Ambedkar’s view on the exclusivist tendency of Indian Muslims to create a separate community for themselves is something which is often quoted by Indian RW authors as a great counter to Liberals.
In the term ‘liberals’ above, leftists are by default included here. My focus is not much on the content of Ambedkar’s view on such topics but their utility from the narrative perspective. Ambedkar’s views on Hinduism and its social system were vitriolic as we know.
However, many members of the Indian RW believe that by emphasizing the views of Ambedkar on Islam and Muslim society, they will put liberals in a difficult position where they will have to explain why they don’t subscribe to these views of Ambedkar if they accept him otherwise.
The intention seems nobel but betrays an understanding of the narrative. For any thinker or political figure, there is often a group of people who carry forward their intellectual legacy in the form which they desire and it’s built on a careful selection of their ideas.
In this process, contradiction is either hushed or deliberately concealed because it’s not central to their narrative. This group gets a monopolistic hold on how the thinker in question will be known and which aspects will be highlighted. A different interpretation is unwelcome.
In the case of Ambedkar, a careful narrative has been crafted in which he is a great champion of social equality, an able crusader against the caste system and formidable opponent to hierarchical Hinduism. Other aspects of his thought are immaterial.
Ambedkar had made his contributions to the field of economics and law but his intellectual legacy in these domains is virtually nonexistent. On the other hand, his legacy as a social revolutionary is well recognized.
It’s not only with Ambedkar but also with Gandhi. The Gandhians after the death of Gandhi promoted everything in the name of Gandhianism as long as it kept the image of Gandhi as the champion of communal harmony, secularism and nonviolence intact.
Other aspects of Gandhian thought such as his recognition of the importance of Dharma in politics, opposition to industrialization, self-reliance of villages were stymied. Dharmapala, a well known Gandhian thinker was intellectually pushed to the margin because he didn’t fit in.
I can cite similar examples with Western thinkers such as the Neo-Straussians who carried forward the legacy of Leo Strauss in the US. But that’s immaterial. The key point remains that the image of Ambedkar is more or less fixed after the efforts of decades.
If we didn’t have any thinkers who would have criticised Islam in Indian context, the desperation for promoting Ambedkar’s view on this topic would have made sense. But, we have a long list of Indian thinkers who have done a much better critique without his baggage.
Thus, promoting Ambedkar’s views on this subject only to put liberals in the state of dilemma doesn’t work because they have carefully fortified themselves against such aspect of Ambedkar’s thoughts. Indian RW has no intellectual strength to undo this without hurting themselves.
There is another important aspect related to Ambedkar which we need to discuss – his veneration amongst all the major political parties. This veneration is driven by how politics operates in a democratic setup with strong group identities.
Political parties often utilize the existing social realities as tools of mobilization because it’s not possible to create new grounds of mobilization in many situations. As things stand today, a large section of people from scheduled caste consider Ambedkar as their leader.
For any political party, this is a readymade block which can be used for their mobilization if they celebrate and promote Ambedkar. BJP’s emphasis on Ambedkar should be seen from this context as it seeks to expand its support base amongst the SCs.
Currently, BJP doesn’t have any other leader from these communities which could mobilize people electorally. There has been an attempt to create quasi-heroes such as Raja Suhaldevi Pasi from Baharaich where RSS used to organize annual fair.
But, these heroes are from remote past and not much helpful in the current political climate where communities ask for tangible economic and social benefits. Ambedkar is a kind of necessity for the political parties unless one wants to take the long arduous path.
(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread posted by @satoverma on April 14, 2024, with minor edits to improve readability and conform to HinduPost style guide)
