Ambedkar and the Metaphor of Moses

"I confess", Ambedkar wrote in 1941, "that if anything sustains me in my efforts to emancipate the Depressed Classes, it is the story of Moses undertaking the thankless but noble task of leading Jews out of their captivity". Writing for a Bombay publication in 1941 Dr. Ambedkar drew upon the metaphor of Moses to contextualize his own mission in life and the plight of his people, the Depressed Classes, as the Dalits were then referred to. That essay shows a very human side of Ambedkar that we could benefit from exploring to understand his persona. In this blog I've attempted to flesh out a human perspective of Ambedkar. 

Gandhi and the Bible

Gandhi and Ambedkar rarely saw eye to eye and that extended even to how they approached the Bible and what they took from it for their respective movements. When Gandhi read the Bible the Old Testament "repelled" him. "The Sermon on the Mount", Gandhi wrote, "went straight to my heart". He went on to say "Supposing I was deprived of the Gita and forgot all its contents but had a copy of the Sermon on the Mount, I should derive the same joy from it". Asked to justify his economic philosophy of trusteeship Gandhi reached to a quote from St. Mark, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven". 

From Romain Rolland to Will Durant to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. many westerners, theologians and historians, saw a Christ like spirit in Gandhi. Romain Rolland called Gandhi, "another Christ". When Martin Luther King Jr named a society he started after Gandhi he met with opposition for naming a Christian association after a Hindu. King Jr. responded, "what if the world's greatest Christian is not a Christian". Will Durant wrote, "Not since St. Francis of Assisi has any life known to history been so marked by gentleness, disinterestedness, simplicity and forgiveness of enemies". 

Two hymns that Gandhi loved gives us an understanding of what he loved best in Christ. "The Wondrous Cross" and "Rock of Ages" both speak of Christ's suffering and salvation. I've often felt that Gandhi's martyrdom that served to largely bring to a halt the murderous communal riots that rocked India was a moment akin to Christ suffering and carrying a cross for all humanity. 

For all the admiration for Christ and spiritual succor he drew from Christ's teachings Gandhi remained, till the last, a devout Hindu and a very harsh critic of Christianity itself. In 1927 Harvard's student newspaper The Crimson quoted Dr. J.H. Holmes to who Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, but not your Christianity". 

Ambedkar and a Jewish Interviewer

Ambedkar, in Oct 1941, wrote for the Bombay Sentinel, an article titled "Moses and His Significance". The article caught the eye of Maurice David Japheth, the editor of a Jewish monthly publication in Bombay, "The Jewish Advocate". Japheth interviewed Ambedkar in November 1941. While the details of the interview are not accessible the article on Moses' significance is now widely available. The Maharashtra government's archives of Ambedkar's writings (Vol 17, part 1) wrongly identifies the interviewer as one Glora Becher "Consul of Israel in Bombay". Israel was not a nation until 1948 and Google searches of Glora Becher lead nowhere. However, "The Jewish Communities of India: Identity in a Colonial Era" by Joan G. Roland identifies the interviewer as Japheth. 

Maurice David Japheth, a Baghdadi Jew, married to a Bene Israel Jew, a controversy by itself, had met Gandhi in Nagpur in 1935 and was drawn to Gandhian teaching of a simple life. Interestingly the Madiga Dalits in Andhra, towards the end of the twentieth century, "declared their affiliation to the Lost Tribe of Israel" and called themselves Bene Ephraim. That story is told is "The Jews of Andhra Pradesh: Contesting Caste and Religion in South India" by Yulia Egorova and Shahid Perwez. 

Moses as Metaphor

"What did Moses not do for the Jews?", wrote Ambedkar, "He led them out of bondage, he laid the foundation for their religion by bringing the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai. He gave them laws for social, civil and religious purpose and instructions for building the tabernacle". Here we see a premonition of Ambedkar leading his people to Buddhism, in 1956, complete with vows to be taken. 

Writing further Ambedkar recounts the querulous and fractious relationship the Jews had with Moses who had led them out of bondage during the years of wandering in the desert. "Even his (Moses) leadership" was challenged, notes Ambedkar. 

Writing in 1941 Ambedkar must have had in his mind the bitter squabbles he had with another Dalit leader, M.C. Rajah, notably during the talks with Gandhi leading to the Poona Pact. On 13th October, at Yeola, Ambedkar had declared that he'd not die a Hindu and advocated conversion for Dalits. Rajah, on 12th November 1935, issued a stinging rebuttal on the need to convert. The rebuttal was noticeable for omitting to refer Ambedkar by name. Rajah went on to list "other leading members of the community" who disagreed with Ambedkar's call. To further rub in his point Rajah compared the efforts of hitherto unnamed Ambedkar with Ambedkar's bete-noire Gandhi. In a declaration on September 18th 1936 an organization named "Harijan Conversion Movement in South India" released a note saying at a meeting that Rajah spoke in resolved that Ambedkar was not a representative for Dalits and further resolved that Rajah was the sole representative of Dalits. 

"Moses was not merely a great leader of the Jews. He is a ;eager whose birth, any downtrodden community may pray for". "The leadership of Moses", Ambedkar said, was "a source of perennial inspiration and hope". 

I've used the word "metaphor" to refer to what Moses meant to Ambedkar to underscore the fact that the historicity of Moses and the events matter less than what the story of Exodus meant to an Indian leader who was waging war against an ancient and very stubborn evil. 

The Unspoken "F" and Moses's Ethiopian Wife:

In June 1945 Ambedkar published a stinging book, "What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables". The book was a harsh critique of Gandhi and Congress. The book opened with a warm and endearing dedication to a person cryptically noted, "To F". The dedication quoted from the Book of Ruth the famous verses Ruth, a Moabite woman, tells her Israelite Mother-in-Law, "Where you go I will go,, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God". 

Ambedkar reminisces that he used to read the Bible with "F" and that F would be moved by this passage that  expressed the sentiments of a good wife. He added that he used to disagree with her and would quote Prof. Smith's interpretation that that passage distinguishes modern society and ancient society. Ancient society was always "man plus god" whereas modern society, unlike the one in the passage, was just man. Ambedkar is quick to add, "pray remember that in men I include women also". He had promised 'F' that one day he'd write a book on that topic and dedicate it to 'F'. Given how he was drawn into the "vortex" of politics he couldn't write a literary book but he assures this book "not an unworthy substitute" and asks "Will you accept it?"

Who was this "F"? That was an English lady named Frances Fitzgerald also known as Fanny Fitzgerald. She's identified in a footnote to a letter from her to Ambedkar, in the book "Ambedkar's Letters" by Surendra Ajnath (translated in Tamil by S.J. Sivasankar), as an Irish widow and Ambedkar's friend. The letter from Frances, however, has a hint of a  tone of intimacy beyond just friendship. Frances worked in the House of Commons and it was through her that Ambedkar followed the proceedings at the House closely. 

When the letters of Ambedkar, including letters from Frances, were sought to be published by Arun Kamble, with the permission of Ambedkar's second wife Savita, his grandson Prakash Ambedkar wanted to quash them says a letter to a magazine (see references). This is not surprising. While Gandhi's Brahmacharya experiments were openly discussed by himself and Nirmal Bose had published a book detailing them it is a topic that Gandhians rarely address. Edwina Mountbatten's letters to Jawaharlal Nehru are still in the custody of Sonia Gandhi. Subhas Bose's marriage to a German lady is rarely mentioned. Frances, in all truthfulness, may have been nothing more than a friend to Ambedkar but she was surely quite a friend he considered intimate.

Why is this discussion of "F" pertinent? Here's Ambedkar about Moses, "Even his leadership was challenged. The Old Testament records that Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman he had married". It is possible that Ambedkar had in his mind the many challenges to his leadership from Dalit leaders and possibly, just possibly, something to do with Frances too.

Ambedkar, MLK Jr and Moses

Concluding his short tribute to Moses Ambedkar writes, "I believe that just as there was a land of promise for the Jews, so the Depressed Classes must be destined to have their land of promise. I trust that just as the Jews reached their land of promise, so will the Depressed Classes in the end reach their land of promise".

Leaders like Ambedkar, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr et al do think of themselves as saviors in some fashion and that they happen to have the best solutions possible. No leader escapes that hubris and no leader remains a leader if they give it a free run and don't rein it in. Jawaharlal Nehru openly addressed such a fear in an article he wrote. Ambedkarites, with good justification, accuse Gandhi of arrogating to himself the role of sole savior of all Indians. By the same token opponents of Ambedkar said the same of him. This fascination for Moses betrays precisely such a savior complex. I don't hold it against him I am merely acknowledging its presence. 

In a way like Moses Ambedkar glimpsed the promised land when he presided over the Constitution committee that outlawed untouchability. However, one doesn't know what went through his mind when he saw the assemble cheer the passage with cries of "Mahatma Gandhi ki Jai". That law punishing untouchability did not uproot the evil all together. That is why I'd say that Ambedkar, like Moses, glimpsed the promised land. Incidentally, New York Times reported on its front page dated April 30th 1947 that on April 29th India's Constituent Assembly outlawed untouchability. The article also noted that "Ambedkar did not see eye to eye with Mr. Gandhi".

In a tellingly analogous manner Martin Luther Kinj Jr., too, wrapped himself in the metaphor of Moses. Speaking to a Church congregation on April 3rd 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee he concluded a poignant and eloquent speech with the words, "I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to. know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land". King Jr had seen the passage of Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Right Act (1965). He was assassinated the next day. He was just 39 years old.

In a way not even the passage of a law against untouchability was the glimpse of promised land for Ambedkar. It could be argued that his embrace of Buddhism and leading thousands of Dalits into Buddhism on 14th October 1956. This marked the culmination of a long journey of a tumultuous and tortured life of Ambedkar much like that of Moses. He died on 6th December 1956 having glimpsed what he thought was the promised land and passed on the torch to generations that came after. 

References

1. https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/gandhi_christ.html 
2. https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/what-jesus-means-to-me/appendix-2-two-favorite-christian-hymns-of-gandhiji.php 
3. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1927/1/11/mahatma-gandhi-says-he-believes-in/ 
4. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/when-gandhi-taught-the-bible/articleshow/62675711.cms 
5. What Congress and Gandhi have done for Untouchables? https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/attach/amb/Volume_09.pdf 
6. Book of Ruth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ruth
7. https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/bhim-row/229435 
8. Nilanjana Roy on Ambedkar Letters https://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/nilanjana-s-roy-the-ambedkar-letters-105112901088_1.html 
9. https://velivada.com/2016/01/31/pdf-writings-sppeches-of-dr-babasaheb-ambedkar/ 
10. https://research.vu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/42132885/abstract+english.pdf 
11. https://archive.org/stream/Dr.AmbedkarAndTheJewishPeople/Binder1_djvu.txt 
12. அம்பேத்கர் கடிதங்கள்: தொகுப்பாசிரியர் சுரேந்திர அஜ்நாத்; தமிழில் எஸ்.ஜே/ சிவசங்கர், பதிப்பாசிரியர் அ.ஜெகநாதன்.
13. பெருந்தலைவர் எம்.சி.ராஜா சிந்தனைகள்: தொகுப்பு வெ. அலெக்ஸ்
14. An unforgettable Dalit Voice: Life, Writings and Speeches of M.C. Rajah - Edited by Swaraj Basu.
15. https://www.nytimes.com/1947/04/30/archives/indians-outlaw-untouchability-in-formal-action-by-assembly.html
    

'Jesus and the Disinherited': Howard Thurman, Gandhi and Confronting Hatred. A Gospel of Love

 The year 2020 was marked in United States not only for the pandemic but also for a nationwide upsurge in the quest for racial justice for Black America in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a White policeman. Amongst the many discussions I learned of Howard Thurman, a Christian theologian. Thurman's story thrilled me for he had met Gandhi and it was he who brought the message of Gandhi's non-violence to Black America that later animated the Civil Rights Movement. Thurman's "Jesus and the Disinherited" explores whether Christianity has a meaning for the African-American. 

It is my fervent belief that history echoes across societies and histories of repression and rebellion have, within, a universal message. In this blog I'll also touch upon how movements against caste oppression should pay heed to Thurman's message of love and listen to why it is dangerous to nurture hatred.

A Question from a Sri Lankan Hindu and Interpreting Jesus

In 1935 Howard Thurman was touring, with a delegation on a 'pilgrimage of friendship from the students of America, India, Burma and Ceylon. After a speech at the University of Columbo the principal invited Thurman for coffee and posed a question. "What are you doing over here?" The principal's question was more pointedly to Thurman, an African-Amreican, that his preaching of Christianity betrays what his people suffered at the hands of White men, particularly aided by the Church's teachings. Sir John Newton, author of the famous hymns 'how sweet the name of Jesus sounds' and the legendary 'Amazing Grace', was, the principal pointed, a slave trader. 

Stunned by the question Thurman then investigates what Jesus meant to "the disinherited". Jesus was a Jew, a minority community oppressed by the Roman regime, and poor. Vladimir Simkovitch, professor of economics at Columbia University and a Marxist, in his "Toward the Understanding of Jesus", quoted by Thurman, asks if it is correct to assume that Jesus should've been unmoved by the plight of his community and whether he took into account "the great and all-absorbing problem of the very people he taught".

The question of how a Jew could relate to the Roman regime and Romans, the oppressors, obsessed Jesus, says Thurman. "Again and again he came back to the inner life of the individual". "To revile because one has been reviled - this is the real evil because it is the evil of the soul itself".

How should the oppressed, be they Jews in Roman empire or a Black in America, respond to the "rulers the controllers of political, social and economic life?" Resistance and non-resistance are the two key options for the disinherited but they, Thurman points out, carry other choices within the broad categories.

Non-Resistance, in turn, features two forms. One is imitation of the dominant group by the oppressed, reducing "external signs of difference to zero, so that there shall be no ostensible cause for active violence". Herod was an example of this kind of assimilation. In this context it is worthwhile to recall the theory of Indian sociologist M.N. Srinivas's theory of "sanskritization". The other alternative that non-resistance chooses is isolationism. 

Resistance, chiefly takes the form of violence. Thurman cautions that the oppressor, in Jesus's case the Empire, has all the means to crush any such resistance. It is in this backdrop that Jesus proposes a different resistance. It is the resistance from within, "the Kingdom of Heaven is in us". No Indian can read that passage without thinking of Gandhi. 

Thurman, in blistering words notes, that the Christianity born in the mind of Jesus was different from that of what it became under the Church. "I belong", writes Thurman, "to a generation that finds very little that is meaningful in the teachings of the Church concerning Jesus Christ".

Thurman draws a sharp distinction between the Christianity that Paul creates from what Jesus created. Paul was a citizen of Rome while Jesus was not and this vital fact colors how they exhort the Jews to relate to the regime. Where Jesus calls the Jew to eschew hatred and look for Kingdom within Paul calls for obedience. 

Having this interpreted Jesus Thurman proceeds to identify the forces that operate on the disinherited and why they should choose the path of love.

Fear and the Children of God

Fear dogs the disinherited unlike any other. Fear of the oppressor stunts the life and soul of the oppressed. The dominant group does not even have to articulate threats because past incidents would weigh on the collective memory of the persecuted group. The threat of violence "is rooted in a past experience, actual or reported, which tends to guarantee the present reaction of fear".

Jesus confronts the sense of fear amongst his Jewish brethren but it applies to even an African-American terrorized in America or to a Dalit too. Assuring that his Father protects even a sparrow Jesus says, "fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows". This message is further amplified in the Sermon on the Mount. Allaying the fears and its attendant effects, anxiety and despair, Jesus tells the Jews, "take no thought, saying what shall we eat?....for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God".

"This idea", exults Thurman, that God is mindful of the individual- is of tremendous import in dealing with fear as a disease". "You-you are not niggers. You-you are not slaves. You are God's children". Here is Gandhi telling a people who were deemed to be outside the pale of religion and therefore the graces of any God that they are, not outcastes, but indeed the children of God. 

Deception and Gandhi's Call for Truth

Thurman had met Gandhi during the tour mentioned earlier and this book was published in 1949. Yet, Gandhi's memory and philosophy hangs overhead for Thurman. 

The powerless, the oppressed and the disinherited resort to the well worn technique of deception. A Black pastor, unable to openly criticize policemen who had killed a blind Black man, resorted to deception in his sermon by talking to God what he'd talked to the congregation says Thurman citing an incident as an example of how deception is used by the disinherited to rebel.

"The pattern of deception", Thurman says, "by which the weak circumvent the strong and manage to secure some of their political, economic, and social rights is a matter of continuous degradation". "The penalty of deception is to become a deception".

Discussing alternatives to deception Thurman reaches Gandhi. "We come now to the third alternative-a complete and devastating sincerity". Gandhi exhorts in a letter, "Speak the truth, without fear and without exception". Thurman connects Gandhi's exhortation with Jesus's "challenge to the disinherited", telling them "let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil". 

What does sincerity give the disinherited? "In the presence of overwhelming sincerity on the part of the disinherited, the dominant themselves are caught with no defense, with the edge taken away from the sense of prerogative and from the status upon which the impregnability of their position rests". 

Hatred

One day Thurman, seated in the segregated area in a train, overheard two black girls talk about two white girls on the street who were skating dangerously close to the train. The black girls wondered aloud about the prospect of seeing the white girls getting killed. A shocked Thurman wondered, "Through what torture chambers had they come- torture chambers that had so attached the grounds of humanness in them that there was nothing capable of calling forth any appreciation or understand of white persons?" I hail from that part of India where a supposed champion of the oppressed, E.V. Ramasamy, hailed as a messiah, inculcated precisely such hatred in equally blood curdling words targeted at the then oppressors, the Brahmins.

Thurman differentiates the hatred of the oppressed and the oppressor. "Hatred" makes a "profound contribution to the life of the disinherited, because it establishes a dimension of self-realization hammered out of the raw materials of injustice". "It is clear then, that for the weak, hatred seems to serve a creative purpose". Note, how Thurman acknowledged the creative purpose of hatred albeit one tied to the 'weak'. 

Having acknowledged the impulse for hatred by the disinherited Thurman is unsparing in decrying the effect of hatred in the long term. "Hatred destroys finally the core of the life of the hater". "Hatred bears deadly and bitter fruit. It is blind and non-discriminating". "Once hatred is released, it cannot be confined to the offenders alone". This is very evident amongst castes that were once oppressed by Brahmins who nurtured, chiefly by E.V. Ramasamy and others like him, a hatred towards all Brahmins, eventually showed hatred towards other castes and especially towards those below them in the caste hierarchy. Gandhi's life, unlike E.V.Ramasamy's, was a message against hating anyone.

"Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, death to communion with his Father". It'd be worthwhile to recall that James Baldwin, who pretty much forsook Christianity, also cautions against hatred because he saw it as corrosive to the soul of his fellow black Americans. 

Love

What does it take, for a Jew, to love a Roman? "To love the Roman meant first to lift him out of the general classification of enemy. The Roman had to emerge as a person". "There had to be a moment when the Roman and the Jew emerged as neither Roman nor Jew, but as two human spirits that had found a mutual, though individual, validation. For the most part, such an experience would be impossible as long as either was functioning only within his own social context". 

"Love of the enemy means that a fundamental attack must first be made on the enemy status". It does not mean, however, "ignoring the fact that he belongs to the enemy class". "The first step toward love is a common sharing of mutual worth and value. This cannot be discovered in a vacuum or in a series of artificial or hypothetical relationships. It has to be in a real situation, natural, free".

When the Lord says "vengeance is mine" He takes away the need for the disinherited to be vengeful or hateful. It is in Lord's hands.

Gandhi and Thurman

For sake of completeness I'll briefly cover Gandhi's meeting with Thurman that is the subject of another book. In February 1936 Thurman and his entourage met Gandhi at Bardoli. Newspapers run by Black community had for long paid close attention to Gandhi and his movement. Newspapers like the Chicago Defender and giants of African-American leadership like W.E.B. Du Bois had deep admiration for Gandhi. 

Gandhi was inquisitive and asked questions about lynchings, interracial marriages, black history and more to the visitors. When it was their turn to quiz Gandhi the delegation asked him about excluding blacks in South Africa during his Satyagraha. Gandhi was forthright in saying that he feared they would not have understood his new technique. The delegation took Gandhi's reply as being cautious about worrying that Satyagraha campaigns could go out of control. 

Surprisingly Gandhi and Thurman agreed that Islam was a "more congenial religion for many Africans than Christianity". Gandhi told Thurman about the spirit of brotherhood in Islam and underscored the absence of such brotherhood in all other religions including Hinduism and Christianity. Thurman, surprisingly, is more sympathetic to Islamic evangelism than Christian evangelism in India. 

Eventually the conversation turned to the topic of ahimsa. Gandhi regretted that paucity of English language compelled him to give a negative definition of ahimsa as "non-violence". Though Gandhi cited Paul's idea of love to illustrate and add that his, Gandhi's, idea of love was beyond even love of God. Both Gandhi and Thurman agreed that Paul's Christianity was a detour from Jesus's idea. Thurman was stunned to hear Gandhi add that a physical reality, physicality, is an added dimension to non-violence as an idea. 

Sue Bailey Thurman asked Gandhi, what was she to do if she had to witness the lynching of her own brother. Gandhi gave her a lengthy answer of what he meant by self-immolation, not a physical act but one that calls for refusal to wish ill will with Whites and refusal to cooperate. 

Criticism

On January 30th 1948 Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse. Jawaharlal Nehru told a shocked nation, "the light has gone out of our lives.... the light that shone in our lives was no ordinary light. It was a beacon of hope". Martin Luther King Jr was drawn to Gandhi by his confidant Bayard Rustin who brought to MLK Jr's attention about Thurman and Gandhi. In this cycle of history we see a Indian Hindu learning about Tolstoy and Christ in South Africa and then an African-American Christian theologian learning from Gandhi and taking his lessons to a very different society. Is there no message here that the oppressed of India could learn from? I think there is. 

James Baldwin, Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King Jr and many others of Civil Rights movement repeatedly circle around the topic of corrosive effects of hatred as a response. No one was naive in thinking that hatred was not justified or even natural but they were more worried about what it did, eventually, to the soul of the disinherited. 

For all his genuineness about being sincere in speaking truth and in not hating the perpetrators of violence Gandhi's prescriptions, notably about Ethiopians and Jews to have offered their lives to their conquerors, had its limits in real life.

Arguing for interactions to reinforce mutual value and respect Thurman, for all his criticism of the Church, does not offer secular alternatives as venues or occasions for such interactions. For all of Thurman's criticism of Paul's version of Christianity Arvind Nirmal, originator of Dalit Liberation Theology in India, is drawn towards Paul. 

Amidst all the societal strife we see around us the central message of Thurman and even of Gandhi, the criticisms notwithstanding, still remain the best hope if we are to rise about hatred and to move towards an egalitarian society. 

References

1. Jesus and the Disinherited - Howard Thurman

2. Visions of a better world: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence - Quinton Dixie and Peter Eisenstadt

3. Howard Thurman Meets Gandhi

4. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/us/howard-thurman-mlk-gandhi/index.html

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Thurman

6. Howard Thurman Documentary by PBS

Padma Subrahmanyam: A Brahmin Supremacist. Gandhi and Chadrasekharendra as Crutches

Padma Subrahmanyam, aged 77, uploaded a video called 'Food for thought' that is an unabashed call for Brahmin hegemony. To provide succor to her shameful arguments she brought in Gandhi and Chandrasekharendra, the Kanchi pontiff. Thanks to social media and her own sense of self-entitlement, that makes her think that every unfiltered nonsense swirling in between her ears is fit to be shared with the wide world, we now know what a bigot she is and how vacuous she is. If anyone wanted proof that being born a Brahmin is no guarantee of intelligence she has gladly provided it. Thank you madam.

Padma Subrahmanyam. Picture Credit 'The Hindu"

Padma's choice of individuals is striking. One was Gandhi, probably the most complex political leader of modern era and the greatest emancipator nonpareil. The other was Chandrasekharendra, pontiff of Kanchi mutt, a Hindu religious leader exclusively for Brahmins and a tireless advocate of literal interpretation of scriptures like any other fundamentalist. Padma is intellectually incapable of understanding the complexity of Gandhi and is spiritually incapable of truly following the pontiff. She reduces both to hatchets to be wielded in service of her shameful agenda.

Varnashrama: India's bloodless peace and the price

Indians of many stripes often think that the blood soaked history of Europe and the relatively bloodless history of India are not just accidents but due to very elemental differences that are intrinsic to Indian, to be specific Hindu, culture that Europe lacked. This is true only on the surface.

Historians like K.A.N Sastry have pointed out the lack of friction in ancient Indian society and, in my opinion, it could easily be attributed to varnashrama. Each section of a society in a place and each functioning accordingly. Sure, it has been called division of labor and its apologists have always pointed to the trade guilds of Germany. So, would Europe have escaped bloodshed if they too had, not just trade guilds but, a form of varnashrama? They might've but the world would've been poorer.

Historian Mary Beard in 'SPQR' identifies the revolt of the plebeians, in 499 BCE, against social exclusion and taxation as a watershed moment. Strikes and violence continued for two centuries. "One of the most famed plebeian victories came in 326 BCE, when the system of enslavement for debt was abolished, establishing the principle that the liberty of a Roman citizen was an inalienable right". By then another important victory was that plebeians could be elected consuls.

Take a leap to 14th century and rebellion stirs in England. Two centuries after Magna Carta, that great charter of liberty, "in the summer of 1381", writes Dan Jones, "a sudden and violent uprising against the country's richest and most powerful lords known as Peasants Revolt, was one of the most astonishing events of the Middle Ages".

India's varnashrama protected India from bloodshed but the price was literal wholesale enslavement of a large population for more than a millennia and a nation completely alien to the ideas of rebellion, revolt and rights until western educated Indian leaders arrived on the scene in 19th and 20th century. Note, this is not a concoction of my imagination. Many Brahmin speakers, from legal fraternity and elsewhere have drawn a distinction between India's 'Dharma' oriented society versus a Western society based on the notion of 'rights'.

Varnashrama did not just keep a people in servitude. What a man or woman can wear, how long can a dhoti be, what can they eat, where can they live, whether a man can carry an umbrella, whether a people can draw water using mud pot, what they can study were all within an iron framework that was not just invisible but did not need armies to be enforced. If any system qualifies to be called evil genius it is varnashrama and it'd take the prize too.

The Pariahs were denied not just education but access to healthcare and waterways amongst others was denied. The sheer human cost of such a draconian system over centuries would, if extrapolated with imagination, make the holocaust pale into background. The Pariah was prohibited from eating rice well into the twentieth century. Imagine the cost of lack of nutrition. 'Frictionless society'. My foot.

Very coolly Padma asserts that Brahmins are natural intellectuals forgetting the fact that for nearly two centuries the reputed institutions of learning in Chennai were the courtesy of Missionaries, colonial government, non-Brahmin philanthropists. She herself was a student of Ethiraj college, not some Brahmin educational institution. Brahmins really did not run educational institutions of repute or not on such scale. The Brahmin intellectuals were all products of western education. It was not only Brahmins who flocked to learn English. Practically all of India did. Gandhi and Nehru, a Bania and a Brahmin, were not stellar students and compared to Ambedkar were less educationally accomplished. It is easy to read Nehru and Gandhi whereas Ambedkar is highly academic and makes the reader sweat.

Gandhi and Varnashrama

Gandhi is best understood by Western academics, including Indians writing for Western universities and publications. My understanding of Gandhi is firmly rooted in the western tradition. America's founding fathers were slaveholders and at the same time emancipators. Abraham Lincoln ended slavery while holding on to the belief that Blacks were not intellectually equal to the Whites. Yet, within such inconsistencies they've nudged history. So too did Gandhi. And Gandhi, in turn, was nudged by Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Gandhi has undoubtedly praised Brahmins, called upon others to respect the Brahmin, he uncharitably compared the Dalits who converted to cows but was he just a sum of a few quotes? That he was not. Even if we went by quotes he was maddeningly tying himself in knots trying not to break Hinduism wholesale and provided fodder for both his detractors and others.

Invited by Gandhi to write for the first issue of Harijan, 1933, Ambedkar refuses but sends a terse message, "There will be outcastes as long as there are castes. And nothing can emancipate the outcaste except the destruction of the caste system". Publishing the letter Gandhi proceeds to answer him. "The moment untouchability goes, the caste system will itself be purified, that is to say, according to my dream, it will resolve itself into the true Varna dharma, the four divisions of the society, each complimentary of the other and none inferior or superior to any other".

Ambedkar was, in 1935, asked give an address to the "Annual conference of the Jat Pat Today Mandal of Lahore- an organization of caste Hindu reformers who wanted to do away with the caste system". Ambedkar's prepared remarks, titled "Annihilation of caste" alarmed the organizers for it called upon Dalits to leave Hinduism. The address was cancelled but Ambedkar published the speech. Gandhi responded in Harijan. Ambedkar responded back. An epistolary battle ensued.

Interestingly the Lahore organization now sent a message to Gandhi that he published in Harijan, August 1936. The message read, "Hindus are slaves of caste and do not want to destroy it. So when you advocate your ideal or imaginary varnavyayarastha they find justification for cling to caste. You are doing a great disservice to social reform".

Dissecting Gandhi's evolution on caste and spirituality, researcher Arvind Sharma writes, "In relation to Hinduism, then, Gandhi valued the overall structure of the tradition but wrought cardinal changes within it by introducing ordinal changes into it, thus resolving the paradox of belonging to a tradition but also transforming it while following it. …his programs, often moderate, and even traditional in formulation, were often radical in their impact"

This is clearly borne out by the impact of Gandhi's tour against untouchability. As Gandhi toured the length and breadth of India beseeching the upper caste Hindus to repent he was met with cries of 'Death to Gandhi'. His cavalcade was attacked and on couple of occasions he was almost assassinated. The upper caste savarna Hindus would dare to do him what Lord Irwin or any Muslim or Christian would not even attempt to do. The savarna Hindus understood the impact Gandhi was having on their cherished customs. It should be noted that a good number of Brahmins and upper castes stood behind Gandhi too. Christ told he'd split homes and pit father against son. Here was a modern day Christ tearing apart an ancient society.

"Gandhi Collecting Donations for Harijan Fund. Picture credit Kanu Gandhi. Source  6ad11bd683584fc7ebb050ff18a08a5d.jpg"

Gandhi evolved, on every issue, till the day he was felled by a fanatical Chitpavan Brahmin. The issue of caste was no different. The Gandhi of 1920s and 1930s, historian William Coward points out, evolved to the Gandhi of 1945 who sort of accepted his defeat to make caste Hindus realize that they need to change and advocated, as Ambedkar did, the politicization of Dalits. When the Constituent Assembly voted to outlaw untouchability the members cheered, "victory to Mahatma Gandhi". The man who presided over the legal change, included in the cabinet on the advice of Gandhi, was Ambedkar.

An important meeting during Gandhi's tour in 1934 was one between him and the Kanchi pontiff in Kerala. The pontiff reportedly pleaded with Gandhi not to destroy Hinduism by destroying untouchability. While Padma cites some booklet written by Gandhi praising Varnashrama she, owing to intrinsic intellectual inability, fails to understand that Gandhi, beyond his cardinal faiths of truth and non-violence, was always a work in progress and more importantly his approach to the sacred texts was very unlike that of the pontiff's.

When Ambedkar burned copies of Manusmriti and Dalits vowed severance with Hinduism Gandhi responded in Harijan writing, "Caste has to go". Gandhi asserted that Varnashrama did not have room for untouchability and that there was no prohibition against inter-dining or inter-caste marriage and more importantly he adds that it is his liberty to interpret the texts.

Akeel Bilgrami, Rhodes scholar and holder of Johnsonian chair of philosophy at Columbia University, in a perceptive essay on Gandhi, writes that Gandhi said of his approach to religious texts, "I am not a literalist". Bilgrami adds, "I want to stress Gandhi's interpretative ideal of focusing on the spirit rather than on the letter of religious texts. So, for instance, he says that of all the versions of the Ramayana, the one to which he most turns is Tulsidas because "it is the spirit running through the book that holds me spellbound"". Gandhi, with such interpretative zeal completely gave a new reading to Bhagvad Gita, a text commonly thought to be an unabashed call to war.

"My belief in the Hindu scriptures", said Gandhi, "does not require me to accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired". Bilgrami points out that in "many writings, Gandhi opposed the prevalent interpretation of the varna system".

Gandhi interpreted, Gandhi evolved, Gandhi fashioned his own philosophy, Gandhi entertained his critics and always published their criticisms in his own newspaper. This was a man cut from a very different cloth. He was human, all too human. Padma has reduced him to a caricature. This takes us to the Kanchi pontiff who was a literalist and an avowed fundamentalist.

The Kanchi Pontiff

Even those who are disgusted by Padma's views approve the pontiff's views, which more faithfully resemble her views than that of Gandhi's. The excuse is that the pontiff, very reverentially called by devout Brahmins as 'Maha Periyavaa', was a religious head and was merely asserting what his scriptures told him. Varnashrama and support for caste are the most polite of the so called saint's causes unlike other causes that are practically repugnant.

Writing in 20th century Chandrasekharendra advocated child marriage as ideal to promote loyalty in the minds of women from childhood towards their husbands. To Gandhi varnashrama did not prohibit inter-dining but to the saint it did. In several writings he returns obsessively to not eating food served by everyone and even asked diners to be mindful of those who they ate alongside. Happily he compared ritual pollution of inter-dining to being infected by a disease. He abhorred women working.

Padma knows full well that if she just cited Chandrasekharendra she would've been brushed aside by non-Brahmins and therefore she used Gandhi as a Trojan horse to suggest, "here's the Father of the nation, a non-Brahmin and an emancipator speaking like my beloved Aacharyaa". What she lacks in honest understanding Padma compensates in deviousness. While Gandhi's views on varnashrama were superficially close to Chandrasekharendra it is the Aacharya who Padma really needed.

Chandrasekharendra Swamigal -- Maha Periyavaal

Building on her theme of differences she cites a shameful parable narrated by the Aacharya. The Aacharya, Padma says, ridiculed the idea of equality asking "if everything is equal can we replace sugar with salt in making a sweet". One has to specialize in Indian rules of logic to come up with such a stupid example to undermine the idea of equality. Recently another pontiff, oh there's no shortage of them, asked, how can we promote inter-caste marriage, is it not akin to two different animals marrying? Which school of logic do these guys attend?

It is the citing of that stupid parable that illustrates Padma's real intention and brings her closer to the Aacharya than to Gandhi. Padma, obviously does not and cannot practice everything that the Aacharya held dear. She's cherry picking much like how most of Tamil Nadu learned only one thing from E.V. Ramaswamy, passionately hating Brahmins.

When Padma bemoans Brahmins slipping from their ordained destiny she probably had in mind her bigamous father who was a movie director.

Why now? Why not ignore Padma?

The question why now, is easily answered. The current political climate is built on the bedrock of a revival of Brahminical hegemony. Turn wheresoever you may you'd find glorification of a fabled past, mostly with no truth or half-truth, that is invariably conflated with a Vedic age when Brahminical imperialism was at its apogee.

Do I believe every Brahmin cheers Padma and every Brahmin wants a return of varnashrama? Absolutely no. From the days of Gandhi till today there are Brahmins who also stand up to the forces of atavism and regressiveness. It is complete nonsense to tar all Brahmins with the same brush or to assume every Brahmin will only act like Padma does.

This is where Ambedkar and E.V. Ramaswamy adopted an implacable stance of animosity and committed the same sin they said they were fighting, meaning reducing a person to nothing beyond his or her birth. "The Bania", wrote Ambedkar, "is the worst parasitic class known to history....He is like an undertaker who prospers when there is an epidemic. The only difference between the undertaker and the Bania is that the undertaker does not create an epidemic while the Bania does".

Thousands of Brahmins, at great personal cost, rallied behind the world's most famous Bania, to fight untouchability. To the one Bania that Ambedkar loathed most, a fearsome Afghan Pathan was capable of non-violence as much as anyone else. The Mahatma never lacked for faults and he was wrong on several important questions but what he never lacked was an abiding faith in a fellow human being to surmount hate.

Why not ignore Padma? Padma is a force to reckon with in the Bharatanatyam field and, according to a friend, was the ultimate authority in awarding Ph.D's for most researchers in the field. As a prominent artiste in a field already plagued by casteism and bigotry she occupies a position of immense influence. Who knows how many students and researchers, possibly better than her, she ensured did not get the due because of who they are?

In any other decent society Padma would've become a persona-non-grata and would be shunned by institutions promptly, any apology notwithstanding. But, this is India. She has unleashed her poodles who are now flooding sanctimonious stories about how egalitarian she is. Universities, colleges and Sabhas will continue to honor her. When the grim reaper does come, we can be sure we'll be flooded with articles reminding us what a doyen she was and all this would be rarely spoken of.

It is stunning that a Brahmin lady practicing an art that never belonged to her ancestors happily talks of varnashrama. Lady, thou art the definition of the word, chutzpah. Shame on you.

References:

1. The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi - Ed. Judith Brown & Anthony Parel
2. Gandhi: A spiritual Biography - Arvind Sharma
3. Indian Critiques Gandhi - Ed. Harold Coward
4. Mahatma (Vol. 3 & 4) - D.G. Tendulkar
5. Missionaries and a Hindu State: Travancore 1858-1936 - Koji Kawashima
6. The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India - Rupa Viswanath.
7. The Essential Ambedkar - Ed. Valerian Rodrigues
8.  Kanchi Acharya on Inter-Dining
9. Who can we eat with - Acharya
10. Acharya on child marriage
11. Can women work
12. தெய்வத்தின் குரல்: "ஸ்த்ரீ ஆண் மாதிரி பதவி, உத்யோகம் என்று வெளியுலக விஷயங்களில் ஈடுபடாமல் வீட்டு நிர்வாகத்தை எந்தவித குறையும் இல்லாமல் கவனித்துக் கொள்வதையே தன்னுடைய பிறவிப் பணியாகவும், நல்ல ஸாதனா மார்கமாகவும் வைத்து கொள்ள வேண்டும். வீட்டையும் கவனித்துக் கொண்டு வேலைக்கும் போகிறோம் என்றால் இரண்டிலுமே அர்ப்பணிப்பு குறைந்து போகும். ஒருவேளை இரண்டையும் சரியாக செய்ய முடிந்தாலும் அது அவளுக்கு தர்மமாகாது. ஏனென்றால், பலதரப்பட்ட பிரச்சனைகளை அவள் சமாளித்தாக வேண்டும். இந்த இன்னல்களுக்கு ஆளாகாமல், ஸ்த்ரீயானவள் தன் தார்மீகப் பொறுப்பான குடும்பப் பொறுப்பை ஏற்று சிறப்பாக குடும்பத்தை வழி நடத்திட வேண்டும்"
13. Padma Subrahmanyam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padma_Subrahmanyam
14. K. Subramanyam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Subramanyam

The Poona Pact: Myths About Gandhi and The Calumnies. A few Random Thoughts.

No discussion of Gandhi raises as much passion as the Gandhi-Ambedkar confrontation that culminated on September 25th 1932 in the Poona Pact. This blog started as a response to a comment I saw on Facebook and is not a ccomprehensive or even coherent narration of the events related to that pact. I've merely, as the title states, shared a few thoughts. Random thoughts. 

The comment that triggered me to write said that Gandhi did not sign the Poona Pact and that showed he refused to take responsibility for a pact he engineered. 

For the millionth time I'll say this, feel free to reject Gandhi and the pact with your own rationale but don't interpret Gandhi through your lens of Ambedkarite hatred. That's like interpreting Ambedkar using Arun Shourie. Do unto others what you'd like others to do unto you.

Gandhi's life is all about taking responsibility and being accountable. There's not a single bone or cell in Gandhi's body that'd support evading responsibility. Whether it is asking a British judge to impose the maximum sentence or going on a fast to atone for the violence of some during a national agitation evading responsibility is simply not Gandhi. 

Gandhi and Ambedkar, at the time of the Poona pact, were leaders of different stature and different influences. Too much is made of Gandhi's stature and the conflict is presented as some David versus Goliath struggle with Ambedkar as David. 

Gandhi's Salt March (12th March - 6th April 1930)  had mobilized the nation, shaken the pillars of an Empire and attained worldwide attention culminating in, what Churchill memorably described, the "the one time inner-temple lawyer and now seditious half-naked fakir, a type well known in the East, striding up the steps of the viceregal palace and negotiation on equal terms with the King Emperor's representative". Gandhi negotiated with Irwin as the representative of a nation. Such moments thrill us into forgetting that barely within a few months of that pact Gandhi attended the Second Roundtable Conference (Sep-Dec 1931) where his representation of India was challenged by Ambedkar and others. While Churchill identified that Gandhi was becoming the voice of the nation let us not forget that too often his voice was challenged by other Indians, often to the glee of the Colonial regime. This is not to mean that those who dissented or stood against Gandhi were stooges of imperialism though such stooges did exist too. Certainly Ambedkar's motivations were different. 

Gandhi's halo of being a voice of the nation was very short lived. Gandhi, upon his return from Second Roundtable Conference, was diminished in stature and the regime conveniently arrested him on 4th January 1932. A month ago he was visiting the King and now he was a guest at His Majesty's jail. 

During the fast at Yervada on Sep 20th-25th 1932 India did reconnect with Gandhi emotionally. And that was the leverage Gandhi had over Ambedkar. However, that reconnection too frayed after the pact was signed when upper caste Hindu India was aghast at Gandhi and unleashed its fury on the Mahatma during his tour to eradicate untouchability. Gandhi's stature and his connection to India was as complex as the man himself. This is often missed. 

Ambedkar, certainly, was not, at that time, as nationally revered as Gandhi was and he was seen as the chief antagonist in the drama by many on the opposing side. However, he had his leverage too. Gandhi did NOT question the legitimacy of Ambedkar's representation of his people. If anything Gandhi only contested that he too was the representative of Dalits. Dalits can reject that but that was Gandhi's stance. During the negotiations the Ambedkar led faction remained dominant and disciplined. It is forgotten today that M.C. Rajah too had his own negotiations and Ambedkar refused to be aligned with him. 

The Poona negotiations, necessitated by Gandhi's fast and opposition to the separate electorate, were between upper caste Hindus that included Malaviya and Untouchables led by Ambedkar. It is unimaginable for Gandhi to have signed the pact on behalf of either party. The fast, despite what Dalits claim, was, at least in Gandhi's view, not against Dalits but for them in the larger sense and it was only against what he perceived as a scheme to perpetually segregate them from the mainstream of Hinduism. And as one who called himself a Dalit by choice it is inconceivable that he'd sign a pact as if he belonged to the other side. Whether he signed it or not he did not shy from the burden of what the pact meant and took the cause of Dalit emancipation to be above national liberation.

Dalits often bristle, with justification, at the idea of a Bania savior. But this is reality in India. Given the iron framework of casteism in India only a Gandhi could've even made a dent on behalf Dalits on the issue of caste. In 2019 a car driver of a backward caste refuses to step into the memorial at Keezhvenmani. This is the reality. Without Gandhi as ally Dalit cause would not have even made the progress that it did. In an analogous way it took a Kennedy and LBJ to turn MLK's dream into legislation. Hillary took heat for pointing that out. 

My good friend mentioned how Gandhi used fasting as a tool and almost was indignant that Ambedkar is being cast as one who took Gandhi to the  brink of his life. Whether one is a Gandhian or just an admirer of Gandhi if one understood Gandhi one would not fault, in the least bit, Ambedkar for what Gandhi inflicted upon himself. Both the upper caste Hindu panel and Ambedkar led untouchables negotiated almost with no thought of Gandhi dying though that possibility hung over their heads. And not a single leader in Gandhi's camp blamed Ambedkar for the possibility that Gandhi would die because the decision to fast was Gandhi's not Ambedkar's. 

Once the number of seats, 148, that'd be reserved was agreed upon the sticking point was the conduct of a referendum about whether the scheme was working or not. Ambedkar wanted 10 years to be the period after which the referendum was conducted. Gandhi felt that that was undue delay and became adamant on conducting a referendum within a year or at least 5 years. When Ambedkar dug in his heels Gandhi flung down the gauntlet "there you have it, 5 years or my life". 

Was Gandhi blackmailing Ambedkar? In the crude sense of the term absolutely yes. Gandhi knew full well what his death would mean and it was precisely that leverage he used. But then that is EXACTLY the leverage he used time and again whether his fasts were against the colonizer or his fellow Indians who wanted to kill each other. It was that leverage that prevented West Bengal from sliding into a civil war amidst a genocidal bloodshed. 

British viceroys were always irritated at Gandhi's pose of piety and felt it was a cloak for the shrewd Bania who negotiated with the tenacity of a haggler at a Persian bazaar. Dalits, today, are essentially hewing to that view and it is a patently uncharitable one. As uncharitable as Arun Shourie casting Ambedkar as merely a stooge of the Colonial government who wanted to thwart the nationalist struggle with his focus on narrow aims.

Whether it was his Calcutta fast or Poona fast Gandhi's attitude was always that, if he died fruitlessly because the outcome eluded him, it is what God ordained. Gandhi wrote farewell notes on the eve of the Poona fast. To his old friend Herman Kallenbach he wrote, "if god has more work to take from this body it will survive the fiery ordeal". During the Delhi fast, his last, to stamp down communal riots as his health declined when his physician Sushila Nayyar told him that  his kidneys were failing he replied, "then my faith in Rama is incomplete". As I type that I am only reminded of Christ at the Garden of Gethsemane, aware of the bloody ordeal about to befall him, pleading with his Father "take away this clip of sorrow. Nevertheless thy will not mine". 

The dynamic of Gandhi's fast should be understood before terms like 'blackmail' are used. Gandhi's fasts always were predicated on the faith that the other side, he did not think of them as enemies, will have a modicum of humanity and would relate to him in some corner of their heart. When Rajagopalachari, called Gandhi's 'conscience keeper', asked him, during the Calcutta fast, if he is embarking on a futile act against murderous thugs Gandhi replied that his fast was aimed at not the thugs but the hearts of those who manage the thugs. Gandhi would be the first to object to blaming Ambedkar if he had died in the fast. 

I also believe firmly that Gandhi, if he had had even a few breaths left in him, he'd have pardoned Nathuram Godse and possibly even thanked him for according the kind of death that he desired. Gandhi is not made of common clay.

Gandhi's tour of India campaigning against untouchability was epic in scope and reactions. Hindu India even in Gandhi's day had a more tenuous relationship with Gandhi than what is commonly understood today. To the upper caste Hindus Gandhi was a Mahatma as long as he was spouting pieties, chanting the name of Rama, singing Vaishnava Janato, calling on their better angels and above all directing his energies to toppling the colonial regime but whenever Gandhi deviated from the script by talking about reforms or eradicating untouchability or cleaning toilets used by untouchables they'd ether ignore him or reject him. This continues till today. This is the lot of any prophet in any age. This is true, ironically, even of E.V. Ramaswamy. Of all the things that E.V.R preached only his neo-nazi anti-brahmanism took root in Tamil Nadu and all his other causes, chiefly atheism, were thrown into the dustbin by those who call him their god today. Sanatana Hindus hurled abuses and even made attempts on Gandhi's life. Amongst the untouchables, the Mahars, members of Ambedkar's caste carried out black flag rallies against Gandhi. All that said that tour and the awakening it caused were the embers that inspired a free India to confront the problem of caste.

Did Gandhi need Ambedkar to teach him about the ills of untouchability? Not at all. But what Gandhi needed, and Ambedkar provided, at a historical juncture, was a catalytic alchemy that made Gandhi put the nationalist struggle on the back burner and turn to confronting a millennia old leviathan that was choking the body politic of India. At a crucial juncture Gandhi's efforts turned from merely liberating a nation to emancipating a people, all people, and making the goal of egalitarianism the goal of a nation that'd one day be free. 

People like Ambedkar have earned their place in history for giving history a nudge. While Gandhi had always talked against untouchability and the unfairness heaped on Dalits the Gandhi after Poona pact was a more radicalized Gandhi who put eradication of untouchability front and center of his liberation struggle. Without Ambedkar's nudge that'd not have happened. 

A Periyarist, a habitual hater of Gandhi, would often argue that if only Gandhi and Nehru had acceded to Jinnah's request of loose federalism partition could've been avoided. A nonsensical argument but guess who was against loose federalism. Ambedkar. Ambedkar was a key proponent of a very strong center in his role as architect of the Constitution of free India. Ambedkar distrusted federalism because he feared States would dilute the protections against untouchability. 

A full and impartial history of the Poona pact is yet to be written. Jaffrelot, for example, is blunt that Poona pact deprived Dalits of political power that, he is certain, Separate electorate would have given. This is now an article of faith amongst the naysayers or even those who could be academically objective. I find this to be a stretch. 

Political power eludes the Dalits but we're assuming that Separate electorates would've worked like a charm. That, in my opinion, is a leap of faith. I need more research but I'll say this for now, based on my American experience of Democracy, Separate electorates would've led to segregated constituencies enshrining a "separate but equal" phenomenon that was equal only on paper. Gerrymandering of constituencies would have literally ghettoized the Dalits. Even with separate electorates Muslims, thanks to Jinnah, clamored for Pakistan. It did not do much good in their own opinion. Democracy rests on the principle of representation of a peoples will through votes. How would free India have conducted elections that could be called representative democracy for separate electorates? Elections and representative democracy are a really wide subject and this aspect is often forgotten in the debates around Poona pact. 

Gandhi, to be fair, was not thinking of the above, because those objections I outlined were problems of later day American democracy. Gandhi's chief objection was that separate electorate would effectively sever Dalits from Hinduism. That fear was not without merit. This argument is used as a cudgel against Gandhi and casting him as an agent of upper caste Hinduism. This is bollocks. Ambedkar tossed and turned on the question of which religion to choose for Dalits for their en-masse conversion and eventually decided to not choose the obvious choices, Islam or Christianity, precisely because that'd be a more complete separation from Hinduism and he was not sure how many Dalits would follow. He then chose Buddhism which was often seen as birthed in the womb of Hinduism. Now, how many Dalits actually choose Buddhism? Not many. So is it fair to cast Ambedkar as wannabe protector of Hinduism who did not care what his  people really wanted? Of course not. 

The story of a nation coming into being is a complex one by itself and when the nation happens to one as complex as India, a nation like no other at that time, and even today, very complex choices were made by equally complicated people. More than unidimensional villains we come across a dizzying array of characters who came in many shades of villainy and heroism. Of those, Gandhi, Ambedkar and Jinnah, to name a few, take the prize for complexity in that order. 

Some day, hopefully in a few months, I hope to write a fuller account of the events leading unto and after the Poona pact taking into account wider questions of whether separate electorates would've really worked and Gandhi's actions. Oh, one final word, a Gandhi did sign the pact. It was Devadas Gandhi.

References:

1. Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India -- Joseph Lelyveld.

2. Gandhi: The years that changed the world - Ramachandra Guha

3. Dr. Ambedkar & Untouchables - Christophe Jaffrelot

4. Freedom at midnight - Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

Dalit Film and Cultural Festival: Voices of Oppressed. And some disappointments. Dalit Hatred of Gandhi

I've lived in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu for nearly 20 years till 1998, before leaving for USA and during my last visit in August 2015 posters announcing an upcoming commemoration of Immanuel Sekaran who was brutally murdered in one of the worst caste riots in Tamil Nadu in 1957. This was new.  The town of Keezhvenmani saw the worst massacre of Dalits in 1968 when 28 women and 16 children were burned alive. It took decades and the freedom of internet to get a decent documentary, 'Ramiah's hut', published. While both of those atrocities were well known they remained as folk lore and anecdotes with no possibility of wider attention. In this backdrop the recent political assertion of Dalits and the opening up of spaces where Dalit topics find expression is a welcome and long overdue change. One such happening was the Dalit International Film Festival that was held in Columbia University in February.

Dalit Film and Cultural Festival (DALIFF), held on Feb 23rd and Feb 24th, in New York City at Ambedkar's alma mater Columbia University was organized by US Ambedkarites. The festival featured the following on Feb 23rd when I attended: Pariyerum Perumal, directed by Mari Selvaraj; Kaala, directed by Pa. Ranjith, Paavsacha Nibandhan, a short film by Nagraj Manjule. The event featured panel discussion led by Suraj Yengde with Manjule, Ranjith and Niharikha Singh on the panel.

'Pariyerum Perumal' is a gritty telling of the bloody saga of honor killings in a village where Dalits and OBC's (Other Backward Classes) live cheek by jowl. 'Kaala', starring Rajinikanth and Nana Patekar, is known better for loading the movie with Dalit symbolisms, unseen in a Tamil movie until then, than for its cinematic narrative.

Pa. Ranjith (Image Courtesy 62475313.jpg)

Pa. Ranjith redefined caste portrayals in Tamil movies and particularly with portraying Dalit centric themes. Ranjith's political activism has colored both his supporters who swear by him and his detractors who swear at him. While neighboring Kerala is known for artsy movies Tamil Nadu's filmdom has only thrown up mediocrities like K. Balachander and overrated filmmakers like Balu Mahendra. K. Balachander, awarded India's highest honor for a film maker, the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, for a long time thought that capturing a plastic maudlin stage drama on celluloid is all there is to cinema. The problem with criticizing Ranjith's film making talent is that there is quite a crowd who do it out of animosity towards his caste and most importantly his politics. Many who disliked Kaala did so out of being peeved at his portrayal of a much loved and revered deity of Hinduism and Hinduism itself.

It is not uncommon to find Ambedkar statues in Tamil Nadu and across India in an iron cage to prevent upper caste rowdies from vandalizing it. Madurai and its neighboring areas burst into a caste conflagration just because the then government decided to name a transport corporation after a lower caste chieftain. Journalist Vaasanthi recounted how a boy of 10 years old told her that he'd not step foot in a bus named after a lower caste person. Even now as alliances are being stitched to face oncoming polls one of the major parties is stepping gingerly around the fact that a key partner is a Dalit party. Having a Dalit party in the alliance has the potential to alienate other voters particularly from the OBCs. This is not just an open secret but a openly talked factor in analyzing who'd romp home and why. In this context one has to appreciate the commercial difficulties and daredevilry in making a movie that features Ambedkar portraits liberally in scenes. Ranjith also featured figurines of Buddha in the scenes while mercilessly skewering Hinduism. All of that colored audience reactions. Whether Ranjith's movies are artsy or not is beside the point but one has to concede that he or his movies cannot be ignored.

Marathi filmmaker Nagraj Manjule shot to prominence when his debut short film Pistulya won the National Award for Best First Non-Feature Film of a Director (Sigh, really there's a category like that?) in 2010. Following that was his first feature film 'Fandry' which bagged the 'Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director. 'Sairat', released in 2016, was selected for Berlin International Film Festival. With such acclaim Manjule's 'Pavsacha Nibandh', 2018, a short film that drew from the circumstances of his own life was an easy choice for the festival.

Pavsacha Nibandh narrates the story of a boy in an impoverished village studying in a government run school. One day the class is assigned to write an essay on rain and it so happens that heavens pour forth in torrential rain that day over the village. The boy and his sister try to get home but their father who has the keys is missing and later found in drunken stupor on a roadside. Then mother and children lift him up and drag him home. Once home the boy still has no time to write the essay and instead has some chores and next day the teacher administers corporal punishment to the erring boy for not completing the home work while his classmates did. There the movie ends. I wondered what was the movie's message on caste because the boy was studying a government run school where his classmates are equally impoverished and if anything it is the alcoholism of the boy's father that makes his already difficult life become unbearable.

Nagraj Manjule (Image Courtesy _dada07d6-4966-11e8-b38d-ae9d3b5e5930.jpg) 

The audience probably had a heavy sprinkling of Tamils because of Ranjith and he was accorded a rousing reception when he took to the stage at the end of the screening of Pariyerum Perumal, a movie he produced. Suraj Yengde moderated a panel discussion. The panel honored P.K. Rosy, India's first Dalit actress.

Jayan Cherian, director of acclaimed movie ' Papilio Buddha', about Dalits of Western Ghats being displaced by the government, was critical of the caste environment of Kerala. Both Yengde and Cherian sought to completely discredit the notion that Kerala, being dominated by Left Wing politics and ruled by Communist party, was progressive and egalitarian. Cherian chided the casteism that's entrenched amongst Kerala's Christians. Y engde made a snide remark about Kerala 'supposedly' electing the World's first communist movement. That was uncalled for. Cherian and Yengde, echoing the resurgent Dalit movements today, spoke of Dalits embracing Buddhism. While Buddhism eschewed caste the lands where Buddhism reigns today are soaked in blood. I find this demonizing of Hinduism while ignoring the history of Buddhism as unfair to how religion, any religion, operates as an organization.

Nagraj Manjule spoke of the importance of Dalit voices adding a different perspective. While having a diverse demographics is supposed to bring diverse intellectual perspectives in any group the suggestion that reading Ramayan from Raavan's perspective will make Rama look like a villain is complete utter nonsense. Ram and Raavan are not interchangeable heroes like Hector and Achilles. It is this sort of chicanery that gets under the skin of even apolitical or progressive Hindus. Completely unnecessary provocation and it doesn't do justice to the idea of diversity.

Ranjith faced a softball query as to why the heroines in his movies were fair skinned. Ranjith defended the choices saying it is a stereotype to expect Dalit women to be dark skinned and that one of his own relatives was a fair skinned woman and was named 'Pappathiamma' (the word is a slang for a Brahmin woman). He also said that Easwari Rao, one of the lead women characters in Kaala, is of dark complexion and delivered a powerful performance. The answer is actually less than an answer. Why should a Dalit woman be named 'Pappathy'? Of course there's a stereotype that only a Brahmin lady can be fair skinned and that a Dalit being fair is exceptional and hence the name. Of course, this is my reasoning. As for Easwari Rao it appears Ranjith first approached Kasturi Shankar, a fair skinned actress and a Brahmin for the role. That Easwari gave a powerful performance and became spoken about is due credit to her but it is North Indian and very wheatish looking Huma Qureshi who plays the key role.

Asked about receiving financing for his ventures Ranjith said that he did face difficulties. It is possible his difficulties especially for his first few films were both because he was a newbie and due to the caste themes he wanted to portray.

Ranjith said he grew up reading novels and watching movies that depicted Dalits as artless and that irked him. His use of a hip-hop group in Kaala was highlighted by a fellow panelist. Hip-hop has achieved, in the US, a status of protest songs and that too was mentioned. This then begs the question of Ranjith's own portrayal of Dalits in his movies. A question was asked why his lead characters in Kabali and Kaala were negative portrayals, as dons. Ranjith demurred that in Kaala the character is not that of a don but a local powerful man protecting the interest of his people. This is hogwash. I too have wondered about the portrayal of Dalits in his movies. Even in the cultural center that he recently helped create only Parai, traditionally associated with Dalits, was featured and there was no space for, say, a Nadhaswaram, an instrument equally associated with other oppressed castes. And why not have an event featuring a Dalit carnatic musician?

Niharikha Singh, winner of some beauty contest and a Dalit, was the shocker for how much she was a misfit in the panel. Yengde framed a lengthy question for her literally putting words into her mouth by asking her supposed struggles as a woman in the beauty business and as Dalit woman at that. What a disappointment it must have been for him to hear her say that when she started out she did not speak of any identity and that she was just in it for her own survival. She also added, quite stupidly, "I look rich but I am not rich".

Suraj Yengde was the animating spirit of the festival exuding youthful cheer, the occasional irreverent  whistle and his unique hair style.

Suraj Yengde (Image Courtesy dscf3117eugenie_baccot_photography_c_2018.jpg)

India has, for a long time, had a wealth of literature portraying Dalit lives and concerns and an occasional movie here and there has done justice, perhaps, to such topics. It is a credit to Cherian, Ranjith, Selavaraj and Manjule that their movies are now mainstream and are presenting Dalit lives in an unvarnished manner. It is a testament to the Dalit movements that there is interest in Ambedkar's writings now beyond just passing familiarity of him as "their icon". The festival had displays of many books about and by Ambedkar. Sadly, they were only for display. The books included Government of India produced books.

So, what were my disappointments?

An earlier mini-session had my head spinning hearing comments like "can I speak in English? Will that be Brahminical?" and "oh sorry I started off in Hindi instead of Marathi, that was Brahminical". What nonsense is this?

First, Suraj Yengde. Yengde, Harvard's website says, is an "inaugural post doctoral fellow at the Initiative for Institutional anti-racism" as part of the Shoresenstein center. He is also referred to as "academic activist". Maybe Harvard doesn't realize that that's an oxymoron. Academics loose academic objectivity when they become activists and become less than academic. They become polemicists. Classic examples are Paul Krugman, a shill for the Democratic party now, and Cornel West, who has crossed from even polemics to being sheer agitprop. At least they have a body of work when they used to be just academics. Yengde is yet to produce any seminal work of note. I did wonder if he's helping Dalits or helping himself or being symbiotic in organizing festivals like these in Columbia and Harvard universities.

An interview by Ambedkar in 1955, is cited by Yengde as one in which he "debunks", Gandhi's, "faux admonition of hierarchy" and that "Gandhi wrote about egalitarianism in English while promoting the suppression of oppressed caste groups in Gujarati". This was Ambedkar at his venomous best, if one were to discount what he wrote when Gandhi was assassinated. Even Churchill was kinder to Gandhi. What Ambedkar was plainly false and venomous. He did not cite any evidence. Only social media warriors cite such quotes and smugly ask "so can you prove it is not so". When an academician cites such slip shod claims in an oped he's not just being an activist but a mischievous propagandist.

Gandhi did not lack critics in his own day. Many were bilingual and if he was a Janus faced hypocrite he'd have been mercilessly called out. The charge about Gandhi's support for Varnshrama is never, ever made, by citing him fully. But then Dalits, very unfortunately, have decided that to propagate Ambedkar they'd have to throw the kitchen sink at Gandhi.

I found Yengde's essay on Ambedkar's foreign policy, in a book he co-edited with Anand Teltumbde, to be abjectly shoddy work that was more interested in promoting conspiracy theories about Brahminical cabal controlling India's foreign policy than in outlining any coherent foreign policy articulated by Ambedkar, assuming there was one. Ambedkar, Yengde says, chided India's "colossal expenditure on building defense capabilities" as being at the behest of the "elite Brahminical class". This is laughably stupid. Gandhi was capable of stupidities and Ambedkar was equally capable. Only, in the case of Ambedkar, it is coupled with venomous hatred. Of Malcolm X an American documentary said, 'the hate that hate begets'.

Though I did not get to watch 'Papilio Buddha' at the Festival I watched it in Youtube.  The movie takes a genuine issue of land possession and freights it with unremitting hatred of Gandhi. Churn was being intellectually dishonest in using Joseph Lelyveld's book to allege Gandhi had homosexual relationships with Kallenbach. A character crudely says "I love Gandhi because...he can fuck a man too". Then towards the end Gandhi's effigy garlanded with slippers is burned. Gandhi cap wearing politicians come chanting and unleash a police lathe charge and in the melee a statue of Buddha is kicked around. Maybe Cherian can get the opinion of Rohingyas about Buddhists. Lelyveld titled his biography of Gandhi, "Great Soul" and delves in great depth into Gandhi's battles against untouchability. If Cherian had, in the movie, taken an unflinching look at casteism in Kerala churches he may have faced greater opposition.

Like Cherian, Ranjith is equally ignorant of history and has only consumed Ambedkar's propaganda. A chance 10-15 minute chat with Ranjith, with three others around, was interesting. Ranjith is truly animated about the topic of land owning privileges and how Dalits have defrauded of their privileges. That was the central theme of Kaala, too.

While the word 'Brahminical' is freely bandied on stage here, away from the podium, Ranjith was narrating about Dalit problems with OBCs in village after village. He bemoaned how one OBC caste controls the entire mom and pop retail shops in many cities. He listed several instances for several minutes about many castes that oppress Dalits. Hearing all that I interjected and asked him, "there is one caste you've not mentioned in this ten minutes, the Brahmins". My point was that the real problem for Dalits, in Tamil Nadu, is with OBCs and not with Brahmins. Then the bystanders, completely sympathetic to anything Ranjith would say and having been fed on Tamil Nadu's staple diet of anti-brahmanism, sparred with me.

Ranjith and the bystanders argued that they are only scolding 'Brahminism'. This is a shopworn lame excuse that the Dravidian party hate merchants use to slither their way out of them being spineless to criticize other castes, notably the Thevar or Vanniyar communities with which Dalits have the most problems in Tamil Nadu today. It is easy to scold Gandhi and Rajaji from a stage than to even murmur a word against Muthuramalinga Thevar or Dr. S. Ramadoss.

The group and Ranjith insisted that 'Brahminism' is only a label for a casteist attitude and that it applies to anyone who exhibits those. Let's not fool ourselves. The word 'Brahminism' is immediately associated with Brahmins as a community and no one, mentally, associates it, readily, with other communities like a community neutral word like "communism' or 'capitalism'. This intellectual dishonesty has to stop. Ranjith is either making an honest mistake or he's being mischievous.

Then I asked about Gandhi. Immediately the group let out a sarcastic chuckle to mean "are you even serious". Ranjith mentioned that Gandhi was unsympathetic to Dalits who were striking work at the Binny Mills. This is unmitigated nonsense. First of all, Dalits were not striking work but were 'strike breakers', meaning, they broke ranks with the striking workmen and went to work. This created a tension along the fault lines of caste. The strikers were trying to intimidate Dalits to join them. This is not very different from how african-american workers once excluded from unions were employer friendly. In that tense situation Gandhi was touring Tamil Nadu extensively. Here's Gandhi addressing a labor meeting on Sep 16th 1921:

I would ask you not even to go to them to wean them from their service. Believe me when they find that you exercise no pressure against them, they will of their own free choice and accord come to you. Nor will you consider that they are low caste and you are high caste.

It was the time of Khilafat agitation and prior to this the relationship between Dalits and Muslims had been poisoned leading to the Puliyanthope riots that resulted in loss of life. D. Veeraraghavan's well documented, "The Making of the Madras working class' also stresses how Gandhi sought to protect the Dalits from the strikers.

Remembering the short film 'Paavsacha Nibandhan' I asked whether Rajaji's championing of prohibition would be a good idea. Now, I was being mischievous knowing what emotions the name Rajaji would evoke. Immediately the phrase "ah. hereditary education guy" ( குலக் கல்வி) was pronounced. Of course that too was the result of a Goebbelsian propaganda by the Dravidian parties. Was Rajaji a devout Brahmin? That he was. But was he a casteist? Not at all. Absolutely no. Rajaji was deeply involved with the labor unions during the Binny strike. It was Rajaji who set animation the temple entry bills, starting of a bit cautiously, thus antagonizing Dalit leader M.C. Rajah, and then widening the scope during his first Chief Ministership of Madras Presidency.

Gandhi and Rajaji, any honest biographer or student of history would readily concede had their biases and blind spots. So does Ambedkar. Ranjith rounded off the discussion by asking me to read Ambedkar's "what have congress and Gandhi done for the untouchables". I've read it. Does it have justifiable criticisms, yes. Is it unsympathetic to what maybe good intentions that were not carried out well? Yes. Does it lob unfair accusations at Gandhi and Congress? That too, yes.

Pa. Ranjith bows to the political pressure in Tamil Nadu to acknowledge the patron saint E.V. Ramaswamy. Whether it is in the imagery of his cultural center or at this festival which Gandhi is freely lampooned E.V.R is revered. If Dalit intellectuals were honest they'd not do this. Immanuel Sekaran was murdered during the caste conflagration at Muthukulathur. Anyone who studies, honestly,  E.V.R's conduct during those riots and studies Gandhi's efforts at Naokhali and Calcutta will know the difference between a rabble rouser and a Mahatma.

As Muthukulathur teetered on the edge of bloody riots E.V.R pompously declared, "why would I send my black shirt army to Muthukulathur? Do I want them to die? Let these caste fight amongst themselves". Gandhi threw himself into the caldron of hatred at Calcutta and only two possible outcomes were acceptable to him, either peace returns to the city or he dies in the attempt to bring peace. Ranjiths, Yengdes and Cherians will never understand Gandhi. After the carnage at Keezhvenmani E.V.R released a stinging statement scolding, wait, hold on, not the real perpetrators, the Naidus, but Brahmins. This is who E.V.R really was.

Dalits, with justification, criticize Gandhi for prioritizing temple entry over access to education. Gandhi probably thought that if temple entry happens then the rest will be relatively easy. That aside there's merit in that criticism. But what was E.V.R's contribution? This was a man who never understood education or its value. Citing rising unemployment E.V.R nonchalantly tells an interviewer that he'd rather close down the colleges. Does this man have any moral right to scold C.Rajagopalachari?

The common entrance exam for Medical colleges, NEET, caused a furor in Tamil Nadu because of the death of Anita, a Dalit girl, who had scored good marks in the +2 exam but did not score enough in NEET exam. She committed suicide. Ranjith and many Dalits were angry at the test and government for implementing it. The exam was characterized as a conspiracy against Dalits. Of course there's absolutely no merit in that argument since other Dalits in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere had qualified. What no one thought of questioning was the pathetic state of education in Tamil Nadu (see my blog on NEET https://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/neet-exposes-tamil-nadus-shoddy.html ). Tamil Nadu leads the nation in education loans because the successive state governments, in E.V.R land, had completely abandoned educational sector to rapacious profiteers in private sector. It is easy to make a movie like 'Pavsacha Nibandh' but it requires honest discussion of issues and more ground level efforts to address real issues.

Can India do better for Dalits? Of course it can. Do Dalits experience unique oppressions? Yes they do. But is India a desolate Nazi state of oppression? Not at all. It is dishonesty to characterize India that way. That Cherian can make a movie mocking Gandhi as homosexual and portray an effigy of Gandhi being burned and have India's censor permit it, shows that Dalits have their spaces and freedoms too. Likewise for Ranjith's Kaala that demonizes a religion and a much revered God and yet becomes a block buster. Yengde gushed that Manjule only has to make a movie or a short film and the awards come calling.

It is time hateful rhetoric is eschewed. If one does not know how to criticize without being hateful then it is tragic. Criticize Brahmins all you want when it is they who are oppressing or instituting exclusionary practices, as in Carnatic music but to simply weasel out of criticizing other communities by using a convenient label, 'Brahminical', is dishonesty that'll only serves to protect the true oppressors. The words 'Brahminism' and 'Brahminical' have a place in academic discourse but it should used with care and academic precision. That 'Brahminical patriarchy' placard is, again, laughably stupid. Patriarchy exists in every culture and society. Brahmins did not invent it. Don't credit them with everything and bemoan later that they think they invented the world.

A much needed attention to Dalit issues and forums to express their issues are now being available. Let there be no whitewashing. Be unsparing about the iniquities and the oppressions but spare a thought for real issues and real solutions.


References:

1. Panel Discussion Recording https://youtu.be/MAyOBcE1rKU
2. Immanuel Sekaran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuvel_Devendrar
3. Keezhvenmani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilvenmani_massacre
4. Suraj Yengde's Harvard profile https://scholar.harvard.edu/surajyengde/about
5. Suraj Yengde's column ' Perils of Gandhiplomacy' https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/perils-of-gandhiplomacy-mahatma-gandhi-statue-india-independence-3058820/
6. Pa. Ranjith's Anti-Brahminism (Tamil blog) https://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/blog-post.html
7. My blog on why i reject E.V.R (Tamil blog) https://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2017/11/blog-post.html
8. My blog on E.V.R (Tamil blog) https://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2017/09/blog-post.html
9. Papilio Buddha movie (with English sub-titles) https://youtu.be/EHm1v0vrOWU
10. Pistulya https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovimYnrk07o
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagraj_Manjule
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._K._Rosy
13. Pa. Ranjith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pa._Ranjith
14. http://icls.columbia.edu/events/dalit-film-and-cultural-festival-daliff/
15. Pavsacha NIbandh https://youtu.be/SV9NPeAybN0