No right-thinking person can reject the remark of B.R. Ambedkar that “there is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. As has been well said by the Irish patriot Daniel O ‘Connell, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour; no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty”. Ambedkar continues, “this caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country”.
Recently, in the corridor of Lok Sabha, one BJP Member of Parliament told Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow them his (Modi’s) ‘Darshan’ at least once a week at this sanctum house. One of the members present there was quick to quip: ‘but he must not be worshipped as a god’. This very incidence prompted me to hold pen to expose the truth surrounding ‘hero worship’.
It must be kept in mind that, in India, there runs a sensitive tendency which is connected with what is called ‘Bhakti’. It is also termed as the path of devotion or hero worship which plays a very significant role in its politics, unequal in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country of the world. Undoubtedly, Bhakti in religion, both in Hinduism and Islam, but mostly in Hinduism, may be a path leading to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation which ultimately culminates in ‘dictatorship’.
I would also like to quote a small portion of the speech that Ambedkar delivered to the Constituent Assembly of India on 25 November, 1949. He spoke of three warnings. One related to danger of eschewing constitutional methods for unregulated street protest, which he termed as ‘the grammar of anarchy’. The second one drew a distinction between political democracy on one hand and social democracy on the other. It goes without saying that with the Constitution in hand, every adult will have the right to vote, and this ensures political equality. Yet on the social plane, Ambedkar remarked, “We have in India a society based on the principle of graded inequality which means elevation for some and degradation for others. On the economic plane we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty.”
Ambedkar once again warned that ‘those who suffer from social inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up’. It would not be irrelevant if I quote Ejaz Ahmed Aslam, Editor-in-Chief of this English weekly, in this respect. While delivering his speech on “The Importance of Vote in Democracy” at a national seminar (organised by a fortnightly Urdu magazine Istaqlal) held in Kolkata on 2 August, 2015, he openly criticised the Democracy ‘wherein the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer’.
It is not a hurting remark to pass against Ambedkar that he did not like the excessive adulation that the countrymen extended to Mahatma Gandhi. In the immediate aftermath of Independence, he could see the enormous prestige that men like Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel commanded. Undoubtedly, they and their Congress Party had participated in an arduous and extended struggle for freedom. The years they had spent in jail demanded attention and respect. In this respect, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad also was not behind them. Despite their life-long services rendered to the nation, their actions and/or ideas must not be considered to be immune from critical scrutiny.
It is on record that Nehru himself was not unaware of the dangers of blind adoration. In November, 1937, the Modern Review of Calcutta carried a profile of Nehru which spoke of “intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and inefficient”. It noted that his conceit was already formidable and worried that soon Nehru might fancy himself as a Caesar. It was later revealed that the piece was written by none but Nehru himself, under the pen-name of Chanakya.
Nehru was, undoubtedly, a great leader, a literary figure of high degree. In spite of this, his Caesarist tendencies were kept in check by his own self-awareness and by the fact that he lived in an age of political giants. Within the Congress itself, there were giants like Patel, Rajaji, Maulana Azad, B.C. Roy and others who treated him with affection, not deference. The opposition, in the meantime, had stalwarts of considerable self-respect and ability. Mention can be made of Ram Manohar Lohia, J.B. Kripalani, and A.K. Gopalan, besides a few others, who loved Nehru, but did never bow their heads as one ritually bows head before gods and goddesses.
Now the scenario seems to have completely changed. I wonder if there is none like the above quoted political leaders in government. Our floors of the Parliament appear to have been crying for the absence of personalities who projected and displayed in words what they spoke, in acts what they pledged. The majority of political leaders, who have formed their government at the Centre, are devoid of the qualities of selflessness, honesty, burning conscience, adherence to ethical values and moral principles and, above all, an unadulterated spirit to serve humanity irrespective of caste, creed, religion and language. The only thing they and their supporters appear to be nurturing and nourishing is communalism and how to blacken the face of secularism and trample the ideals of pluralism.
No right-thinking person will deny the bitter truth, that in the run-up to the general elections of 2014, the BJP increasingly subordinated itself to the will of a single individual. Modi’s PR machine already built him up as, first, the Saviour of his party and then, the Saviour of the Nation herself. Most of the BJP leaders have obediently laid down their liberties, and their critical faculties, at the feet of this one man. And, so have the party cadre. Now, they daringly ask that the rest of us must follow.
With the Prime Minister’s tacit support and consent, the rogue elements in the society have now begun to decide what to eat and what not, what to wear and what not. They have got such courage as to ask the members of a certain minority community not to consume some particular food item even in their houses. It is not difficult to fathom the reason and factor playing such a dominant role behind forming such ugly and destructive mindset of some section of the majority community.
Ambedkar would have been appalled to see the present communally charged and poisoned atmosphere prevailing in the country. And, so, perhaps, should we be. May God drill sense in those who incite communal hatred and violence and poison the air to such an extent that peaceful co-existence has increasingly been becoming very difficult, especially in some parts of northern India! Is one willing to let anyone else or a Member of Parliament or Member of Legislative Assembly choose what laws to execute and what laws to change? Is one willing to let anyone tear apart what our founders have built? Certainly not.
We the Indians have been passing through a very critical juncture of time at present. Some of our political and religious leaders are needed to change their mindset for the betterment of the country as a whole, shaking off the fetters of hatred, prejudice and narrow-mindedness. And, this should be done immediately.