Sakshi Education
By Srirangam Sriram, Sriram's IAS, New Delhi.
Gandhi’s reading of caste fundamentally differed from Ambedkar. While Ambedkar preferred a rights-based approach, Gandhi’s approach was through faith and spirituality. Unlike Ambedkar, Gandhi felt that any exploitative relationship could be rectified only when the exploiter had a change of heart. So he worked with upper castes to change their mindset.
Although Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi fought for the rights of the oppressed castes in India with the same goal in mind, their paths were quite different.
Differences in approach
Differences in approach
- Dr. Ambedkar believed that untouchability could not be removed without completely abolishing the caste system. Mahatma Gandhi saw untouchability only as a sin of the religion that could be corrected through reforms.
- Dr. Ambedkar emphasizes the need for and creation of self-respect and a new sensibility. For him, the Dalit is primarily a humiliated person and other dimensions of a Dalit’s personality are secondary. Further, for Ambedkar, the entire caste Hindu society is anathema. He cannot accept any identification with the symbols and ethos of caste Hindu society.
- According to Gandhi, as both Dalit and caste Hindu societies are organically intertwined with each other; the notion of untouchability has to disappear from the mind and heart of caste Hindu society. The other should change. Any attempt to eradicate untouchability will not be fruitful without a constant and deep interaction with the other.
- Ambedkar believed that the movement for the amelioration of the cause of depressed classes should be led by depressed classes only and for this reason, he perceived himself but Gandhi as leader of the depressed classes. Gandhi believed that such movement may be launched by any person.
- Wherein Ambedkar saw the communal award of 1932- in the form of separate electorate for depressed classes - as necessary for advancement of depressed classes, Gandhi saw it as a British attempt to split Hindus and opposed it.
- The Gandhi-Ambedkar conflict was over how to understand caste. Ambedkar insisted, for the first time in India’s modern history, that caste was a political question, and couldn’t be addressed by social reforms only while Gandhi considered it a social issue.
Gandhi’s reading of caste fundamentally differed from Ambedkar. While Ambedkar preferred a rights-based approach, Gandhi’s approach was through faith and spirituality. Unlike Ambedkar, Gandhi felt that any exploitative relationship could be rectified only when the exploiter had a change of heart. So he worked with upper castes to change their mindset.
Published date : 30 Oct 2020 03:27PM
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