Photo Courtesy: https://knowindia.gov.in/

Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of India. You will be amazed to know that  a (self- proclaimed) untouchable was awarded the Bharat  Ratna. Isn’t incredible, while the vested interests in the West and within India don’t get tired painting India, 24×7, as a caste- ridden society?

You know, who we are talking about?

We are talking about B R Ambedkar.

And see how untouchable he was in his life?

  • He was the person who was given early on family name of and by his school teacher, who, by the way, was a Brahmin.
  • He was the person who was sent and supported for foreign studies by an Indian state ruler, who was, by the way, high caste.

So certainly, till that point of time in his life, he was not untouchable. Or, was he?

He became (self-proclaimed) untouchable after Poona Pact of 1932,  which was completely political in nature.

“The Poona Pact 1932 was an agreement between B.R. Ambedkar and M.K. Gandhi on the political representation of the Depressed Classes (a loose term that referred to Dalits/Untouchables/Scheduled Castes). A little more than a month earlier, Ramsay Macdonald, the British Prime Minister, announced the Communal Award that gave Depressed Classes separate electorates for central and provincial legislatures. Gandhi viewed this as a danger to the Hindu community that would de-link untouchables from Hindus. Ambedkar and other leaders of the Depressed Classes welcomed the award.” (www.constitutionofindia.net)

Do you see how ‘depressed classes’ loosely became untouchable? That is called a motivated or vested interest narrative. The citizens of the present day world need not be told what is motivated or vested interest narrative, as they experience it every day.

  • He was the person who founded All India Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942.

“In 1944, the Working Committee of the All India Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF) passed a series of resolutions ‘outlining the safeguards for the untouchables in the new Constitution’. B.R Ambedkar, who founded the Federation, organised these resolutions under the heading ‘Political Demands of the Scheduled Castes’ as an appendix to his book ‘What the Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables’ published in 1945.

The Resolutions were passed during a period when the British government was in negotiations with leaders of Indian political parties (mainly the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League) on questions of the transfer of power and the framing of a new Constitution for India. The SCF aimed to make itself, and the Dalit interests it represented, as integral to these negotiations.” (www.constitutionofindia.net)

“Congress started the “Quit India” movement in 1942. B R Ambedkar severely criticized this move. He described it as “both irresponsible and insane, a bankruptcy of statesmanship and a measure to retrieve the Congress prestige that had gone down since the war started. It would be madness, he said, to weaken law and order at a time when the barbarians were at the gates.”

Do you see how untouchables were created in India? For political gains. I have pointed out in another article that the fight for India’s Independence was not a fight for India’s Independence, it was more for religious community interests and thereby gaining political power. B R Ambedkar was no different from Nehru or Jinnah (May see Nationalist Muslim Leaders? at www.kreately.in)

What did he gain?

*Ambedkar was inducted into the Viceroy’s Executive Council as Labour Member.

*He was the person who was chosen a member of the constituent assembly of India.

*He was the person who was chosen Chairman of the committee constituted to draft the Constitution of India.

*He was the person the first law Minister of India.

*He was the person whose name has been attached to cities and towns, universities and airports.

*He was the person who has been adopted as the icon by a political party in India, a party where political leaders of ‘depressed classes’ have amassed uncountable wealth.

Would you still say that he was untouchable?

Would you still say that he was really treated as an untouchable?

To Ambedkar’s Scheduled Castes were added, in due course, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes to take advantage of reservations. And there is unending urge and agitation in India to be ‘depressed classes’, to take advantage of reservations in education and jobs. Interestingly, now ‘non- creamy layer’ of depressed classes is protesting to take out ‘creamy’ layers of depressed classes from reservation.

According to a study, it is not caste or class, it is reservations for them, that annoys and agitates younger generations who value equality of opportunity more than anything else. In a country where a vast majority is poor, reservation in education and jobs is the worst discrimination. It is not discrimination by high castes. It is discrimination by political leaders for their vote bank politics.

And vote bank politics would not let it go, wherever it is; whether in India or USA. So, don’t blame the two employees of Cisco and Indian caste system as in Bloomberg article of March 2021. Blame the low level politics.

A Bloomberg article (March 2021) noted that

“A 2020 graduate of IIT Guwahati’s design program, Agrata Patel, got into the school through a separate but parallel quota system for students from “other backwards classes,” or OBCs—historically oppressed groups that are covered by the reservation system but aren’t Scheduled Castes or Tribes. Patel says that, though she faced special pressure as someone from a reserved category.”

But Ms. Patel and the author and publisher of the Bloomberg article would not tell you that Patel a.k.a Patidar signifies a title or class of landlords. (In USA, Patel and Motel are viewed as synonymous). So much for the untouchables and depressed classes of India, and so much about Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes of India and their champions.

Not so Fun Fact:

Caste based reservation system in Independent/ partitioned India was created for a limited number of years, but it has become never-ending and continuously expanding. That is how caste system perpetuates. It is not high caste vs low caste. It is low level politics of vote bank and reservations. In one word, as a young person said it, end the caste based reservations, caste system will disappear.

In a foreign land, self-proclaiming poor, destitute, persecuted, disadvantaged, discriminated is a sure route to receiving compassion and consideration or magnifying your achievements. In your native place in India, everyone knows what the truth is, as neighbors know you generation after generation.

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