Problems like poverty, social mobility, liberty, etc. take time to find the solution for them. It’s not that they cannot be solved easily, but the ruling community or the Government is not so concerned about bringing the positive change. For Government, the slower the rate of change, the more they enjoy their stability, the more they get time to loosen the progressive movement. What one needs in the times of depression, is a story, a completely different narrative that can enable them to dream.
Before Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the Dalit movement was moving slowly. Though the movement was ignited by Mahatma Phule, the movement was halted till the rise of Chhatrapati Shahu and then the rise of Babasaheb. The life story of Babasaheb provided a different narrative to the entire Dalit movement. Look at this: a boy belonging to the untouchable caste gets himself educated though is forced to sit outside the class, gets the scholarship for higher studies, goes abroad, does his Ph.D., D.Lit. and earns laureates for him, comes here to find the unchanged society, and then devotes his entire life to understanding the reasons for the problems and then finding the solutions. This story is enough to make a Dalit jumped into the fire of Dalit movement. And this has proved effective in producing thousands of Dalit activists all over the country.
But in the recent times, Babasaheb was caged in the barriers of castes. There are more Open Class people who do not like him than Schedule Class people who represent his ideology, and this has happened because the Anti-Babasaheb forces changed their narration from untouchability to anti-reservation campaign. Reservation has been made a new issue to create more Ambedkar haters. Teachers in the schools too while teaching social studies have been giving wrong information about the entire Reservation policy. It is sounding same the way Babasaheb Purandhare’s books on Shivaji Maharaj create more Muslims haters that Shivaji followers.
What can be done to create the same movement that was ignited once upon a time by Babasaheb? We have to change the narrative; we must have a story to be told.
Presenting Babasaheb as a secular figure can be one of the ways to change the narrative. Most of the time, Dalit’s discuss Babasaheb as a God who liberated them and who challenged Brahmins and scared them to hell. It has been seen that they hardly talked about Babasaheb’s views on self-employment, on raising the standard of living, on educating yourself and the people around you, on devotion towards fulfilling the dream, his passion towards education and learning, his understanding of the socio-political context, his planning and execution and so on. This is the need of the hour.
It is a high time to stop presenting Babasaheb as anti-Gandhian. I am proud to say that Babasaheb was far better than Gandhi, but pitting him against Gandhi is again making the entire Dalit movement narrative go wrong. Ambedkar wasn’t against Mahatma Gandhi. Because saying that Ambedkar was against Gandhi, who was a nationalist according to most of the people, would suddenly put Babasaheb into the negative zone. Babasaheb was against Gandhi’s views on the annihilation of castes system. Babasaheb wasn’t against Gandhi’s independence movement. Comparing and contrasting Babasaheb and Gandhiji would be the right narrative for this movement.
It is seen that there are many Dalit youngsters who want to be the part of mainstream politics (especially local politics). These are the ones who are not interested in learning, who leave schools and colleges and who work for daily wages. The desire to be rich without doing any hard work, and following some politicians, makes these youngsters choose the wrong path. They have customized Babasaheb (they use Babasaheb’s name only for their benefit). Can such youngsters be brought into the mainstream learners’ category that is haunted by completing his education and settling himself as early as possible?
It is a high time we have to change the narrative of Dalit movement. Presenting Babasaheb not as an individual but as a concept that affects this country’s socio-eco-political aspects would be a great narrative.  |
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