Paras Kumar
On the 5th of October, Rajendra Pal Gautam, the minister of social welfare in the NCT Delhi Government, attended the Buddha Dhamma Deeksha Samaroh event, which was organised by Mission Jai Bhim and the Buddhist Society of India on the occasion of Ashoka Vijaya Dashmi, at which hundreds of Dalits embraced Buddhism. Gautam and other attendees at the event repeated the 22 vows first proclaimed by BR Ambedkar to renounce Hinduism and embrace Buddhism. This sparked protests and attacks from BJP members and supporters against Gautam for allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments. They claim that the Hindu sentiments were hurt because the vows included a promise to boycott the worshipping of Hindu deities.
As the attacks on Gautam continued, portraying him as a Hindu hater, Bharatiya Janata Party members and supporters demanded Gautam’s resignation and began targeting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as well. On October 8, during his visit to Gujarat for the election campaign, Kejriwal faced a protest from BJP supporters who accused him of being anti-Hindu. The controversy took a new turn on October 9th, when Gautam resigned from his position as Delhi minister. Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta termed his resignation a ‘victory for Hindus’. While Ambedkar’s grandson, Prakash Ambedkar expressed his support for Gautam, and in a tweet, he wrote, “The AAP is no longer secular or supportive of religious tolerance, but rather a fervent supporter of Vedic Hindu religion and an opponent of Buddhist philosophy and Saints Dharma.”
It is ironic that Kejriwal, who claims to be fulfilling Ambedkar’s dream of uplifting Dalits, has failed to take a firm stand for his Dalit Minister, who has repeatedly faced online harassment, hatred, and attacks from the right wing. On the one hand, CM Kejriwal is continuously celebrating Ambedkar’s image through events such as a grand musical show held a few months ago that was prominently advertised throughout the city, as well as making repeated references to Babasaheb in his speeches. “The Delhi government will walk the path shown by Babasaheb Ambedkar and Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, and their vision will forever inspire us,” Kejriwal said on Independence Day, adding, “I am happy that the Delhi government is trying to fulfill the dreams that Babasaheb and Bhagat Singh saw for our Indian society. Not one government in the last 75 years tried to walk on the path shown by Dr. Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh.”
On the other hand, he failed to take a stand for his Dalit minister for the fear of losing his ground among the Hindus voters. Instead of taking a critical stance against the politics of the BJP, he seems to be intimidated to be categorised as anti-Hindu. As a result, he is constantly painting himself as a more radical Hindu than the BJP. The responsibility and solidarity that a top leader is supposed to show to his ministers, especially when there has not been any violation of constitutional moralities, has not been seen from Kejriwal. Instead, Kejriwal has conceded to the pressure and demands of the BJP. But is it really the pressure from the BJP? Or is Kejriwal himself playing the Hindu card? In recent times, he has been seen proclaiming himself as a true Hindu: for example, demanding that Goddess Lakshmi and God Ganesh be printed on Indian currency notes. Kejriwal has preferred to cater to the demands of the BJP so that it does not show AAP as a party that is against Hindu culture and politics.
What is more important is that the events for which Gautam has been under attack, i.e., the mass conversion of people to Buddhism, are guaranteed by the constitution of India as a fundamental right–to follow and choose any religion and that includes the right to voluntary conversion as well. Ambedkar himself converted to Buddhism through these 22 vows, and they have been repeated in many events of Dalit conversion to Buddhism ever since. Isn’t it expected that as a proclaimed supporter of Ambedkar and also a defender of the Constitution, which Kejriwal has repeatedly been claiming to be, he must stand with his Dalit Minister who actually followed the path of Ambedkar and did nothing wrong in law? Failure to do so shows that Kejriwal, who bragged about putting the pictures of Ambedkar in his office, just wants to get the votes of Dalits and the underprivileged sections of society. Ambedkar has just become a figure for Kejriwal and even for the BJP as a tactic to incorporate into their politics to gain the support of the underprivileged. The radical and progressive aspects of Ambedkar’s politics have been side-lined and deliberately ignored.
With the recent controversy and developments, it is clear that there has been a right-wing Hindutva tendency in Kejriwal’s politics. The Aam Aadmi Party has started to move out of its stronghold of Delhi to pursue its goal in other parts of the country. With its recent victory in the Punjab elections, it has established itself as an alternative to the Right-Wing BJP, through a mixture of soft Hindutva while also claiming to follow figures like Bhagat Singh and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. I argue that such a mixture is not only strengthening and giving legitimacy to the Hindutva form of politics through the incorporation and appropriation of radical figures like Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh, but it is also further deradicalizing their ideologies. The ideologies of Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh, are a symbol of radical resistance against both caste and class oppression in our entrenched unequal society.
Ambedkar was virulently against caste-Hindu structures and rituals, Bhagat Singh was an atheist and a socialist, who also denounced the Hindu order. By deradicalizing them, Kejriwal tends to suppress their ideas, which can be used to potentially challenge Hindutva politics. Instead, he chooses to placate Hindu sentiments thus expecting to gain from the BJP vote base. AAP’s politics of appropriation is not only to incorporate these radical figures within its fold but eventually to successfully deradicalize them so that they don’t pose any potential threat. Kejriwal’s alternative provides a mechanism to wash away the radical imagination of these figures. The alternative actually does not challenge mainstream Hindutva politics; it is just another version of the BJP that seeks to mainstream politics towards the Hindutva imagination.
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Paras Kumar is doing his Master’s in Political Studies from Jawahar Lal Nehru University. He is interested in the politics of Class, Caste, Gender, and Sexuality.
