ambedkar and nationalism

The first reason why Ambedkar may be accused of being anti-national has to do with his
attitude towards the freedom movement, beyond his antagonistic relationship with
Mahatma Gandhi. During the first session of the All-India Depressed Classes Congress
(AIDCC), on August 8, 1930, at Nagpur, he opposed the project of Indias independence,
which the Congress had promoted a few months before, in December 1929, during its
Karachi session, under pressure from Jawaharlal Nehru. The AIDCC argued that The
depressed classes welcomed the British as their deliverers from age-long tyranny and
oppression by the orthodox Hindus.
-Ambedkar felt strengthened in these views after the Congress won the 1937 elections

and started to rule eight out of 11 provinces, and passed conservative bills, including the
Industrial Dispute Bill that made strike illegal under certain conditions in the Bombay
Presidency
-First, like Jyotirao Phule, he did not think that India was a nation: How can people

divided into several thousands of castes be a nation? he asked. For him, the national
movement was dominated by an elite, of which the masses were the first victims. For, as
he said in 1943 before trade union activists, the working classes often sacrifice their all
to the so-called cause of nationalism. [But] they have never cared to enquire whether the
nationalism for which they are to make their offerings will, when established, give them
social and economic equality.
-During World War II, Ambedkar continued to collaborate with the colonial power in

exchange for concessions to Dalits and the working class at large. In July 1941, he joined
the Defence Advisory Committee that had been set up by the viceroy to involve Indian
leaders in the war effort and to give to this forced participation of India in the conflict a
greater legitimacy. In 1942, he entered the executive council of the viceroy as labour
member. In this capacity, he worked relentlessly to develop social legislation. One of the
most significant bills that he managed to have passed was the Indian Trade Unions
(Amendment) Bill, making compulsory the recognition of a trade union in every
enterprise under certain conditions. He also introduced the Payment of Wages
(Amendment) Bill and numerous Factories (Amendment) Bills which were all passed.
In fact, many of the labour laws independent India was to elaborate upon after 1947 have
been initiated by Ambedkar under the British. He also obtained a larger recruitment of
Dalits in the army and, in particular, the reinstatement of the Mahar battalion
-Ambedkar, during WWII, had decided to cooperate with the British for another reason.

Like Nehru, he thought that the Nazis, the Italian Fascists and Japan were more
dangerous than the British. Opposing Mahatma Gandhis decision, in August 1942, to
launch the Quit India Movement, he declared that the patriotic duty of all Indians was
rather to prevent such movements from creating anarchy and chaos which would
unquestionably help and facilitate the subjugation of this country by Japan.
-Humanism, with its values of equality and liberty. Hence his collaboration with the

British to promote the cause of the Indian plebe and to fight the Axis pow-ers hence
also his conversion to Buddh-ism. While Hinduism tends to be conside-red as the
national religion of India par excellence today, Ambedkar looked at it as disrespectful of
human dignity, in contrast to Buddhism

-While he considered that religion was absolutely essential for the development of

mankind, his vision of religion was overdetermined by social considerations

-He believed that the annihilation of caste and negation of capitalism are imperatives for

change and taking India and the world forward. He declared that the bourgeoisie
(capitalism) and Brahminism are the twin enemies of the people.
-They wanted to do so using the trope of nationalism. They also wanted lower exchange

rates and higher profits in foreign trade by taking recourse to nationalism. Ambedkar
critically observed such profit-seeking orientation of the commercial class and
disapproved of their predatory economic pursuits under the garb of nationalism. The very
same class compromised with the British colonial Raj and served its interest. Right-wing
forces such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) did the same
Nationalism as a fig leaf
The importance of social justice
-In his Annihilation of Caste lecture, Ambedkar described caste as anti-national and

wanted to address the scourge of caste discrimination and exclusion through the
instrumentality of law, which he poetically described as the greatest disinfectant against
inequality
-Therefore, he stressed on justice, not only political and economic but also social justice.

According to him, the key components of social justice are liberty, equality and fraternity.
Ambedkar said, The system of rank and gradation is simply another way of enunciating
the principle of inequality, so it may be truly said that Hinduism doesnt recognise
equality.
-Democracy for Ambedkar was a way of living. He wrote, Democracy is not merely a

form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living of conjoined

communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards
fellow men.
-He strongly felt that a society based on liberty, equality and fraternity should be the only

alternative to a caste society, and that is why he attached greater importance to the
principle of one man, one vote; one man, one value. He was very particular that the
democracy that he upheld went beyond the formal expressions of it and moved into the
social and economic realm where substantial democracy prevailed
natiinalism

Ambedkar rightly observed, Nationality is a social feeling. It is a feeling of a corporate

sentiment of oneness which makes those who are charged with it feel that they are kith
and kin. This national feeling is a double-edged feeling. It is at once a feeling of
fellowship of ones own kith and kin and an anti-fellowship feeling for those who are not
ones own kith and kin. It is a feeling of consciousness of kind which on the one hand
binds together those who have it so strongly that it overrides all difference arising out of
economic conflicts or social gradations and, on the other, severs them from those who are
not of their kind. It is a longing not to belong to any other group. This is the essence of
what is called a nationality and national feeling.