Since the BJP came to power in 2014, Ambedkar and the Constitution have become important symbols in Indian politics in two ways. On the one hand, the BJP tries to capture the Dalit cultural imagination by celebrating Ambedkar Jayanti and 26 November as Constitution Day, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi participating on these occasions.

On the other hand, the opposition parties use the image of Ambedkar and the Constitution as a symbolic protest against Hindutva majoritarian politics, claiming that democratic institutions are completely manipulated by the ruling regime.

However, it is the continuous assertion of Ambedkarite political parties and organisations that sustains Ambedkar’s politics. A few decades back, Dalits started the celebration of Constitution Day on 26 November; now it is National Constitution Day and, ironically, Modi takes credit for this.

The New Jersey State Police have arrested the driver responsible, who is now charged with vehicular homicide. He is being held at the Salem County Correctional Facility.

Things came to a head, when on the occasion of the 75th year of the Indian Constitution, a discussion took place in the parliament. While responding to the opposition, BJP MP Amit Shah in the Rajya Sabha said: “Abhi ek fashion ho gaya hai – Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. Itna naam agar Bhagwan ka naam lete to saat janmon tak swarg mil jata (It has become a fashion to say Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. If they had taken God’s name so many times, they would have got a place in heaven).”

This eleven-second video clip was highly objectionable to the opposition political parties. In his whole speech, he vilified Congress's relation to Ambedkar and factually misrepresented Ambedkar in order to co-opt him along the lines of Hindutva. According to the opposition, this is disrespectful to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who was the chief architect of the Indian constitution. They are demanding an apology from Amit Shah.  

BY Outlook Web Desk

With the debate on Ambedkar in the Indian parliament and Jai Bhim slogans, the opposition is claiming to be progressive, whereas the BJP and their allies accuse the Congress of betraying Ambedkar. Meanwhile, Chandrasekhar Azad accuses both parties of using Ambedkar as per their convenience and Mayawati claims that it was the sacrifices of Kanshiram through BSP that made Ambedkar a part of national politics.

In the last two decades, Ambedkar scholarship has been visible in academia, and the constant assertion by Dalits in their everyday struggle against Brahmanism keeps Ambedkar alive. Hundreds of Ambedkarites have been killed because they asserted Ambedkar’s name. Thousands and hundreds of Ambedkar’s statues are built, and desecrated, across India. The relevance of Ambedkar has become a compulsion and exigency in Indian politics.   

What is the historical relationship between Ambedkar and the Congress and BJP? Despite several differences with Congress, Ambedkar became part of the Constituent Assembly for the framing of the Indian constitution. Ambedkar was defeated in the election but his stature as a leading intellectual cannot be avoided. It was a compulsion for Congress to include Ambedkar in Nehru’s cabinet. However, Ambedkar wanted to make a radical constitution. Later, he expressed how he was hacked and used by Congress. One would remember Ambedkar’s What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables.   

RSS and BJP also try to misrepresent Ambedkar’s affinity with Hindu nationalists. Ambedkar and the Moonje pact misguided Indian politics. In what way could Ambedkar be owned by the BJP today? Political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot argues that historically, Hindu nationalists repeatedly argued against Ambedkar. How can BJP’s ideologues support Ambedkar’s constitutional politics? According to right-wing nationalists, there was nothing Bharatiya in India’s constitution. In his Essential Hindutva, V. D. Savarkar wrote that Manusmriti is the real constitution of India, which is connected to the history and culture of Hindus.

Perhaps, BJP forgets that Ambedkar was the one who burned Manusmriti. Ambedkarism and BJP are two opposite ideologies that inherently contradict each other. Ambedkar, throughout his life, fought against the Hindu value system, whereas the core of BJP is Hindutva. BJP spread factually wrong information that Ambedkar had a positive relationship with RSS ideologues. In the 1980s BJP was against reservation policy. BJP has been saying to change the constitution of India towards decolonisation. It is a process of neo-Brahminisation. 

BY Snigdhendu Bhattacharya

Arguably, neither Congress nor BJP owns Ambedkar. Ambedkar was one of the strong oppositional voices to Congress. Ambedkar cannot be owned by BJP. BJP can only make symbolic gestures. There is no ideological match to Ambedkar. Both parties accuse each other of claiming they are along the lines of Ambedkar. Since there is a vacuum in Dalit politics in the present decade, they project themselves as Ambedkarite. Congress adopts Ambedkarite political vocabulary, whereas BJP appropriates cultural imagination.

How can one interpret the intent of Amit Shah’s speech in the Rajya Sabha? His speech is not a slippery slope. It is a deliberate act. He means how Ambedkar has become a fashion in the present time to attack the ruling regime.

In the last 75 years of the Indian Constitution, Ambedkar emerged as a statesman. His name is accorded with revolution that could challenge any kind of undemocratic manipulation of power. The ruling regime directly silences the revolutionary ideas of Ambedkar. YES – Ambedkar is a fashion. Dalits and other marginalised people feel pride in saying Ambedkar and Jai Bhim, not six times, but perhaps for their whole lifetime. Ambedkar is the source of inspiration and a destination – if this country is truly to be democratic. Ambedkar’s ideas are fashionable because of his love for justice and knowledge. Ambedkar said do not believe in fate, but believe in your strength. The fate of an individual and community is determined by Chaturvarnya, which is the hell and heaven theory in Hinduism, which BJP and Amit Shah could essentially believe.

The hell-and-heaven theory believes in punarjanam (incarnation of the present or the past), which is the essence of Brahmanism. Untouchable people had bad karma in their previous lives. Thus, they are born into different untouchable castes. It means a person like Ambedkar would never attend heaven. A person who believes in heaven is a casteist who maintains the caste system. People who say Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar… would never reach heaven.

Millions of Dalits whose existence is determined because of Ambedkar would permanently live in hell. Ambedkar is present in a cobbler shop, a Jhopadpati, in a houseless migrant laborer, in a house of scavengers who are dying every week by cleaning human excreta. Millions of Ambedkarites carry books, literature, and varieties of images of Ambedkar during Ashoka Vijayadashami in Nagpur, on his death anniversary, 6th December in Chaitya Bhoomi in Mumbai, and on April 14th. Slogans on Ambedkar are loud across the globe. These people will be in hell because their life begins with Ambedkar.

BY Chinki Sinha

Ambedkar uprooted the fate of Chaturvarnya (hell and heaven) in his Annihilation of Caste and Ways of Emancipation. The fashion of an Ambedkarite act in renouncing Hinduism – means the destruction of Hinduism. Ambedkar is modern. A person who believes in social transformation would always romance with Ambedkar’s ideas.

Ambedkar never believed in god, but Ambedkar became a living embodiment – a cherished ideal. Ambedkar's passion for change, hence, is fashionable. Ambedkar is a realist. He lives in the present to fight against injustice. For him, emancipation lies in fighting against injustice. Ambedkar is fashion and passion for marginalised communities and for a responsible citizen. The passion of an Ambedkarite is a symbol of transformative consciousness. Ambedkarite consciousness believes in human conscience. It commences basic human values of human equality and freedom, destined towards fraternity (including all genders), which he calls democracy. Transformative consciousness is real emancipation that could develop critical thinking to convert a responsible citizen to uphold democratic ideals. Ambedkarite makes life livable, and dignified. Ambedkar name stands for human dignity.

(Views expressed are personal)  

(Jadumani Mahanand teaches at O P Jindal Global Universityacegame888, Sonipat. He specialises in Ambedkar’s Political Philosophy)