A discussion on their forms of struggle

Gandhism – Ambedkarism

For a very long time, a doubt kept at me. Whenever the discussions on Ambedkar, Gandhi and Marx came up, the moment, names of Ambedkar, Gandhi were touched, criticisms would rain down like hailstones, so I used to stay silent. Yet, in conversations and speeches, I would occasionally bring up Gandhi the same way Ambedkar did.

The leaders who completely drowned the BCs

Gandhi, Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and others together drowned the Backward Classes (BCs) completely. With sweet-talking and deceiving them, they cut the voice of the BCs at the throat. Gandhi went on a fast-unto-death against the Communal Award that Ambedkar had won, got it cancelled, and turned the course toward a new agreement. Through the Communal Award, the Scheduled Castes (SCs) were to get the additional facility of voting only among themselves and electing representatives from their own castes. Gandhi opposed it, undertook a fast-unto-death, forced its cancellation, and in 1932 the Poona Pact was signed as a compromise. It is on the basis of the Poona Pact that SC-ST reservations are being implemented today through the Indian Constitution.

With fine words and deception, for the last 75 years, BCs have no reservation-based representation in legislatures. Yet some people stubbornly propagated that such a Gandhi and Nehru were “socialists”. Ram Manohar Lohia, a follower of Gandhi who accepted French socialist ideas, gave 60% positions in his party to BCs and made it possible for his party to come to power in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from 1967 onwards. However, because Lohia idolized Gandhi, Rama and Krishna, and kept distance from Ambedkar and Periyar, BC and SC intellectuals were not able to declare him fully “one of us” at the ideological level. Moreover, Gandhi was the one who even objected to SC reservations.

Gandhi’s practice, thinking, and forms of movement gave ample scope for contradictions and criticisms.

Is there anything to learn from Gandhi?

In spite of all these limitations, this essay is limited to the search: is there anything that BCs, SCs, STs and the Left should learn and accept from Gandhi? Especially the non-violent, peaceful movements undertaken by Gandhi – Satyagraha, fasting unto death, non-cooperation, strikes, civil disobedience, boycott of foreign goods etc. – attracted intellectuals across the world. Are these forms of struggle universally useful to the people of every country in the world? If useful, to what extent? That is the scope of discussion in this essay.

The Black leader Martin Luther King Jr. accepted Gandhi. Gandhi’s forms of struggle accepted by everyone. Today, across the country, crores of employees, workers, students, farmers and women are following the forms of struggle introduced by Gandhi. Governments and industrial owners are coming to agreements because of those very forms of struggle. Therefore, they are being propagated under the name “Gandhi’s methods” or “the Gandhian path”. That is natural. When they circulate in the name of a famous leader, their influence and inspiration increase manyfold. Indira Gandhi not only propagated socialism but also inserted those words into the Indian Constitution. 

When people deviate from the methods taught by Gandhi, we keep witnessing lathis, bullets, water cannons, arrests and torture.

On 28 November, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule, an article on Gandhi appeared in the Andhra Prabha Telugu daily. In it, Nagasuri Venugopal introduced a 1957 speech-essay written by Tripuraneni Gopichand. He mentioned that it was part of a lecture series on Gandhi organized by socialist, Lohiya follower G. Suramauli. In that essay, Gopichand introduced Gandhi and Marx and the nature of their paths of struggle. Gandhi practiced the method of drawing out the goodness in the opponent through non-violent, peaceful struggle. Gandhi said that along with the goal, the means used to achieve it are also important. Gopichand reminded us that Gandhi gave the world ideals and means different from those of Marx, and that he himself said he drew inspiration from Tolstoy.

That is exactly where my doubt arose. Why did Gandhi say Tolstoy was his inspiration instead of saying that for centuries in our own country we had the Buddha and Buddhist methods and means?

At that time Gandhi strongly desired that the caste system and varna system should continue. Buddhism completely rejects the Vedic-Puranic varna and caste systems. It speaks of equality, freedom, and that all human beings are equal. For Hindu-Muslim unity, the devotee Kabir did great work in his time. Later, Guru Nanak took the same syncretic vision. The Kabir Panth and Buddhism advocated and practiced peaceful transformation. That is why Ambedkar embraced Buddhism. Because he demanded the abolition of the caste system and sought equality and freedom, did Gandhi carefully push Tolstoy forward instead of Buddhism and Kabir panthi?

If Gandhi, like Ambedkar (and even before Ambedkar), had said “the Buddha” instead of Tolstoy as his inspiration, would Gandhi and Ambedkar together have stood for centuries as an inspiration to the world like Ananda, Upali, Ashvaghosha and Dharmakirti?

By not doing so, Gandhi fell behind. Ambedkar’s inspiration is today spreading across the world. From the very beginning, taking from Buddhism but not uttering the name of Buddhism – this is exactly what the varna-caste advocates have always done, and Gandhi too did the same. Gandhi accepted the title “Mahatma” from Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and his vision against liquor. Whenever the occasion arose, Gandhi tilted towards Muslims but never once tilted towards the Shudras. Instead of saying that modern education and jobs should reach them, he said rural caste-based occupations must be protected. 

Even though in his final phase Gandhi felt that abolition of the caste system was necessary, by then time had run out. He was assassinated. Despite all these differences, the Gandhian path received constitutional sanction. In any democratic system in any country, nothing more militant than that is possible.

What if the rulers and owners do not melt?

The famous Indian writer Munshi Premchand raised this very question a hundred years ago. Recently, northern farmers in Delhi sat in peaceful protest for a whole year, cooking and eating on the roadside. The BJP governments ignored them. Southern states expressed no solidarity. When parties in power behave like this, should people abandon the Gandhian path and move forward with other forms? Then critics will say it is the path taught by Marxism. Arrests, cases, and finally “encounters” will follow. When governments and managements refuse to resolve the movements of farmers, social-political groups, students, trade unions and all sections, and instead use repression, turn them into law-and-order problems, and in the end push the real issue aside and treat it only as a law-and-order issue, then who is responsible if Gandhism and Buddhism recede and Marxism, Leninism and finally Maoism come forward? Is it not those in power?

The British put Gandhi and Nehru in jail, but arranged bungalows of one or two acres, cooks, attendants, gave them plenty of books, allowed them to write articles for newspapers and even run journals. Are our own native rulers showing even that much courtesy?

Power is not permanent for anyone. History need not bow to anyone forever. After they are gone, their history is rewritten – the hero becomes the villain. When we see history turning the independence-movement leader Gandhi into a villain and his assassin Godse into a hero, does the Gandhian path still work? If rulers behave harshly without bringing about mental transformation, good thought, or drawing out the goodness in people, then in place of Asian methods, European methods will gain strength. When governments elected by the people brandish the sword against the people themselves, the people will revolt, as they did in Bangladesh. But because this is a vast country, that is not easy.

For representation through reservations in legislatures, even peaceful mobilization by BCs is not happening. Will it reach the level of bringing governments down? That can only happen through the vote. If the majority that cannot even conduct peaceful struggles takes the path of armed struggle or Marxism, is that possible? Are there no national leaders left like Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan who can unite everyone? Does picking up a gun automatically become armed struggle? When we have our own native Subhas Chandra Bose, is waving Mao’s name something that people with even a little self-respect would do?

Finally, what is the essence?

Ambedkar thought that Educate, Agitate Organize All social thoughts and theories spread through this process. So Marxism, Gandhism, Buddhism and Ambedkarism are not different from one another. Depending on the policies followed by governments, one or the other comes forward or recedes. The easiest path of all is to wait five years with patience and chase them away with the ballot box.