Gandhi and Ambedkar

It was almost an impossibility to think that a casual remark by the Chief Justice of India would fire the passions of young citizens to such an extent that they will come together, protest, demand the resignation of a minister and get it as well.

One remarkable aspect of these protests was that along with the chants of ‘Jai Bhim’, the spirit of Gandhian non-violence also an integral part of these spaces. But had not Gandhi and Ambedkar been staunch rivals of each other as long as they were alive? One would think of this unique phenomenon as a contradiction being brought to life on the streets of Delhi. Bringing together their ideas and using them as a vehicle to achieve their ends, India’s Gen-Z is doing something quite unprecedented.

In his new book ‘Arguments with Gandhi’, Ramchandra Guha, apart from many other debates Gandhi had with different people both in and outside India, talks about his debates with Ambedkar. These remain interesting and thought-provoking. Speaking to Indian students at Oxford in 1931, Gandhi spoke of Ambedkar in the following words:

“I have the highest regard for Dr Ambedkar. He has every right to be bitter. That he does not break our heads is an act of self-restraint on his part.... He sees in every Hindu a determined opponent of the untouchables, and it is quite natural.”

But why was Ambedkar bitter with Gandhi in the first place? For him, all the pomp and glory of India’s freedom struggle was meaningless and hollow until the visceral malaise of ‘untouchability’ was wholly eradicated from India. He believed that political freedom of India meant nothing if there was no social freedom available to its people. In Ambedkar’s words, it was to ‘build a palace on a heap of dung’.

The contradiction of establishing a political democracy without social equality was vehemently emphasized by Ambedkar. Gandhi tried to reform Indian society from above, while Ambedkar tried to set straight the caste inequalities from the ground itself. For him, Gandhi was a hesitant reformer, not willing to go fast and far enough to frontally challenge the structure of the caste system.

Distraught at Gandhi’s half-hearted efforts to abolish untouchability from the core, in an interview with BBC in 1955, Ambedkar launched a visceral attack on Gandhi and said:

“I always say that I met Mr Gandhi in the capacity of an opponent. I've a feeling that I knew him better than most other people, because he had opened his real fangs to me, you see, and I could see the inside of the man.”

Another interesting aspect of Guha’s book is his treatment of Gandhi’s idea of non-violence. Guha does so by pitting Gandhi against Russian leader Vladimir Lenin. The difference between them had to do with their political methods at liberating their people.

Gandhi wished to do so through non-violent means, whereas Lenin believed that the use of violence was mandatory and necessary for a successful revolution. Many in India also criticized Gandhi’s idea of non-violence.

A point in case is that of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) of which Bhagat Singh was a charismatic member. HSRA believed that ‘Non-violence has been blessed with one result–Failure.’

In an attempt to distinguish his philosophy from that of Bhagat Singh, Gandhi said that “if the practice of seeking justice through murders is established amongst us, we shall start murdering one another for what we believe to be justice.” He believed that even if freedom is achieved through violence, it will be a freedom where killers and murderers will hold a sway.

The central argument of Guha’s book is that during the time Gandhi was alive, he was as controversial a figure as he is after his death. It is in these continuous debates around him that Gandhi really springs to life. The book features an array of historical figures who engaged with his ideas like that of Ambedkar, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr, Lenin and Nelson Mandela.

It is through these debates centering around Gandhi that Ramchandra Guha presents a moral and a political history of the world.