Hariram A
Stagnation is the sign of death and dynamism is the sign of life, change is permanent and it is the law of nature. India for centuries was under stagnation and stinking with the presence of the corpse of caste and gender discrimination. Man is evil and selfish, but nature is not. The revolt against the stagnation begun by Buddha and was followed by Phule, Shahu, Ambedkar and Kanshiram. There was always conflict and friction between stagnation and dynamism throughout the history in the name of Dharma and Adharma, where dharma meant following the principles laid down in Manusmriti by Sumati Bhargava and Adharma meant negation of Manusmriti. Later, in modern India, it was Swarajya V/s Prajarajya , where Swarajya propagated by Tilak-Gandhi-Nehru was about transfer of political power from the clutches of British to the Brahminical leadership, whereas Prajarajya propagated by Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar was about transferring power into the hands of the people.
Both the Swarajists and Prajarajists were equally successful as Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar, the proponent of Prajarajya, was 50% successful by drafting the Constitution of India with the principles of Secularism, Justice, Equality, Liberty and Fraternity, and he was 50% failure as he could not go the legislature with his people where it is supposed to be implemented. The Swarajists led by Gandhi was also 50% successful as they could dominate the legislature with the people of Manuvadi mindset in independent India through the Congress party, but they were also 50% failure as they could not prevent Babasaheb from drafting the Constitution and they also failed in re-establishing the Manusmriti as a law of independent India.
Post-independence India had to face a very complex situation as it was pushed into contradictions, that is, where the Pro-people and Pro-development constitution came into force but the power of implementing this constitution went into the hands of people who were anti-people, anti-development and anti-change. People at the helm of affairs wanted to fail the constitution and wanted to place Manusmriti as a de facto constitution. Though, democracy was established by the constitution, the emergence of the chamcha age after the Poona Pact in 1932 led to the emergence of chamchas, or stooges, who became tools in the hands of Manuvadi political parties against their own community and India. With this, the status-quoists wearing the veil of secularism, socialism, gandhism and communism started gaining the momentum and the movement of social transformation was put to the back seat as there was a vacuum in leadership after the death of Baba Saheb Ambedkar in 1956.
But in 1970’s there was a resurgence of the social transformation movement under the able leadership of Manyavar Dadasaheb Kanshiram in Maharashtra; but he understood the hurdles in Maharashtra and he shifted his political laboratory to Uttar Pradesh, the hotbed of brahminism. Very soon, his movement started gaining momentum and people began to accept him as the messiah. He got national recognition for his movement and floated a political party, Bahujan Samaj Party, on 14th April 1984 and soon, it was able to form the government in Uttar Pradesh under the chief ministership of Behen Mayawatiji for four times.
In 2007, BSP was able to get the referendum from the people with absolute majority and formed the government on its own. She successfully completed her 5 year term doing tremendous work towards the upliftment of the Bahujan Samaj. With this she also became a cause of heartburn for the status-quoists and they ganged up against her. Everyone from legislature, executive, judiciary, media and corporates started targeting her as she became a thorn to their aspirations, as she had ignited the people and became the pride of bahujan samaj. She was defeated in the 2012 elections with money-media-mafia-corporate nexus. Everyone believed that it was the last nail hit to finish the movement, and it’s the end of the movement and Behen Mayawati.
This brought all the manuvadis together to complete their unfinished task of establishing Ram Rajya, a society based on Manu Shastra which upholds inequality and hatred. They decided to support their agenda under the leadership of Mr Narendra Modi and brought him to power at the centre in 2014. They began to execute their long pending agenda through the Sangh Parivar, with the persecution of Dalits, Muslims and Adivasis, Their other political outfit, the Congress, remained a mute spectator to the pogrom led by BJP as they were also very happy as this is what they were waiting for. With the Muzzafarnagar, Haryana, UP, Una and MP incidents, the whole nation was awestruck and watched all the political parties and leaders – none of whom had the guts to question and rise against the atrocities. This led to the rise of a new conflict between Pseudo-Nationalism and Democracy. This is the third direct confrontation between manuvadis and bahujans in India.
These developments made Behen Mayawati to emerge as the true warrior and savior of the bahujan samaj and democracy. The whole nation witnessed her commitment and wit, everyone stood with her and accepted that she is the kind of a leader which India wants now. She is the only person who can defeat pseudo-nationalism and protect democracy. She rose like a phoenix and the whole nation feels that the time has come for change, it also understood that the man with 42 inch shoulder can only bring intolerance and hatred and push the nation backwards. It is only the person with the motherly heart who can establish an enlightened India. Only Buddha and Ashoka with their motherly hearts could make the world respect India, it is the desire of every Indian to have a Buddha Bharata not Manu Bharata. Everyone needs Ambedkar Nationalism not Gowalkar Nationalism. When India is in a deep crisis due to poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, malnourishment, casteism, communalism and gender discrimination, our ruling class is least worried about it. They are least bothered to protect the people and create an environment where everyone can lead a dignified life. Instead, they are more worried and concerned with Gou rakshan, Dharma rakshan and Psuedo-nationlaism.
When the whole world is moving ahead, we are the only nation which is moving backward. India is in transition, it is left to us to decide whether to move ahead or move backward. It is the time to protect our hard earned democracy, it is the time to uphold the constitution, it is the time to stand for the nation and the cause, if not now then never. Time has come to move away from the chamcha age and move towards self-assertion. Let us keep aside all our personal agendas and ambitions and strive to give back to society to whom we owe, let us not allow the sacrifice of our ancestors go in vain as they struggled and sacrificed everything, even, their lives, not, for their personal interest, but, for the nation. We can see the hope and the path of liberation before us, the dream of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the purpose of us becoming literate, educated and self–reliant. It is just waiting for us to embrace it and fulfill a long cherished goal of establishing Prabuddha Bharat, India without any sorrow and pain.
We should stop glorifying the past and worshipping our ancestors. Instead, we have to work towards the fulfillment of their ideals and purpose. We are suc fools: even if Buddha and Babasaheb Ambedkar comes before us and tell us that they are back to finish their unfinished task, we would ignore them and abuse them and fail to follow them. This is the paradox, the manuvadis understand their leaders and simply follow their leader to fulfill their destructive and inhuman ambitions, but, we fail to succeed. Though our philosophy and purpose is positive and constructive, we fail to realize it, because we fail to identify our leader. Whereas the philosophy and purpose of manuvadis is negative and destructive but they succeed in realizing it because they succeed in identifying their leader and support them.
We have killed our own leaders with our ignorance and ego, we did not accept Buddha, Phule, Shahu, Ambedkar and Kanshiram when they were alive, we did not listen to them, we did not follow them. We wanted them to die to hang their portraits on the walls and worship and praise them. Every generation has failed in identifying their emancipators; we claim to be more learned, intelligent and sensitive but we fail to prove so with our actions. The educated class which was supposed to be the enlightened class has become the most ignorant class, hence it is reflected in our society. We have not failed only ourselves, we have failed the whole society, the blame has to be taken by us, we cannot blame the ignorant class as they are the result of our ignorance.
If the minority miseducated manuvadis could miseducate the majority masses and make a hero out of a villain and make him the prime minister of India and ruin this country, why can’t we the educated bahujans educate the majority masses and help them in identifying their real leader? And tell them that it is only the Iron lady Mayawati who can save us from destruction? She has proved her mettle being a chief minister of UP four times, she could create self-respect and make the people self-reliant. She did not only sloganeer, she proved with her actions – she distributed 1.2 crore acres of land to landless farmers, introduced 30% reservation in the private sector for OBC/SC/ST/ Minorities and poor amongst the upper castes, atrocities were brought to a standstill, the social and economic status of bahujans was raised and this was ultimately responsible for bahujan assertion. She could create miracles which all the governments and leaders had failed to do in the last 70 years – what else should she do to prove herself, to convince us, when we can accept chamchas, who have literally done nothing for this nation or bahujan samaj as our leaders!
What stops us from accepting Behen Mayawati who has sacrificed her life for us, as our leader? Is it our hypocrisy or ignorance? Which is stopping us? Opportunity knocks the door only once, but for us, it has knocked our doors many times, but we failed to open it and embrace it. Maybe, this could be the last knock. So it is left to us to embrace it and free ourselves from oppression or show our back to it and remain in slavery for ever. Behen Mayawatiji is the only ray of hope and Ambedkarism is the only path of liberation. We were in deep slumber, now we know that we have the strength of an elephant, which nobody can stop, so let us be an elephant and let us awaken the rest of the elephants and let all the elephants march together to realize the dream of Babasaheb Ambedkar. Let us save Democracy and save India
Jai Bheem.
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Hariram A is an Assistant Professor and the Coordinator of BVS (Bahujana VIdyarthi Sangha) Karnataka.
