Each one of us leaves this world by giving our best at our part of age. So there is no point in this hypothetical question that what would have happened if Chanakya had been there today? If Mahatma Gandhi had been there, what would he have been doing? Had Ambedkar been there, what would have been his vision? The 90 years between 1857 and 1947 are very important years of India's destiny. This country with a known history and eternal culture of about ten thousand years has seen countless ups and downs in its journey, faced storms. One thousand long years of slavery also came in his destiny and it was completed in these 90 years.
In these 90 years, India's womb produced countless sons. We only talk about Ambedkar now. Today, no person belonging to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes can even imagine that period and the society in which Bhimrao would have opened his eyes. Then the cancer of untouchability was spreading badly in our rotten social system. There was no future for any child born in communities considered to be untouchables. He had to do what was decided. Some things had changed in the British Raj and Bhimrao's father got the status of Subedar in the service of the British. It is quite possible that this would not have given him much freedom from the stigma of being socially untouchable.
There was no reservation then. There was no concession in education or jobs on the basis of caste. The roots of untouchability were deeper in the mind than outside. They were landless. They were dependent on second-class work and the mercy of the upper castes for their livelihood. The mere thought of that society makes my head bow in shame. It is a shameful truth for all of us. Bhimrao is born in a society with such a discriminatory bleak future.When the rotten princely states of the Nawabs in Bengal came to an end and the British stepped in, the Bengalis felt for the first time breathing clean air after a thousand years of repression. He adopted the new language with an open mind. Joined the East India Company jobs. Studied in their schools and colleges. Then the Muslims kept their distance from the infidels. It was a shame for them to learn English and accept the jobs of the Kambakhtas who overthrown their thrones.
After being born in Mhow, Bhimrao's family moved to Bombay, where he studied in a school-college built by the British. He went to America on the scholarship of Baroda State. Bhimrao's excellent academic record today must be seen by his followers raising their heads in the name of reservation. Bhimrao has the ability to bow down the heads of good and high caste people in shame. He was the sun rising from the deepest pit of darkness.
There was no reservation for any reservation in his rise. Baroda State would have considered him worthy of help only on the strength of his brilliant talent, there must have been lakhs of other youths only from the Dalit community.
On the basis of talent, we take them as exceptions. At the time of framing of the constitution after independence, it was natural that they should do something different for crores of Dalits. In India's new system, most people, including Nehru, belonged to the upper castes. But everyone considered reservation as the need of the hour.
Leadership came from reserve seats and lakhs of youths equally entered government jobs. For the first time in the fifties, the next and capable generation of those who took advantage of reservation got jobs in the seventies. By the new century, his third powerful generation climbed up this ladder. In the meantime, many more castes started trying hard in this competition.
Now if Babasaheb was among us today, what would he have done?
1. Keeping a close eye on the reservation from the very beginning. Wanted some fundamental changes in the reservation policy in the seventies. They do not allow the second generation to take the benefit of reservation at all. Because now it is not needed, it was useless.
2. The Dalit families who got an opportunity from the reserved quota had achieved better economic and educational status. Babasaheb considered it to come in the general category. At this stage the talk was equal.
3. Poverty was not only among Dalits. Lakhs of upper caste families in villages were also the product of the same long slavery. Landless, poor and dependent on wages. Babasaheb could not ignore them.
4. He would have been the first person who wanted Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas after twenty years on economic basis. Then the neglected and talented people of the upper caste would also take refuge in him only and he would find the best equitable path. Who knew better than him what neglect was?
5. He would have been openly against the formation of the organization of the employed officers-employees of Scheduled Castes and Tribes. They say, don't make reservation a political shield by forming an organization of the reserved. Otherwise we will go astray. If you have become strong, then help others who are weak.
6. After getting reservation, he appealed to the first generation ministers, MPs, MLAs, officers and employees sitting in high positions to adopt their respective villages. Establish good schools and colleges there. Help the children of every Dalit family only in studies. (Like someone helped him at one time. He did the rest of the journey himself.)
7. He would definitely make an appeal that now do not stay in the hope of government jobs only. After getting good training, do your own employment and business. They bring schemes of financial help. Focusing on skill development.
8. He would ask Dalit ministers, MPs, IAS-IPS-IFS officers, employees appointed in other government departments including banks, railways, education, health, how many Dalit children he raised during his tenure. They would definitely say that the government raised you high. Now it is your job to bring your loved ones up. Our community will not sit crippled for eternity under the government.
9. With the inspiration of Babasaheb, from the eighties, a huge force of Dalit entrepreneurs would have started to rise in villages, towns and cities, which would have been working like an engine in the country's economy. And then they wanted complete reservation in jobs, because now Dalit entrepreneurs would have been in a position to provide employment.
10. At the time of every government, he kept an eye on the leaders so that no one could make reservation a pawn. Reservation should not become a piece thrown away to get votes of any caste. He would be the first to do conch shells against such leaders and their parties. He was a brilliant lawyer himself. Going to Supreme Court. MPs were speaking in Parliament. But never let reservation become a pawn.
Babasaheb is not among us. If he suddenly comes and sees today, we will find his soul in great pain. They will bow their heads that what is going on in this country? The more angry they are with the leaders, the more they will get angry with their own community. Our problem is that we are ignorant and superstitious people who erect grand monuments by holding the pointed finger. Reservation was a helpful gesture given for some time. The far-sighted Babasaheb's finger gesture to take forward the oppressed people of centuries. We sat in the same posture by making their idols stand at the intersections and making reservation a religion. Now it is a separate powerful dera, which has its own Ram Rahim. Nothing against religion will be tolerated. Beware whoever said anything. We will set fire.
Most revered Babasaheb, don't forgive us at all. We know very well what we are doing!
article by - Prasad Mane
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