This refers to the report, “Dalit rage singes India, 8 killed” (April 3). Speaking in the Constituent Assembly on November 1949, BR Ambedkar, the then Chairman of the drafting committee, emphasised on the need to hold fast to Constitutional methods of achieving social and economic objectives. He felt it necessary to abandon the “bloody methods of revolution” namely — civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha as this “grammar of anarchy” was unconstitutional and had no justification when Constitutional methods were open. For the reclamation of human personality of the oppressed, in particular, he sought the provision of Constitutional guarantees and protections for a wide range of civil liberties for individual citizens, including freedom of religion, the abolition of untouchability and the outlawing of all forms of discrimination. little did Ambedkar know then that the political parties representing the underprivileged and the historically backward social classes would appropriate his legacy for electoral considerations and to reinforce the prejudices and stereotypes associated with caste!
It is unfortunate that what could have been a peaceful demonstration of dissent against the Supreme Court ruling on the SC/ST Atrocities Act was allowed to escalate into unparalleled arson and rioting and the entire administration, including the Parliament, was held hostage to obstructionist political theatrics. It is time the Opposition stopped indulging in vote-bank politics by drumming up nationalist fervor and flaming jingoistic passions of the ‘sarva samaj’ to overcome their existential crisis on the political battlefield. Ambedkar should be celebrated as an eminent jurist, economist and social reformer who campaigned for the rights of citizens and not merely as a ‘Dalit icon’ who championed the cause of the Harijans.