What They Still Don’t Understand About Ambedkar And Hinduism

A far-left website has reacted to my article The Ambedkar They Don’t Want You To Know About. A lot of noise has been made about "distortions and out of context quotes". So what are these distortions and how out of context were the quotes? Here is a brief analysis:

1. Upanishads and Democracy

The website quotes from the Annihilation of Caste and claims that the actual quote of Dr B R Ambedkar implies that "Ambedkar was only 'told' by others that his desired new doctrine could be based in the Upanishads, and his scepticism towards that claim is plain to see – provided they actually read Dr Ambedkar, and not Neelakandan’s distortion of him." The article quotes Dr Ambedkar:

Then the article states:

My response:

Now, note that the quotation that I used was actually not from Annihilation of Caste but from another work that came almost a decade later – Riddles in Hinduism, which also incidentally contains scathing attacks on Hinduism. Five years ago, in a series that I wrote, elaborately looked into the subject (Bodhisattva's Hindutva series, dated 16 April 2012). I have made the connection between the simple remark he made in Annihilation and then the exhaustive treatment he gave to the subject in Riddles. Let me make a small recap here.

In Riddles, Dr Ambedkar makes the harshest pronouncement against the Hindu social order. He writes:

After such a harsh criticism the doctor springs out a surprise:

In my 2012 article, this is what I commented:

So, what Dr Ambedkar described as a 'may', he made into the spiritual basis for democracy in a decade. What is this ‘Brahmaism’? Dr Ambedkar has borrowed the term from the works of Edward Washburn Hopkins, The Great Epic of India: Character and Origin of the Mahabharata. In subsequent paragraphs he associates this with the three mahavakyas. Then he provides a strong defence against the Western critique of the statements:

Then Dr Ambedkar states that "there cannot be slightest doubt that no doctrine could furnish a stronger foundation for Democracy than the doctrine of Brahma’. While Dr Ambedkar very clearly makes the mahavakyas-based doctrine of Brahma —which he calls Brahmaism as the basis of social democracy—it is amusing to note that left academics even go to the extent of associating this doctrine of Brahma – Brahmaism – with Brahmo Samaj – a monotheistic movement of the early colonial period.

Then, Dr Ambedkar makes the statement that I have quoted, which let me quote it in full:

Based on this, I have made my statement that Dr Ambedkar considered the mahavakyas of the Upanishads the basis of democracy.

In fact, in 1949 while countering the Communist attack on the Constitution, Dr Ambedkar pointed out that Buddha’s Sangha was also a democratic institution and then stated: “he must have borrowed them from the rules of the Political Assemblies functioning in the country in his time” which was of course pre-Buddhist Vedic India.

I could have stopped with this had I desired to just praise Hinduism. But in my article series Bodhisattva's Hindutva in 2012, I further wrote:

Then I quoted in full the scathing attack Dr Ambedkar launched on Hindu society as to how they failed the lofty concept of Brahmaism:

And then I wrote:

So the statement that Dr Ambedkar considered the mahavakyas of Upanishads as the basis of democracy stands.

2. Dr Ambedkar and Christian Conversion

In the article, I have given two new factoids on the manner in which not only Dr Ambedkar but also the other tall national leaders of the Scheduled Community movement in India viewed the missionary support with suspicion. I have already stated in the 2012 article series the reason for the rejection of Christianity by Dr Ambedkar in his own words, which is even more damaging, for a left-‘secular’ intellectual. Dr Ambedkar says:

When Swami Dharma Teertha, a convert to Christianity, asked Dr Ambedkar why not convert to Christianity, Dr Ambedkar replied by saying that if it was only a question of his personal conversion he would readily go along with the suggestion. But it was about the society. More importantly he explained that "going over to Buddhism was like change of rooms within a house, easier but to Christianity was like change of houses".

Further, when he stated that "to support Democracy because we are all children of God is a very weak foundation for Democracy to rest on" and suggested ‘Brahmaism’ based on mahavakyas as the strongest basis of democracy. He definitively rejected one of the fundamental faith axioms of not only Christianity but also Islam. Because for Dr Ambedkar, democracy was not just a political system but a way of life. When he found the very fundamental faith of Christianity, the fatherhood of God, as a shaky foundation for democracy he naturally rejected Christianity. Thus Christianity stands rejected by Dr Ambedkar for three reasons: one: because of its extra-territorial based political nature, two: its alien nature, and three: theological deficiency to support democracy.

3. Conversion and Hinduism

The left-secular author quotes Dr Ambedkar criticises the nature of Hindu who would not spread the light of his religion and who would not share the intellectual and social inheritance as mean and states that it is worse than the cruelty of the forced conversion of Muslims and Christians. Can this be construed as Dr Ambedkar considering as legal the forcible conversion? If so by whom?

What he states in the very next paragraph is very significant. He asks:

Then he answers the question:

So, he wants caste to go, which alone could make Shuddhi sustained, failing which it would be "futile and a folly". Here it should be noted that Dr Ambedkar, who never considered even Mahatma Gandhi as genuine fighter for the cause of the Scheduled Community people, called Swami Shradanand who spearheaded Shuddhi movement as the "greatest and the most sincere champion" of Scheduled Community people. (What Congress and Gandhi have done to the untouchables', 1945, P 23)

To understand the full purport of this statement Dr Ambedkar made on casteless Hinduism being a missionary religion, one should also read Dr Ambedkar's rejection of Veer Savarkar's alternative to Pakistan proposal. Dr Ambedkar writes:

Taken together, what are the implications? Dr Ambedkar wanted caste to be annihilated. It would make Hindu Sanghathan possible as he explicitly said and it would allow Hinduism to become a missionary religion. The process would eventually absorb the 'minor' nations into the 'major' nation, rather than nurture the separatist tendencies. Dr Ambedkar here proves to be more Savarkarite than Savarkar himself.

4. Hindu Priest Service

The old establishment school points out the statement of Dr Ambedkar in the context of his saying about the establishment of a Hindu Priest Service. He did say that "it would be better if priesthood among Hindus was abolished". But he also found that it was impossible and he wanted to reform the system through the state and wanted the state to implement a book which he suggested could be based on Upanishads.

As we have seen earlier he would return back to the same theme after a decade as we saw and considered the mahavakyas of the Upanishads to be the spiritual basis of democracy. In connection with it is important to look at the preface Dr Ambedkar wrote to Swami Vidannanda Teertha's book Rashtra Rakshake Vaidik Sadhan. Swami wanted free India to adopt as its religion "the gospel preached by the Vedas which is scattered all over the Vedas which he has collected together in one place in this booklet," Dr Ambedkar noted. Then he wrote:

Then he wanted Swami to also work on the reasons why present day Hindus have fallen from such lofty heights. He was happy that the work pointed out that the world as maya was not an original Vedic concept but a latter day invention. This further points to the way Dr Ambedkar would have wanted the state to create a Hindu book.

One should also remember that Dr Ambedkar while formulating the Hindu Code Bill (HCB) did not reject the Smrithis, which he had criticised so strongly, but collected all the positive aspects from them and proudly declared that his HCB was based on the 'religious scriptures of Hindus'. Dr Ambedkar could have had a similar conception for Hindu Priest Service as well. But what is really significant beyond the evident state control is what would have happened to the secular nature of the state had it really created and run such a Hindu priest service without corruption, and based on "the vigour of thought and motion which prevailed among the ancient Aryans", and on the mahavakyas. Combine with this Dr Ambedkar's claim that without the restriction of caste, Hinduism would become a missionary religion and his love for a homogenised India. Then what kind of Hindu Priest Service would have evolved if Dr Ambedkar's plan had been put into practice in an earnest manner?

Ghar wapsi would have been finished decades ago within India and we would be exporting Hindu missionaries to South Africa, Australia and Africa to network indigenous pagan spiritual traditions.