discuss the points of contradiction between Dr BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi in terms of civil disobedience movement
Answers
Gandhi’s reading of caste fundamentally differed from Ambedkar, explained Suparna Gooptu, director of the Gandhian Studies Centre, Kolkata. While Ambedkar preferred a rights-based approach, Gandhi’s approach was through faith and spirituality. “Unlike Ambedkar, Gandhi felt that any exploitative relationship could be rectified only when the exploiter had a change of heart. So he worked with upper castes to change their mindset,” she added.
This theory is borne out by Gandhi’s conversation with Ambedkar on the penultimate day of negotiation, as reproduced by the former’s associate, Pyarelal, in The Epic Fast. Gandhi pleads with Ambedkar to reduce the duration of the referendum from 10 to five years, saying a longer period would rob him of the opportunity of convincing Hindus to give up caste, and sow feelings of animosity among them.
“I entreat you therefore, not to deprive Hinduism of a last chance to make a voluntary expiation for its sinful past. Give me the chance of working among the Caste Hindus,” he tells Ambedkar.
Nishikant Kolge, a scholar at Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, argued that Gandhi showed “remarkable irreverence” towards untouchability at a young age, and frequently ate with people from other castes. In his ashrams, the settlers came from all castes and religions and there was no strict division of labour. “Though every inmate had to observe the vow of celibacy, many intercaste marriages were organised in the ashrams,” Kolge writes.
It is unclear why Gandhi took such a strong position against separate electorates, but a conversation between him and Vallabhbhai Patel, recorded by Mahadev Desai and quoted by Eleanor Zelliot in Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and The Untouchable Movement, offers a clue.
Patel was puzzled why Gandhi was going on a fast, and the latter replied that separate electorates would leave Gandhi with no way to deal with “untouchables”. “They do not realise that the separate electorate will create division among Hindus so much that it will lead to bloodshed,” he told Patel, as quoted in Zelliot’s and Vundru’s books.
The impact, today
For India’s 300 million scheduled caste people, the legacy of the Poona Pact lives to this day, and many Ambedkarite scholars have argued, fundamentally distorted the form of representation of Dalits.
India today reserves seats in Parliament and assemblies for SCs in proportion to their population. For example, in “We have to make many compromises,” he added. He also pointed out that the current system was very different from the one the Poona Pact envisioned. “It is neither Gandhi’s nor Ambedkar’s plan,” he said.
Ambedkar’s point
Ambedkar’s views on political representation of the depressed classes was shaped over three decades, beginning with his submission before the Southborough Committee in 1919, when he was just 28. His belief in universal adult franchise — revolutionary at the time — was rooted in the so-called depressed classes getting cheated of their voting rights by British India’s restrictions of land and wealth ownership on the electorate.
Over the next two decades, he refined the idea of political representation for the “untouchables”, moving from joint to separate electorates, and finally settling on a hybrid measure of primary and secondary elections. His Independent Labour Party was successful in the 1937 elections but in the next round, in 1946, the Scheduled Caste Federation performed poorly, and in independent India’s first election in 1952, Ambedkar lost from his stronghold of Bombay, although historians attributed the poor performance largely to the crushing lack of organisation and resources.
Pol noted that the Gandhi-Ambedkar relationship was not always antagonistic and the latter took a dim view only in his 1945 treatise, What Congress and Gandhi have done to Untouchables. “If you devoted yourself entirely to the welfare of the depressed classes, then you would become our hero,” Ambedkar told Gandhi