6th December 2011—55th death anniversary of Babasaheb Dr B.R.Ambedkar

Dr B.R.Ambedkar  (14/12/1891 to 06/12/1956) was the architect of the Indian Constitution. He dedicated his life for the upliftment of dalits and other oppressed sections of the society. Today, on the occasion of his 55^th death anniversary, it is proper to remember what he said about the necessity of transforming the political independence achieved in India in 1947 into economic independence and social independence after 1947. He sai that this transformation was necessary for the betterment of the conditions  of the dalits and the exploited sections in the country. He said:

“On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man-one vote and one vote-one value. In our social and economic life, we shall by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man-one value.

“How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life?”

The political democracy has been not yet transformed into social and economic independence. The achievement of social independence i.e freedom from caste oppression depends finally on the achievement of economic independence. This means there should be a radical change in the rural economic relations. At present the dalits in rural areas are mostly deprived of land and hence economic independence. On the other hand the land is concentrated among a few in the upper castes. This is the basis of social discrimination and caste oppression. Therefore unless this situation is changed, there cannot be a real economic and social independence. To bring this change, re-distribution of land through land reforms is required.

But since the present state is the state controlled by Capitalists and landlords, such real land reforms and redistribution of land is not possible. The only solution offered for upliftment of the dalits is reservation in government jobs and some allotments in the budgets. While these steps help in upliftment of some individuals who got the job, it is not enough to uplift the vast masses of dalits. It requires the struggle to change the land relations in the rural areas. Such a struggle cannot be successful by the struggle of dalits alone. It requires the unity of all those having no property in the rural areas irrespective of their caste and support from the poor and middle class peasants.

After the advent of liberalisation policies, there is almost no additional recruitment in Government jobs. Hence the chance of getting Government jobs through reservations has become very less for the dalits. Therefore the ruling classes are calculatedly creating quarrels among the dalits(on the basis of their sub castes)  and between  the dalits and other oppressed classes on the issue of share in the government jobs in order to disrupt the unity among all oppressed classes to fight against these liberalisation and privatisation policies.

Hence unless the struggle against caste oppression is linked with the struggle against class oppression and with the unity of the working class, both struggles will fail. Hence the working class struggles and the struggles against caste oppression should go together in order to fulfil the dream of Babasaheb Ambedkar for achieving the economic independence and political independence for the dalits and oppressed classes.