Opinion: What Ambedkar's Raised Finger Is Really Trying To Tell You

Ambedkar's raised finger pointed to an imminent state of bliss. It was just a few miles ahead. 

"Ambedkar was a national hero once, but these statues have reduced him to just a god of Dalits." In a competing environment of statues of gods big and small, a poorly designed statue of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar dressed in a gauche blue suit would often elicit this response each time we crossed it on our way to Agra. The statue meant that we were nearing the city where we would get access to ice cream, pineapple pastry, and a meal at our favourite restaurant. If my parents were feeling generous and had the cash, we could also get a toy. 

The four-year-old me had always associated the 'Blue Statue' with happiness and gratification till it got corrupted by the caste acrimony that any child raised in an "upper caste" household is exposed to in the mofussil India, even if the immediate family is relatively progressive. One heard caste slurs on the streets being casually thrown around. Women in the household won't eat in the expensive chinaware because those plates were also laid out while entertaining friends who couldn't be fed in the home utensils.

'Those People'

And then, Prime Minister VP Singh implemented the recommendations of the Mandal Commission. All and sundry instructed one to study harder than anyone else because now 'those people' were getting all the benefits, thanks to reservations. "You have no hope. These people are going to be everywhere."

And then, I was sent to a boarding school where casteism was all alive but, fortunately, institutionally suppressed. But there were stories that the upper caste kids often told each other. Like the one about how one Raja Bachchu Singh killed that insolent Dr Ambedkar in the parliament. Dr Ambedkar allegedly dared to insult a Rajput maharaja and was suitably punished. "These people need to know their place."

And then, there was the political bile against Mayawati and Kanshiram propping up Ambedkar statues across Uttar Pradesh. Even the not-so-casteist friends and family members showed their disapproval at this in-your-face assertion of identity. As if there was no other identity that had been asserted in an equally in-your-face manner. "These people have lost their minds after getting to power."

'These People'

And then, there was an outrage during a family reunion when a cousin shared that she was excluded from any get-together that one of her professors hosted at home because he confused her with those people. "You should tell him how dare he! Just because these people have started using our surname doesn't mean that we have become them."

And then, my brother would be routinely told by some of our father's friends that he was not supposed to touch the feet of a particular 'uncle'. That particular uncle also squirmed when my brother did so. My father would also be lectured by some against hobnobbing with those people. "You have brought these people to your head, and now they have lost theirs!"

And then, my brother started hiding the fact that he visited his best friend's home and ate there every day. A neighbour found out and slapped him. "Your mother doesn't feed you enough that you have to eat with these people." 

And then, there was a classmate at the university whom I was helping remember the names Mahad and Chavdar on the morning of our 'Modern Indian Literature' final exam. He kept mixing them up. None of us had heard of the names of these places, no matter how poignant they were in reshaping the country's consciousness.

And then, I got married to a man whose simple family prepared for eternal penance for daring to make a Brahmin girl wash their utensils. However, they also believed in keeping a separate set of utensils for those who worked in the household. "White teacups for these people." 

Like Poisoned Air

Casteism was like poisoned air for both ends of the social spectrum. One didn't pay much attention to it till it killed you.

And then, something happened. The poison became unbearable, and one began to gag. One's progressivism stuck out as fraudulent. Why were these people invisible despite the draconian reservation that allegedly robbed us of our due station in life? Why were particular surnames seen only in some political parties and not at our farewell parties or university get-together parties? Why were some people saying, "We'll sniff these people out and bludgeon them in the open streets to celebrate" after the Bahujan Samaj Party lost elections and Mayawati never returned to power in UP? "These people can be identified from miles away due to their body odour." 

It all made perfect sense. Dr BR Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste became more than a book. It inspired personal gestures and social activism in those self-congratulatory years of the late teens and the early twenties. But it also became a utopia that frustrated more than it reassured.

Teaching at one of the best undergraduate colleges in Asia, a progressive haven, one still had to field students' acrimonious questions about the validity of any affirmative action. The staff room was still often filled with disdain for those who were loud in their declaration of anti-caste credentials. The imagined wounds of the Mandal Commission were still oozing.

They are still oozing even when these people who undeservedly got everything that we were denied are rarely seen in decision-making places in newsrooms, educational institutions, political offices, think tanks, and industry chambers. And those who are occasionally seen there have to justify their being. One day, perhaps, they won't feel the need to. Because one man pointed the country in a direction from which it can not be turned back. 

Ambedkar's raised finger, though routinely vandalised in different parts of the country, keeps the hope alive against all hopes.

(The author is a Delhi-based author and academic)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

India