Resignation

Dr. Ambedkar was deeply hurt by the bigotic attitude of Hindu leaders. He was utterly frustrated. So much so that in September, 1951 he resigned from the post of Law Minister and from the membership of the Parliament. The resignation letter was sent to the Prime Minister Nehru. Nehru had to accept the resignation with a sad heart under pressure of other colleagues. Dr. Ambedkar wanted to explain the reasons for his resignation in the Parliament session. But the speaker refused the permission.
It was 11th October, 1951. As soon as the speaker addressed him “Honourable Minister” Dr. Ambedkar rose up to interrupt, “I am no more any Honourable Minister. So, don’t say that.” And he walked out of the parliament session.
In such anguished mind and bitter atmosphere Dr. Ambedkar felt suffocated. Even the air of Delhi felt poisoned to him. He left for Bombay.
In Bombay, he didn’t sit inactive. Inspite of the frustrations he tried to further the cause of the scheduled castes and other backwards in whatever way he could. He was no quitter.
Now he set his sights on 1952 general elections for the Parliament and began preparing for it. He decided to lead and organise the election campaign of his party. He joined his forces with Socialist Party. The alliance of that party with his Scheduled Caste party strengthened their campaign. But he again became victim of the caste hatred and lost the election. But this defeat could not defeat his will power and morale. He soldiered on regardless of the setbacks.
In March, 1952 Dr. Ambedkar got elected to the Upper House (Rajya Sabha). He declared his candidacy when by-election for Lok Sabha seat of Nagpur was held. The Congressmen didn’t like it. They pitted their own candidate against him. It should be noted that Congress never put up candidates against Acharya Kriplani and Ashok Mehta although they too were bitter critics of the Congress policies. They never showed that generosity to Dr. Ambedkar.
Such attitude of the Congress and Hindus broke the heart of Dr. Ambedkar. He had no more desire to continue to be a Hindu.
He expressed his anguish in following words—‘On the strength of the upper caste majority the Congress and Gandhiji destroyed my and my party’s political future.’
All through his political campaigns Dr. Ambedkar kept writing articles and books. Some of his books are as following:
1. Manifesto—Scheduled Caste Federation
2. Need for Checks and Balance
3. Buddha and his Dharma
4. Castes in India
5. Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah
6. What Congress and Gandhi have done for the untouchables?
7. Who were Shudras
8. The Untouchables
9. Buddha and the future of his Religion.
10. Thoughts and Linguistic States. etc. etc.
On untouchables he had written several innovative ideas about their origin.
Who are untouchables and why? He says—
Besides Shudras Hindu civilisation has given birth to three other social groups which have not been give due consideration. The three groups are:
1. Criminal castes whose population is 2 crore strong.
2. Tribals who are 1.5 crores.
3. Untouchable tribes having 5 crore members.
The existence of above tribes is a matter of speculation. If Hindu civilisation is evolver of above sections then it is no civilisation at all. It is Satans’ conspiracy to enslave the humanity. It is fit to be called ‘Sataniation.’ What else can you call a civilisation that breed such people in such large numbers. The criminal tribes tell their members that committing crimes was their Dharma, a sacred duty. The second group is left alone to perpetuate their premitive barbarism. The third group is of untouchables who are virtually ostracized by the main society.
Had any other country been populated by such groups the citizens of that country certainly would search their souls to find out what is going on or what they are.
But a Hindu is immune to such reaction. He does not think that existence of such groups was any cause of shame or apology for him. He is not regretful and does not bother to find out or search the origin and development of such groups.
On the other hand every Hindu is brainwashed to believe that his culture is the best in the world and his civilisation the most ancient with many unique features. A Hindu never tires of singing praises of his culture. Hindu civilisation is very ancient, let us concede. But how is it unique civilisation? Some people may not like the question. The only thing unique about it is the three castes that sit upon it in pyramid fashion acting as the head of Hindu civilisation.
So, needless to say that Hindu culture is unique indeed. No one would disagree. I wish Hindus understood that it is not matter of pride. Infact is matter of great shame.
The false belief in Hindu culture being the best, the wisest and the holiest is due to the strange social mindset of Hindu scholars.
All the wisdom is supposed to be concentrated in Brahmins. But no Brahmin ever did anything like Voltaire did.
Voltaire was mentally honest, that is while he rebelled against the Church that fostered him. We can’t ever hope any Brahmin emulating Voltaire. The biggest achievement of Brahmins is that they never produced any Voltaire to confront the truth. No wonder, Brahmins are only Pundits. They are no thinkers. The pundits care for the selfish interests of their own class only. But a thinker acts freely without caring for self interests.
Let us look at it from another angle. Why did not Sultan of Turkey destroy the religion of Islamic world? Why didn’t any Pope criticize Catholic religion? Why didn’t British Parliament pass the law to slay all the blue eyed babies? The answer is the same as to the question of why Brahmins didn’t produce Voltaire. It should be accepted that a man’s behavior is shaped by his own or his group’s vested interests.
The power and position that a Brahmin enjoys in Hindu society in due to Hindu civilisation that considers him super human and puts severe restrictions on lower classes to prevent them from questioning the superiority of Brahmins. So it in natural that whatever a Brahmin in whether orthodox or progressive, priest or family man, pundit or idiot, for him keeping up the status of Brahmins serves his purpose. How could any Brahmin be a Voltaire? If one does he will prove destroyer of the culture that is created merely to perpetuate the delusion of Brahmin superiority.
Consider following facts : (1) Why do untouchables live outside villages? (2) Why did beef eating become cause of untouchability?
(3) Did Hindus never eat beef? Why did non-Brahmins stop eating beef? (4) Why did Brahmins turn vegetarians?
My opinion is that (1) There is no racial difference between Hindus and untouchables.
(2) Before the birth of the practice of untouchability the only difference was that of Hindus and broken men from other groups. These broken men became ‘untouchables’ later. (3) Just like racial difference is no basis for the untouchability similarly difference of occupations is not its reason.
(4) The untouchability was born out of two causes :
(a) The hatred of Brahmins towards the broken men from Buddhist groups.
(b) The continuation of beef eating by the broken men even after others had given it up.
(5) In our quest to find the origin of untouchability we must be careful not to mix up untouchable and unholy. The orthodox Hindu writers have mixed them up. It is a mistake. The untouchable and unholy are different categories.
(6) According to a class unholy people had come into existence shortly after the scriptures were written. But the untouchables came into existence much after 400 AD. My researches led me to this discovery.
The principle set by a famous historian states—The duty of a historian is to separate false from truth, uncertain from certain and doubtful from acceptable. A historian must sit on the events as if he were an impartial judge trying a case. He must only take into account the statements of witnesses and feel the general layout of an event and the given verdict even if it does not agree with the statement of the first person.
Most of the events may be known, all the advices may be valuable and important, but when a historian does not find vital link, what should he do? What is the option when connecting episode between two events is not available?
Should he stop his work? I don’t think so. My own opinion is that it gives the historian a liberty to use his creative mind and insight to visualise the missing link to complete the sequence with reasonable credibility. I have followed the same historical principal in propounding my theory on the origin of the untouchability.’