Dear Friends:
This is the latest addition to the India Ink, N Y Times, today(21 03 2012). There is another article which I will post later. -bhuban Reconciling Gandhi With Ambedkar By SARAH KHAN Courtesy of Asia Society and Queens Museum of Art Dayanita Singh’s “Ambedkar, Allahabad” (2000) presented as part of the exhibition “Edge of Desire: Recent Art In India” by Asia Society and Queens Museum of Art, in New York, 2005. Associated Press Mahatma Gandhi rests his arms on the shoulders of his disciples, in this Jan. 1948 file photo. mnet.orgMohandas K. Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar were the men of the hour at Columbia University on Tuesday evening. An audience of hundreds packed the rotunda of the historic Low Library for the lecture, “Reconciling Gandhi with Ambedkar,” hosted by the Columbia Law School Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Chair in Constitutional Law. Jagdish Bhagwati, a Columbia professor and leading Indian economist, introduced historian Ramachandra Guha of the London School of Economics, who went on to detail a complicated yet complementary relationship between two of India’s dynamic founding fathers. According to Professor Guha, while both Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Ambedkar fought against the caste system — a form of human taxonomy Professor Guha deemed “the most sophisticated, subtle, and diabolical form of social exclusion and discrimination invented by human beings” — their approaches were vastly different. Mr. Gandhi, an upper-caste member of the elite, challenged the caste system from above, in its highest echelons, as Mr. Ambedkar, the 14th child of a Dalit sepoy in the Indian Army, challenged it from below. And while Mr. Gandhi’s views on caste evolved slowly over the years, he remained deeply spiritual and sought social change within Hinduism. Mr. Ambedkar, on the other hand, favored using the state as an instrument for establishing forward-thinking social policies. Though he was born a Hindu, he often swore he wouldn’t die one, and, true to his word, he converted to Buddhism along with 200,000 of his followers weeks before his death in 1956. The results of their differing perspectives, according to Professor Guha? “We’ve made more progress in the last 60 years than in the last 5,000 years.” Professor Guha said that Mr. Ambedkar’s selection as an architect of the Constitution was truly ahead of its time: “that a person who, under traditional Hindu law was not allowed into someone’s home, was now writing the Constitution, was as radical a step as Barack Obama becoming president of the United States 60 years later.” This was just one of the comparisons Professor Guha drew to the United States, whose spirit of egalitarianism he lauded on more than one occasion. But most importantly, he said, all Indians should be inspired by visionaries like Mr. Ambedkar, just as “to admire Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., or Rosa Parks, you don’t have to be a Republican or Democrat, you just have to be American.” It’s fitting that the government of India endowed Columbia University with a chair devoted to Mr. Ambedkar, since he had obtained masters and doctoral degrees from the institution. “Reconciling Gandhi with Ambedkar” was the first of a three-part lecture series being led by Professor Guha this week. “Sport and the Nation: Interpreting Indian History through the Lens of Cricket,” will be held on Wednesday, followed by “The Past and Future of Indian Democracy” on Thursday. But while he will go on to explore many facets of Indian society through his lectures this week, on Tuesday night Professor Guha’s focus was two men who may not have seen eye to eye, but whose contributions to modern India were invaluable. “They should both be heroes,” he said. “Why must we diminish one figure to praise another? India today needs Gandhi and Ambedkar both.” _______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
