Author's Introduction:
Babasaheb Ambedkar (14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956), was a man of many talents: a jurist, a critical scholar of Hindu religion, its history and practices of discrimination, a radical reformer who campaigned for the legal, social and moral rights of the untouchables (Dalits), of women and of labour and the most fierce campaigner against the Hindu caste system. He earned a law degree and various doctorates from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He was Independent India's first law minister and the principal architect of the Constitution of India. Having converted to Buddhism in his later life, he spearheaded the Dalit Buddhist movement.
Ambedkar summed up the Kafkaesque nature of Hindu caste system with this pithy observation of its social policy: "Some closed the door, others found it closed against them." As his political role as a leader of the Dalits grew, he came into sharp confrontation with Gandhi. The Gandhi–Ambedkar stand-off became marked not only in the political battleground but also in the way they viewed history, politics and ethics. Ambedkar believed in ‘absolute non-violence’, where he endorsed violence for just ends in the fight against inequality and oppression. He found the materialist and non-violent character of Buddhism to be evoking another thinkable historical version of a Marxist society. Ambedkar had once made a distinction between the “learned”, limited by class interests, and the “intellectual”, emancipated from class considerations. Among the many learned Indian nationalists, Ambedkar was a rare intellectual. As years go by, the immense scope of his intellectual importance is only beginning to be perceived by the intelligentsia.
Babasaheb
To Babasaheb Ambedkar on his 124th birth anniversary
You donned the suit
Like a new surname
The coloniser gifted
What Manu* denied
Law’s door was shut
Till you got the keys
You donned ironies
Instead of eulogies
The tie on the chest
Threaded – sacredly
You found cowardice
In the story of valour
In scripts of the holy
You chewed – insults
Religion was a meal
Served untouchably
The history of caste
Hurt – like fish bone
You tore the shadow
From Brahmin bodies
They reeked – of filth
In their fear – of filth
You busted their lies
With the edict of fire
You drank the water
Of Buddha’s sorrow
*Manu: Hindu law-giver
Manash Bhattacharjee is a poet, writer, translator and political science scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University. His poems have appeared in The London Magazine, New Welsh Review, The Fortnightly Review, First Proof: The Penguin Books of New Writing from India (Volume 5), George Szirtes' Blog, The Missing Slate, The Little Magazine, and Coldnoon. He has contributed essays, articles and reviews to Los Angeles Review of Books (forthcoming),Guernica, Huffington Post, Democracy Now, Economic and Political Weekly, Outlook, The Hindu, Biblio, among others. His first collection of poetry, Ghalib's Tomb and Other Poems (2013), was published by The London Magazine. He is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of Culture and Creative Expressions at Ambedkar University, New Delhi.
