(Book – From Personality to Individuality : Chapter 5 The Odyssey of Aloneness.)
Mahatma Gandhi was the uncrowned king of India for the simple reason that he was able to torture himself more than anybody else could for any small reason he would go on fast unto death. Every fast was unto death but within three four days it would be broken. There was method to break it and soon there would be a breakfast …everything was arranged.
But people can be deceived very easily. When he grows a fast and the whole country praise to God that he should not die, all the great leaders rushed towards his ashram and pray to him to stop but he wouldn’t listen unless his conditions are accepted –any condition, on democratic, dictatorial, idiotic – on any condition.
For e.g. He fasted against Dr Ambedkar who was the head of the untouchables. Then Ambedkar wanted the untouchables to have their own constituencies and their own candidates, otherwise they would never be represented in any parliament anywhere.
Who would vote to a shoemaker? In India a shoemaker is untouchable – who is going to give him the vote. Ambedkar was absolutely right. One fourth of the country is untouchables. They are not allowed in schools because no other student is prepared to seat with them, no teacher is ready to teach them. The government the school are open, but in realty no student is willing to… if untouchable enters, all 30 student leave the class, the teacher leave the class. Then how are these poor people- one fourth of the country- going to be represented? They should be given separate constituencies where only they can stand and only they can vote. Ambedkar was perfectly logical and perfectly human. But Gandhi went on a fast, saying, ‘’ he is trying to create division within the Hindu ‘’.
The division had existed for ten thousand years. That poor Ambdekar was not creating the division, he was simply saying that one fourth of the people of the country has been tortured for thousands of years. Now at least give them a chance to advance themselves. At least let them voice their problem in the parliament, in assemblies. But Gandhi said, ’I will not allow it while I am alive. They are part of Hindu society, hence they cannot separate voting system’’ – he went on fasting. For twenty – one days Ambedkar remained reluctant, but everyday …. The pressure of whole country. And he started feeling that if this old man dies then there is going to be bloodshed. It was clear – he would be killed immediately and millions of the untouchables would be killed everywhere, all over the country: ‘’ it is because of you that Gandhi died.’’
He (Ambedkar) was perfectly right; Gandhi was perfectly wrong. But what to do? Should he take the risk?
[I have met Doctor Ambedkar. He was one of the intelligent men I have ever met. But I said “You proved weak”. He said ” You don’t understand: the situation was such that I knew I was right and he was wrong, but what to do with that stubborn old man? He was going to die, and if he died then I would have been responsible for his death , and the untouchables would have suffered.
I said, ” That is not the point. Even an idiot could have suggested a simple thing to you. You should have gone on a fast unto death. And you are so overweight.”. He was a fat man , four or five times heavier than Gandhi. “If you had asked me.. A simple solution: just put another cot by the side of Mahatma Gandhi, lie down and fast unto death. Then let them see! I promise you that Gandhi would have accepted all your conditions within three days.” ]
He was not worried about his life- if he was killed it was okay – but he was worried about those millions of poor people who did not anything about what was going on. There houses would be born, their woman would be raped, their children would be butchered. And it would be something that had never happen before.
Finally he had to accept the conditions. He went with the breakfast in his hand to Mahatma Gandhi,’’ I accept your condition. We will not ask for a separate vote or separate candidate. Please accept these orange juice. ’And Gandhi accepted the orange juice. But this orange juice, this one glass of orange juice, contains millions of people’s blood.
Mahatma Gandhi used to say, before freedom, that the first president of India would be a woman-and not only a woman, but she would be a Shudra, from the lowest untouchables. But as freedom came, he forgot all the promises that he had been talking about and the power game started again in the old style. Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru was a Brahmin; he was not a woman and he was not a Shudra. Again, the Brahmin becomes the power, and for forty years, one family of Brahmins have been dominating India. They have made it almost their personal dynasty. It is no longer a Democracy. Just look at the facts: What was the hold of Mahatma Gandhi over the Indian people? He was pretending to be religious- he was not a religious man-pretending to be a Hindu saint, because Hindus were in the majority and they were going to rule the country. That’s why he was insistent that India should remain undivided, because in an undivided India, Hindus will be in power, nobody can take the power from the hands of the Hindus because everybody else is in a minority.
Nobody looks at Gandhi’s politics: he was using even religion for ugly ends. Doctor Ambedkar wanted a separate vote for the untouchables, and I am in absolute agreement with him for the simple reason that for five thousand years these people have been oppressed, exploited; their whole dignity as human beings had been destroyed-and they are one-fourth of the Hindu population. And they do the ugliest jobs; they should be respected, they should be honoured for that. But on the contrary, even their shadow is untouchable falls on you, you have to take a bath immediately to purify yourself. Ambedkar was absolutely right to ask for a separate vote for the untouchables so that they could be certain of having one-fourth of the members of parliament; that will never be able to change the five-thousand-year-old, ugly laws created by Manu.
There are great criminals, but Manu seems to top them all. Adolf Hitler was very respectful of Manu- not of Gautama Buddha-and Manu has been a curse to this country. He has taken all humanity from millions of people, they are living like animals. Ambedkar was absolutely logical and right in saying that they should be given a separate vote, but Gandhi started a fast unto death for Ambedkar to take back his movement; otherwise, Gandhi will not it until he dies. Now this is absolutely illogical. Because you convince by people, it does not mean that you are right. It is blackmail, it is threatening:
“I will commit suicide if you don’t agree with me.”
Naturally, the whole country was pressurizing Ambedkar:” Take back your movement, otherwise Gandhi’s death will prove very dangerous to you and to be untouchables. They will be burned alive. Their villages will be burned; the Hindus will take revenge because the untouchables have killed Gandhi. Ambedkar tried as long as possible, and finally gave up, seeing that perhaps if Gandhi does die…Although this is no argument.
If I was in place of Ambedkar I would have told Gandhi, “You can die because your death is not an argument. It is as stupid story as I have heard a story.”
A very ugly man wanted to marry a beautiful girl- and he was the age of the girl’s father. And he tried the Gandhian Methodology: then he took his mattress, lay down in front of the house of the girl and declared a first unto death unless her father agreed to give his daughter in marriage to him. Now everybody was in sympathy with the poor man: “he is dying …what a great lover! We have only heard about this lovers in story, and he is actually majnu, a farhad, a mhiwaal.”
The father was in great distress; the girl was in great fear. The whole day house was crowded and they were shouting: “His death will be dangerous for you. The men is not being violent: he is being nonviolent, a religious man, fasting.”
Somebody suggested to the father of the girl, “You go to some old Gandhian to find out what to do.” The Gandhian said, “There is no problem.” There is one ugly prostitute, very old ….you just give her a hundred rupees and she also takes her mattress and lies down by the side of the man, saying, ‘I will fast unto death unless you marry me.’ In the night, the man rolled up his mattress and escaped! These are not arguments……
But Ambedkar was forced to take back his moment, and went to Gandhi with a glass of orange juice to break his fast. This is using religion for the service of the politics. No religious man can do that.
For example, The law of Hindu society that divides it into four castes is absolutely unlawful unjust. It has no responsible support for it- I have seen idiots who are born in Brahmin family, you cannot claim superiority.
I have seen people who are born in the lowest category of Hindu law, the Sudras, the untouchables, so intelligent: when India became independent, the man who made the constitution of India, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was a Shudra. But there was no equal his intelligence as for as law is concern- he was a world-famous authority.
Brahmins were not called: shankaracharyas were not called and told, “You are superior being- you should make the constitution of this country,” but a man (Ambedkar) who just by chance slipped out of the torturous, unlawful, unjust division of Hindu society. Somebody who had riches saw in the boy (Ambedkar) a great potential, and he sent him to England to study, because in India no SHudra in those days was allowed in any school, college, or universities. From the very roots than intelligence was destroyed.
Ambedkar was educated in England, and he became the world-famous authority as far as constitution are concerned. And when he came back to India, India became free and there was no choice; nobody was ever closer to him…..
But for five thousand years the Hindu society has remained immobile; no movement is allowed. Even a Gautama Buddha is not accepted as a Brahmin; he remains belonging to the second category lower than the Brahmins.
And the Brahmins have not been able to create a single Gautama Buddha. But the man who wrote the Hindu law code, Manu, was a Brahmin, and naturally, prejudiced.
So for the Brahmins there are all facilities, and for the lowest- who work the hardest, who do all the dirty work of the society. In fact they deserve to be respected more, because the society can exist without Brahmins, but the society cannot exist without those poor people.
They are so absolutely essential, and still they are condemned. Even animals are better; they are below animals. Even their shadow, if by chance it falls upon you, makes you dirty; you have to go and take a bath. And this continues even today.
Everybody knows nobody can argue for the reasonability, justification, of this strange, fixed division. No education, no understanding, not even enlightenment can move you from the fixed structure of the society; you cannot go higher.
And those who are born higher, they may be criminals. They are criminals, because all that they do are nonessential things. But they exploits the whole society in that they are uncreative, unproductive. They are sitting on the chest of everybody to suck his blood, and still you have to respect them, you have to touch their feet.
AL Mustafa is saying “Still, five thousands year ago, when Manu was writing this Hindu Law, you were also involved in it”- because the same blood, and the same bones, and the same marrow goes on being inherited by everybody.
So you cannot just get yourself free from the responsibility- that it is other who have done something unjust; you are also to feel the responsibility. His effort is to show that human society is an organic whole, so whatever is done by one part is done by the whole. At least either you support it or you remain silent, you do not oppose. Certainly you were not there in the same body, but you must have been present somewhere, in some other body.
Manu should have been opposed, but he has not been opposed, but he has not been opposed, but he has not been opposed for five thousand years. And if I oppose him today, I am opposing my own forefather ; I am not opposing anybody else I am condemned . I am ordered not to criticize anybody, I but I am going to criticize anything that is unjust, because I am also part of it however far away …..
(Also transcribed from youtube video by Sagarika Badu, a student from Koraput Central University, Odisha)