Dear reader, who ever you are, wherever you are, begin by reading Dr.Ambedkar. It will change your life

Meena Kandasamy

I cannot write about revolutionary Dr.Ambedkar in just 800 words–he is the foremost among my heroes and i want to write about him endlessly, making use of all the courageous metaphors that poets have put forth in every language of the world, pulling out instances from his life, words from his own books, arguments from his debates, anecdotes from the lucky ones who could witness firsthand his searing anger, his sharp insights and an unsilenced frustration that ate him away as he sought to challenge and annihilate the Hindu social order and its caste system that enslaved, on every conceivable level, millions of men and women. this tiny remembering is not going to be about that daring revolutionary, it is going to be about each and everyone of us. my adoration for him can only be matched by the anger that i feel when i realize how we have let him down, collectively, individually, and in ways that only reveal the monster of caste that inhabits the innermost corners of our minds because it is a convenient conditioning that does not escape us. 

Dear feminist sisters, when will you give Dr.Ambedkar the recognition that is due? he burnt the Manusmriti because it degraded women and he resigned as independent India’s first law minister because the Hindu Code Bill, a brave piece of legislation that enshrined rights of inheritance and divorce and adoption for women was not passed. what else sister? over the years, you have learnt the art of maintaining a stiff silence when dalits are slaughtered and dalit women are paraded naked and raped, but for all this cleverness, somehow, even as you discuss nuclear disarmament and nationalist struggles you fail to draw a parallel between caste oppression and the control of sexuality, you fail to realize that the caste system is played out through a rigid regimentation of your bodies, and that you are, as Dr.Ambedkar said, the gateway to the caste system. someday, you should start challenging the caste system too, so that the feminist dream of equality between the sexes becomes a reality.

Dear backward classes, you who are beneficiaries of the reservation policy and are ever-ready to challenge brahmin supremacy for your personal and political purposes characteristically fail when it comes to the question of caste annihilation, and therefore, because Dr.Ambedkar poses some very uncomfortable questions towards the Sudras and their espousal of the Hindu identity, you have ghettoized this revolutionary into a leader of only the Dalit people, and on your association letterheads, he is not even nominally present, and though your backward classes association has been given a room of its own and certain bargaining rights, you never commemorate Dr.Ambedkar’s birth or death anniversaries, you remain silent when Dalits are oppressed, sometimes, you actively oppress and victimize them and in the midst of all this, no matter how progressive you portray yourself to be, you are afraid that adhering to Dr.Ambedkar’s struggle for caste annihilation will require you to wage war on Hindutva and that causes panic because you will have to forego all the pretensions of superiority that the caste hierarchy has showered on you.

Dear communists, with the arrogance of wordplay, you kept speaking of base and superstructure, never confronting the system of caste intellectually, philosophically, or with any of the vigor that Marx and Lenin showed in fighting systems of exploitation, and to add insult to injury, you, with your kneejerk fondness for stamping labels on people, called Dr.Ambedkar a petty bourgeoise misleader, clearly forgetting the radicalism of his early years, his passionate support for labour unions and workers strikes, never questioning the fact that your Communist party threw its support with the allegedly anti-imperialist Congress that was sponsored by the same feudal forces you had set out to destroy, never regretting that the obstinacy of your intelligensia prevented caste from being brought under a marxist framework because they decided that it was a secondary cultural issue that could be casually swept under the carpet. comrades, it is time for change. if nothing else, read what comrade Vinod Mishra had to say about Dr.Ambedkar.

Dear proud little flag-waving Indian, you possibly never heard of Dr.Ambedkar at school because your textbooks were nothing but education under general anesthesia and you only saw him on the streets, as a statue, dressed in a suit and tie, and carrying a book, your country’s Constitution in his arm, an unsung hero, a nation-builder forgotten at the first instance.

Dear reader, who ever you are, wherever you are, begin by reading Dr.Ambedkar. He will change your life as he has changed mine.

To every dear comrade out there, beaming with pride every time you hear Babasaheb’s name, jai bhim!(

I wrote this for prajavani three, four years ago. found a draft on my email, sharing it.

Constitution Day , 26 November

Constitution Day

Constitution Day, also known as Samvidhan Divas, is celebrated in India  in honour of Dr .B.R. Ambedkar , known as the architect of the Indian constitution. The Government of India declared 26 November as Constitution Day. On this day in 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India adopted the Constitution of India, and it went into effect on 26 January 1950.

The Government of India declared 26 November as Constitution Day on 19 November 2015 by a gazette notification. The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi  made the declaration on 11 October 2015 on the occasion of laying the foundation stone of the Ambedkar memorial in Mumbai. The year of 2015 is the 125th birth anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar, who had chaired the drafting committee of the Constituent Assembly and played a pivotal role in the drafting of the constitution.  Previously this day was celebrated as Law Day.
26 November was chosen to spread the importance of the constitution and to spread thoughts and ideas of Dr. Ambedkar.

Article on Babasaheb

‘Babasaheb’ Dr B.R. Ambedkar:
Maker and conscience-keeper of modern India 

A pioneering social reformer, jurist, economist, author, polyglot orator, scholar of comparative religions and thinker Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambdekar, the principal architect of Indian Constitution and independent India’s first law minister, was a multi-faceted man who remapped the frontiers of human achievement by his sheer tenacity, perseverance and the will to excel against all odds.

Babasaheb, as he was fondly called by friends, admirers and followers, braved the walls of prejudice and caste discrimination in early 20th century India to emerge as an exemplar and an unflinching crusader against the inequities of caste system and socio-economic deprivation that afflicted millions of Indians. His life is an inspirational story of achievements despite trying circumstances and the indomitable will to move beyond individual strife for the larger cause of social justice and national renaissance.

Born into the Hindu Mahar caste, which was scorned as "untouchable" by the upper class of the time, Babasaheb did not allow the limitations of his background to come in the way of acquiring first-rate education and pushing the bar for academic excellence. He earned a law degree from Lincoln’s Inn and doctorates from Columbia University in the US and the London School of Economics, carving a place of eminence as a scholar extraordinaire for his research in law, economics and political science. His early career saw him donning many hats: economist, professor, and lawyer. In the next stage, he emerged as a national leader with a pan-India vision of modernity underpinned by the ideals of social justice and equality. As India’s freedom movement gained traction, he harnessed his formidable intellectual energies to script an anthem of an inclusive India and strove tirelessly for political rights and social freedom for Dalits and the marginalized groups.

India’s tryst with destiny, as India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke eloquently about at the fateful hour of India’s independence, saw Dr. Ambedkar being entrusted with a monumental responsibility: he was appointed Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee on August 29, 1947. He fashioned a pluralistic and inclusive Constitution that guides and animates India to this day, guaranteeing equal opportunity and freedom of expression and faith for all citizens in a secular democracy. Famous scholar Granville Austin has evoked the revolutionary spirit of Dr. Ambdekar that is reflected in the Indian Constitution. "The majority of India's constitutional provisions are either directly arrived at furthering the aim of social revolution or attempt to foster this revolution by establishing conditions necessary for its achievement,” wrote Austin. The Constitution, drafted under Dr. Ambedkar’s leadership, abolished untouchability, and outlawed all forms of discrimination. An ardent proponent of the rights of women, minorities and the socially underprivileged, he argued eloquently and won the Constituent Assembly's support for introducing a system of reservations of jobs in the civil services, schools and colleges for members of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Class. This was later reflected in the policies of affirmative action adopted by the Indian government.

An erudite economist and institution-builder, Dr. Ambedkar authored many scholarly treatises on economics and was the driving force behind establishment of the Finance Commission of India. His ideas also laid the foundation for the setting up of India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India. 

While Dr. Ambedkar’s achievements were manifold and straddled a wide spectrum, his inner life was richer and marked by spiritual vitality. In 1956, he converted to Buddhism. He later died in the same year in New Delhi while working on "The Buddha and his Dhamma”, which was published posthumously. The popularity and esteem he enjoyed among all lovers of social justice was seen at his funeral at Dadar Chowpatty beach on December 7, 1956, which was thronged by at least half a million mourners.

Babasaheb’s myriad contributions to the forging of a modern inclusive India were recognized posthumously through the Bharat Ratna in 1990. Dr. Ambedkar’s ideals of social inequality redesigned the contours of Indian politics. His surging popularity was reflected in scholarly biographies, numerous statues and memorials across the country. In 2012 Ambedkar was voted the "Greatest Indian" by a poll organized by History TV18 and CNN IBN.

Today, Ambedkar is revered nationally, and figures in the national pantheon as one of the makers of modern India, along with Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore. His birthday, April 14, has been christened as 'Ambedkar Jayanti' or 'Bhim Jayanti' and is celebrated as a public holiday. 

As India celebrates the 125th birth anniversary of this national icon, Babasaheb remains an inspiration for millions of Indians and proponents of equality and social justice across the globe. Fittingly, although it’s a matter of coincidence, one can see the trace of Babasaheb’s radiant vision in the "Sustainable Development Goals” that are set to be formally adopted by the UN General Assembly to eliminate poverty, hunger and socio-economic inequality by 2030

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One Full Vote and Half a Life ! [cover story ]

One Full Vote and Half a Life

The answer to persistent discrimination and injustice does not lie with our political institutions, it does with a more empathetic civil society

Martin Macwan

November 8, 2019

ISSUE DATE: November 18, 2019

UPDATED: November 8, 2019 12:55 IST

n April 2018, more than a dozen Da lits lost their lives when they descended on the streets to protest a Supreme Court order, diluting certain provisions of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

With no credible research data to back its assertion, the court had, in its concluding observation, referred to "misuse" of the Act by "vested interests". An order, passed on March 20, 2018, had set guidelines to prevent said misuse, banning, for example, a provision that allowed arrest on complaint, and allowing anticipatory bails for the accused. For Dalits, this was a low blow.

They had not expected this from the country's highest court, especially when they had never veered from the path of non-violent, constitutional methods of resistance, as advocated by their guiding spirit Dr B.R. Ambedkar. In early October this year, the Supreme Court rolled back the March 2018 order and removed the earlier directions, but Dalits and tribals did not celebrate this important milestone as a victory. The wound from the earlier court action was deep and the scars have remained, making it hard to repose the same faith in the judiciary once more.

For Dalits, these crossroads are familiar landmarks. They have encountered many on their hard journey to secure basic human rights, on their slow, gruelling progress from being cast off as 'untouchables' to becoming equal citizens, if still only on paper. Their enemies have been way more powerful.

During colonial rule, they fought discriminatory laws besides society at large. They faced prejudice in all walks of life, not excluding religion, and even in the supposedly holy scriptures. In the modest panoply of weapons at their disposal-including education, reservation, even the rejection of the enslaving faith-the most powerful were legal instruments handed by the Constitution. But even those hard-won constitutional guarantees are now at risk. At the new crossroads in their epic journey, Dalits find that their last-resort legal protections are also vulnerable.

On the political front, rather than throw in their lot with an openly, avowedly Dalit party like, say, the Republican Party of India, they found it expedient to go mainstream. Despite adoring Ambedkar as a demigod, they went with mainstream political parties rather than risk isolation. But there are grave concerns now about the strategy of political integration.

In The modest set of weapons dalits possess, the legal ones are the most powerful. But even those hardwon means are now receding

Even though the NDA won most SC/ST reserved seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, which gave them an edge-majority, government data confirms that atrocities on Dalits and tribals increased during their first term (see: Bhed-Bharat, published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, 2019, Ed. Martin Macwan). What is most troubling is the

complete absence of state action, the utter lack of a political will to firmly deal with caste violence. The death of manual scavengers in sewer lines is not even considered an 'atrocity'. What all this points to is a devaluation of the Dalit vote, which remarkably was never an 'untouchable' for any political party. For India, the world's largest democracy striving to be a major world economy, the taint of untouchability is, or should be, deeply embarrassing.

While grandstanding about India's economy and the country's great development potential, the present government too, following in the footsteps of its predecessors, looks away from the sordid reality that India has failed to rid itself of untouchability-a social evil that lies at the very root of the atrocities committed against Dalits. This situation raises serious questions about the meaning of 'development' itself.

After Independence, India did not see a spirited social movement against untouchability of the kind witnessed before Independence. On the contrary, the government today intimidates voluntary organisations who raise these issues and demand the abolition of untouchability, manual scavenging, the violence against Dalits and tribals-as a constitutional call to action. And that can only weaken the national resolve, if there was ever such a thing, to fight the menace of the caste system.

It was disturbing to witness the bitterness over the cremation of Constable Vir Singh's tricolour-wrapped body in June 2016. Singh, a Dalit of the Nat community from Nagla Kewal village in Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad district, was one of eight CRPF personnel killed in a militant attack in Pampore (Jammu & Kashmir). It took some heavy-duty intervention by district officials to persuade the high and mighty upper castes in Singh's village to allow the cremation of his body on public land. This story is not even an outlier: caste atrocities against families of Dalit armed forces personnel in their own villages are not new, though they seldom make the news.

That should not surprise anybody. How many even registered the fact that a Dalit MP of the ruling BJP in Karnataka was not allowed into a village in his own constituency last September? Was there a national uproar? Was it a worthy enough cause? As if to rub it in, though apparently intended as a placatory gesture, the villagers sent a chair for the MP to sit on-outside the village. In a further testimony to their even-handed discrimination, they proudly asserted that even the local Dalit MLA had not been allowed to enter the village. All this happened in the presence of the police.

And the government/s maintained a deafening silence. Even worse, 88 Dalit members of Parliament kept mum. Did they not see fair cause in this mockery of the Constitution to raise their voices in protest? The lawmaker himself sought to make a virtue of a necessity, maintaining that he eschewed the use of force because he wanted to engineer a change of heart and make an appeal to people's conscience. What underpins his reaction is a tacit admission that the instruments of social justice-the law, the vote (16.5 per cent, no less), the political reservations for Dalits-have lost their cutting edge.

Incidentally, Gandhi too was an advocate of the change-ofhearts approach to defeat untouchability, while Ambedkar, negating the Gandhian appeal, held out for 'the rule of law' to annihilate caste. It bears consideration that this humiliation of the Dalit MP was perpetrated by OBCs (Other Backward Classes), who are, in many pockets, less educated and worse off than Dalits. The political parties have been completely silent on the rising incidents of violence on Dalits by OBCs.

One wonders if it is a political conspiracy to pit Dalits against OBCs, just as Dalits and Muslims were set at odds in many pockets during the communal riots in Gujarat. The rich have an instinctive distrust of communal and social harmony among the marginalised populations, because harmony can even be a precursor to making common cause in a potential war over the distribution of the nation's wealth.

It seems clear as daylight that the Dalits must re-strategise their struggle for equality. The crisis is deeper because Dalits have failed miserably to abolish caste distinctions among themselves. 'Understanding Untouchability', a first-of-its-kind study, done in 2016 by the Gujarat-based grassroots Dalit organisation Navsarjan Trust [of which this author is the founder], confirms the fact that the same forms of caste-based discrimination prevail in relationships between various Dalit sub-castes as do between Dalits and non-Dalits. Clearly then, Dalits have themselves missed Ambedkar's call to annihilate caste.

While petty politicians have bred antagonism in young Dalit minds against Gandhi-citing the bitter confrontation between him and Ambedkar over the 1932 Poona Pact-the fact remains that both these great minds had a common conviction: that moral power has greater traction than legal or positional power.

It's a great shame that we, as a nation, have all the money to spend on warplanes that will ultimately help nobody win, but we do not have the money for a sustained assault on, say, the scourge of malnourishment nor for effective programmes to target the most vulnerable in this regard-tribal mothers and children.

We tend to sustain the illusion that solutions to problems of discrimination and injustice lie with our political institutions. It's time to rethink this conundrum, and to understand the value of a stronger civil society. Perversely, the rich seem to have heeded Ambedkar's call to organise themselves, while Dalits and tribals, the poor and dispossessed, whom he meant to rally, have largely ignored his call.

Martin Macwan is a Dalit rights activist based in Gujarat. He was honoured by Human Rights Watch in 2000 as 'an outstanding human rights defender'

Has India’s Global Hunger Index ranking fallen from 55 in 2014 to 102 in 2019? A fact-check

According to the latest Global Hunger Index (2019), India ranks a lowly 102 out of 117 nations, categorized as a nation with ‘serious’ levels of hunger. India’s GHI score stands at 30.3, a marginal improvement over the previous year (31.1). Notwithstanding the fact that this is cause for concern, some sections commenting on the result have claimed that India’s ranking has slipped dramatically since 2014 when it ranked as high as 55, subsequently plummeting to 80 in 2015, 97 in 2016, 100 in 2017 and 103 to 2018.

Surjya Kanta Mishra

✔@mishra_surjya

India's slide in the Global Hunger Index continues under the Modi regime. From ranking 55th in 2014, we stand at 103 among 119 with the highest child wasting rate over 20% in 2019.With the poverty, malnutrition and hunger rising like never before, the Govt remains in denial mode.

173

09:54 - 16 Oct 2019

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The above tweet is by Surjya Kanta Mishra, a CPI(M) leader from West Bengal. Prakash Ambedkar tweeted the same, claiming India’s “rank was 55, only 5 years ago”.

Prakash Ambedkar@Prksh_Ambedkar

India is ranked 102nd in the global hunger index, out of 117 countries. We are ranked in between Niger & Sierra Leone. We are the lowest ranked South Asian country. Bangladesh is ranked 88th and Pakistan 94th. They have only recently overtaken us. Our rank was 55,only 5 years ago

1,788

16:15 - 16 Oct 2019

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On Facebook too, a similar claim has been made – India’s ranking dropped sharply from 55 in 2014 to 103 in 2018.

How true is this claim, that India has fared drastically worse since 2014 insofar as combating hunger is concerned?

FACT-CHECK

Alt News has found this claim, of India’s rank plummeting from 55 in 2014 to 102 in 2019, to be incorrect. This is due to the difference in methodology of tabulation followed by the index since 2015. Until 2014, countries which had a GHI score of less than 5 (lesser the score, better the performance) were placed not in the main table but in an additional table, in which 44 countries were placed. The GHI index, 2014 is posted below.

As can be seen in the right column, ‘Countries with 2014 GHI score less than 5’ have been placed separately, and do not form part of the rankings presented in the main table. A similar table was present in the 2015 GHI report, wherein 13 nations with GHI score less than 5 were placed separately. However, from 2016, the nations with GHI score below 5 were placed in the main table, thus causing a drastic shift in the rankings of nations. India’s ranking had dropped thus from 55 in 2014 to 97 in 2016.

It is noteworthy that while in 2014, 44 nations were listed in the ‘GHI score under 5’ category. This dropped to merely 13 in 2015. A probable explanation in this regard is a revision of the formula for calculating the GHI score, introduced in 2015. This is the likely factor behind India’s rank dropping from 55 in 2014 to 80 in 2015.

The table for 2019 is presented below. As can be seen, countries with GHI score less than 5 (17 in number) are placed in the main table, and form the top ranking among the nations surveyed.

Simply put, if the nations with GHI score less than 5, were placed in the main table prior to 2016, then India’s rank in 2014 would have been 55+44=99, and its 2015 rank would be 80+13=93.

In fact, the GHI reports have categorically stated, “Rankings and index scores from this table cannot be accurately compared to rankings and index scores from previous reports.”

MISINFORMATION REGARDING INDIA’S GHI RANK

In 2018, some media organizations had falsely reported that India’s ranking in the GHI index had slipped from 55 in 2014 to 103 in 2018.

Dainik Bhaskar

✔@DainikBhaskar

भारत में भुखमरी: इस मामले में पूरी तरह फेल हुई मोदी सरकार, 4 साल में 55 से 103वें पायदान पर पहुंचा देश, नेपाल-बांग्लादेश भी हमसे आगे https://www.bhaskar.com/national/news/global-hunger-index-2018-india-ranks-103rd-out-of-119-countries-5969719.html …

कलंक: देश से भुखमरी दूर करने में पूरी तरह फेल हुई मोदी सरकार, 119 देशों की रैंकिंग में भारत 103वें...

विकास के तमाम दावों के बीच सरकार की नींद उड़ा देने वाली एक रिपोर्ट सामने आई है, एक रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक भारत में भूख एक गंभीर समस्या है और 119 देशों के वैश्विक भूख सूचकांक में भारत 103वें पायदान पर है।...

bhaskar.com

888

15:04 - 14 Oct 2018

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The same misinformation was spread in 2017 as well, through mainstream media reports as well as social media posts.

INDIA’S PERFORMANCE SINCE 2015

How has India fared since 2015, when the revised formula for calculating the GHI score was introduced? India’s performance over the past five years is presented below in tabular format, with the GHI score and rank for every year from 2015 to 2019.

YEAR	GHI SCORE OF INDIA	RANK
2014	17.8	55/76
2015	29.0	80/104
2016	28.5	97/118
2017	31.4	100/119
2018	31.1	103/119
2019	30.3	102/117

As can be seen, in 2015, the GHI score was 29.0 which improved to 28.5 in 2016. The following year, there was a plunge, with the score at 31.4. This improved subsequently to 31.1 in 2018 and 30.3 in 2019. Please note that the higher the score, poorer the performance.

GHI PERFORMANCE IN 2019

While India’s performance has improved marginally from 2017 and 2018, the country’s position is categorized as ‘serious2019 ‘. Moreover, India lags behind other South Asian nations including Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.A disturbing indicator is the ‘prevalence of wasting in children under five years’, the proportion of which has increased in India over the past decade.