. Ambedkar`s concept of social equality consists of equal rights and equal opportunities to all citizens in the society; there should not be privileges to certain classes or castes and there should not be any class or caste deprived of opportunities and rights; there should not exist any class iscrimination and caste discrimination. That is why he opposes class discrimination and caste discrimination. According to Ambedkar, an egalitarian society should be based on humanitarian principles like equality, liberty and fraternity. While giving supreme importance to these principles, he says that these three principles are equally important. He advocated social democracy. He states that to keep the social democracy intact these three principles c annot be separated. They are interconnected in the existence of democracy. Here the researcher makes an attempt to discuss Ambedkar`s perspective of social equality and how it is still relevant to the existence of the suffering communities in the present world. Today one can find an almost every society in the world devoid of practice of the humanitarian principles like equality, liberty fraternity and justice. Right from the time of Ambedkar leaders of various sections of the society have not cooperated with him and his mission in spite of his progressive and reformative intentions. Before 1935 Ambedkar tried his best to abolish various evil and detrimental social and religious practices and reform the then stagnant and conservative society. However, because of the non-cooperation of other Indian leaders and their narrow vision of the Indian society discriminatory elements could not be abolished. Even today Ambedkar`s demands for separate electorates can very strongly be justified. His demands for separate electorates could easily safeguard the interests of the downtrodden and Dalit political representatives could give protection to them. Although the Dalit political representatives are elected to Parliament and assemblies in the states of India, they could not safeguard the interests of the downtrodden and protect them from any kind of injustices, atrocities and humiliations, leave alone the political representatives elected from general constituencies. Moreover, instead of separate electorates reservation in government employment, educational institutes and political arena is provided to the Dalits. But the policy of reservation has not been implemented properly and carefully. In this connection, a piece of news published in Hindustan Times on November 21, 2011 reveals how backlogs are not filled up by persons concerned: â€Å"Though the government has in the past launched special recruitment drives to fill up the backlog reserved vacancies in central establishments, thousands of the posts are still lying vacant. A total of 77,487 backlog vacancies were identified for a November 2008 drive of which 25,560 were for SCs, 28,542 for STs and 23,385 for OBCs. Though stipulated that all backlogs would be filled up by June, 2011, it was found a large number of vacancies still remained unfilled. Here it can be remarked that no politician elected either from reserved constituency or general constituency is bothered about these problems. If there were separate electorates, the representatives from them had to take care of such overdue implementation of policies meant for the weaker sections of society. When one thinks about the carelessness of persons concerned in the case of implementation of reservation policy, they can be easily reminded of the demands made by Ambedkar for separate electorates to bring about equality in the Indian society. Ambedkar asserts that to achieve economic and social aims unconstitutional ways like breaking the laws, non-cooperation and hunger strike should be avoided. He further says that to resort to these ways was justifiable in the past when there was no democracy, which is why it was not possible to make use of constitutional ways. But in the present period of time one cannot do that because such unconstitutional ways mean the general places of anarchy. Here one can opine that the ways and methods used by Anna Hazare to restrict corruption among the politicians in India do not fall in the category of constitutional ways. Consequently Anna Hazare has been a failure yet. However, on the other hand, Team Anna could have perhaps succeeded in their attempt if they had followed legal ways because such unconstitutional and coercive methods are always a menace to the existence of social democracy. Furthermore, many a people did not support the unconstitutional campaign of Anna Hazare because it did not consider all the aspects of the results of the resolution demanded by Team Anna. Hence there are certain sections of society who strongly opposed the campaign. Sukhadeo Thorat, a well known academician and thinker, has been critical of the methods used by the Team Anna. In his article entitled ‘Ambedlar`s way Anna Hazare`s methods’ published in The Hindu on August 23, 2011 Thorat gives vivid explanation as to the peaceful ways and methods resorted by Ambedkar to bring about social equality in the Indian society in the pre-independent India. Thorat states: â€Å"Dr. Ambedkar started the Mahad agitation in 1927, but the â€Å"untouchables† got access to the tank only in 1937 through a court order. The people of the high castes had managed a court order to ban the entry of â€Å"untouchables† into the tank on the grounds that it was a private tank. Dr. Ambedkar accepted the court order and discontinued a second march to the tank. But he fought through the courts and got justice in 1937, almost after 10 years. He did this using legal instruments and a peaceful mass movement, without the coercive means of fasts and hunger strikes. Similarly, the agitation for entry into the Kalaram temple went on for four years, from 1930 to 1934. He discontinued the agitation in 1934 following opposition by priests, notwithstanding the support extended by Gandhiji. But he fought a legal battle, along with a peaceful agitation, for the next four years, and in 1939 ultimately secured entry to the temple for â€Å"untouchables. † During the 1920s and 1930s, Dr. Ambedkar combined mass mobilization with legal methods in the anti-untouchability movement, but never allowed unconstitutional and coercive methods to take hold, despite instances of violent attack on â€Å"untouchables. † (8) In the past to attain humanity and equality for the enslaved masses, especially ex- untouchables in India Ambedkar attempted to find a number of ways. Conversion is one of them. When he noticed that entrenched and conservative Hindu society as a whole could not be reformed after all his possible and necessary attempts, he stopped to bring about revolutionary changes in it and was determined to convert to a religion based on humanitarian principles such as liberty, equality, brotherhood and justice. It can be said here that Hinduism is not an egalitarian religion. This point can be substantiated in the words of Owen M. Lynch, a professor of Anthropology: â€Å"They (so-called popular religions) thereby separate themselves from morality, as does Hinduism’s rejection of liberty, equality, and freedom, and its unjust treatment of Dalits through its practice of graded inequality. Contrariwise, Ambedkar’s rationalist Buddhism is a this-worldly social praxis, a morality rejecting all social barriers. For these reasons, as Johannes Beltz’s article shows, many Dalits today reject Hinduism and convert to Buddhism. † (The Mustard Seed: â€Å"iYa basta! † November 7, 2006) Ambedkar had already said that conversion would bring higher status to Dalits in the Hindu society. Since Hinduism has always deprived Dalits of all the human and honorable rights and opportunities, conversion from it has been a must for them. While expressing the greatness of Ambedkar`s thoughts, his relentless struggle to create an ideal society, and his contribution to modern India, Shashi Tharoor remarks in his article ‘Unparrallel legacy: Dr  Ambedkar’ published in the Times Of India 07 May 2007: â€Å"Ambedkar, who lived with the daily reality of caste discrimination, was not convinced that the entrenched practices of traditional Hinduism could ever disappear. In the end, he opted out of the religion altogether, embracing the ethics of equality that Buddhism embodied. † According to Ambedkar, conversion provides not just one fair and humanitarian principle but almost all the necessary principles for living a dignified human life. While explaining the great significance of conversion, Ambedkar, in a speech entitled ‘Why go for conversion? ’ advises his followers in the following manner: â€Å"I tell you all very specifically; religion is for man and not man for religion. To get human treatment, convert yourselves. CONVERT -For getting organized. CONVERT -For becoming strong. CONVERT -For securing equality. CONVERT -For getting liberty. CONVERT -For that your domestic life may be happy. † (Bhim Chakra 1996 published by Oil Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. Tripura project, Agartala. ) From this very quotation one can record that there is no possibility to abolish the evil practices observed by the caste Hindus at all. Although converted Dalits may not get complete solace from the miserable life in any religion, conversion has been the better way for them because so far there have not been any better and remarkable transformation in Hinduism as far as the inhuman and neglected existence of Dalits is concerned. Besides, the root cause of their suffering is rooted in Hinduism alone. That is why Ambedkar`s assertion for conversion can very reasonably substantiated even today. Although Ambedkar is from India and his thoughts about equality are concerned primarily with the evil and unequal practices in India, the human suffering communities in the entire world are seen to be taking resort to his thoughts and philosophy to uplift themselves. In Hungary there is a downtrodden community of Romas. In fact, the members of the Roma community have been looked down upon by other white citizens of Hungary for a very long time. But in the recent years the very members of the Roma community are found to take inspiration from the progressive thoughts of Ambedkar to get rid of the humiliation, inequality, and alienation. These Romas found a biographical book of Ambedkar and began to follow him like his Indian followers. In this connection P L Kodolikar writes: â€Å"They (the vanguard of the Romas) got a book in Paris based on Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar`s bright life. They got a direction from this book to bring about transformation in their life. These leaders wandered in Maharashtra in 2005 and 2007 and collected information of movements inspired by Dr. Ambedkar and established a network of organizations under the title of Jai Bheem in Hungary. They converted to Buddhism and opened three high schools after Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar at Sazokaza (in the northeast of Hungary). They contacted young activists in India. They requested young activists in Ambedkarite movement from time to time to guide them for their Jai Bheem organization. † (Translation Mine) (15/ 16) From the above quotation it can be remarked that even today Ambedkar`s progressive and humanitarian thoughts for social equality are very much useful and helpful to the downtrodden in the world. While writing about the noble and fair thoughts of Ambedkar one of the co-founders of the Dr. Ambedkar High School, Janos Orsos, a Hungarian gypsy, a Buddhist, and a follower of Dr. Ambedkar records that: â€Å"We have found that Dr   Ambedkars thinking fits well with our aims, so we have named our new school, Dr Ambedkar   High School. â€Å"I feel very pleased that I can speak in Europe about Dr Ambedkar. Nobody in Europe has heard for  him, so it is one of our major tasks to speak about him. It is very wonderful for me to see that my  actions find parallels in Dr Ambedkars activity and movement. We have found ourselves going through the same steps as our Indian friends, because these are the logical steps in our social situation. Our Indian Buddhist friends are able to take their own institutions in their own hands because they have their own hero. †Ã‚   Also, in these days Ambedkar`s birthday is celebrated not only in India but also in other countries of the world. In the neighboring country of Pakistan Ambedkar Jayanti was celebrated in April 2007. In this regard Reporter Surendar Valasai writes: â€Å"For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the 116th Birthday of Baba Saheb Dr B. R. Ambedkar was celebrated in three different cities of Pakistan and attended by thousands of people. † Here one can notice that Ambedlar is being recognized in the contemporary period across the world, though slowly, because his thoughts in relation to social equality are equally relevant to the downtrodden in other countries. Today one may witness that there have been certain important changes in the lives of the victims of the system in India. However, they will find a millions of downtrodden citizens living a dehumanized life because the system has not been yet completely changed and dismantled. Here, it can be stated that a sea change can be brought about in the pathetic condition of the downtrodden if the rulers and true well wishers of the residents of not only India but also of the world make sincere attempts to follow Ambedkar. Taking into consideration the egalitarian and noble thoughts of Ambedkar one can draw conclusion that even today he is not only relevant in India but in the entire world and its suffering community for establishing an egalitarian society.