On Ambedkar jayanthi, the Sangh Parivar is once again engaged in its cynical project to co-opt Babasaheb’s legacy to sanitise its own politics through half-truths and lies.
Published Apr 14, 2025 | 7:00 PM ⚊ Updated Apr 14, 2025 | 7:00 PM
Dr BR Ambedkar in Columbia University (Wikimedia Commons)
Synopsis: Ambedkar fiercely opposed Hindutva and rejected any association with the RSS or Hindu Mahasabha. The Sangh Parivar’s current efforts to co-opt his legacy are built on distortions and lies. His writings make clear that Capitalist-Brahminical rule remained the greatest threat to the upliftment of the depressed classes.
Ambedkar was unequivocal in his view that as long as the Brahminical social system persists, and until a democratic order – one that recognises the inherent dignity of every human being – is established, emancipation for the majority remains unattainable.
He argued that the caste system, along with the Hindu religion rooted in the Manusmriti, is the very Gangotri (origin) of this internal colonialism, and it is for this reason that he rejected the Hindu-Brahminical politics of the Congress, opting instead to embrace Dalit-Bahujan identity politics in opposition to it.
That is also why Ambedkar completely rejected the politics and ideology of Savarkar.
During a certain phase of the freedom struggle, there is an example of Ambedkar joining the Congress – taking into account the community’s and the country’s interest – and becoming part of drafting the Constitution.
However, there is nowhere and never any example of him ‘shaking hands’ with the Brahminical, Hindutva-oriented Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or the Hindu Mahasabha.
Even so, the Modi government has set out to concoct many such false histories. But if one reads Ambedkar’s writings, one can immediately understand how false these all are.
Nevertheless, the RSS-BJP assert to Dalits that the Congress is their primary enemy, not the BJP. And, as is their habit, to justify their argument, they have thrown around many half-truths and lies.
Some people, having fallen prey to these lies, have begun this harakiri (ritualistic suicide) of believing – or trying to make others believe – that these enemies are friends or are at least ‘lesser enemies.’
Therefore, while keeping in mind that, in the ongoing struggle for liberation aimed at destroying Brahminical-capitalistic rule, the Congress cannot yet be considered a friendly force, one must also not forget the truth that Savarkar-BJP-RSS remain the most dangerous enemies of the oppressed and downtrodden in this society.
In reality, even while Ambedkar was battling against the Congress – whom he considered his principal political enemy – he maintained a very ruthless clarity regarding the dangerous Hindutva forces.
For example, in his lengthy work What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, which explains how the Congress – as an ideology and as a political party – betrayed the Untouchables, Ambedkar points out that Congress handing over the responsibility of solving the problems of the Untouchables to an unfit organisation like the Hindu Mahasabha, led by Savarkar and Moonje, is itself an example of its indifference towards the Untouchables.
Ambedkar writes:
“Not only did the Congress shirk its responsibility to resolve the untouchable question, it went so far as to hand that responsibility over to the Hindu Mahasabha, thereby rubbing salt into the wound.
“If there is one institution supremely unfit to shoulder the responsibility for the uplift of the Untouchables, it is the Hindu Mahasabha.
“The Hindu Mahasabha is a militant Hindu organisation. Its aim is entirely to preserve, religiously and culturally, everything that is ‘Hindu.’ It is not a social reform organisation. It is a political organisation whose main objective is to foment conflict against Muslim influence in Indian politics.
“It wants to maintain social harmony only to preserve its own political power. And the path it follows for that is to remain completely silent about caste and untouchability. How Congress chose such an organisation to work among the Untouchables is beyond my understanding.
“Why is Congress doing this? Other than wanting to pass off a matter inconvenient to itself onto someone else, there are no other reasons. The Hindu Mahasabha, too, had no eagerness to undertake any program in this regard, and Congress did not set aside any special fund for it. Hence, this plan died a most humiliating death.”
[See Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 9, p. 23]
From this, one can see how false are the claims that the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS have been wholeheartedly working for Dalit upliftment right from the beginning.
Ambedkar had ample reasons to arrive at this opinion. Until 1935 – when Ambedkar declared that he would leave the Hindu religion – the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha had never even regarded the Untouchables as human beings.
When the 1932 Round Table Conference agreements declared communal, population-based representation in legislative assemblies, the unavoidable necessity for them was to ensure the numbers of Hindus did not decrease.
Both the Congress and the Mahasabha were equally gripped by the fear that if the Untouchables abandoned Hinduism, the total population of the Hindu community would shrink and consequently reduce Hindu representation.
Early on, Ambedkar had even seriously contemplated converting to Islam, which further alarmed the Hindu Mahasabha.
Thus, it was only with great reluctance that the leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha such as Moonje approached Ambedkar to dissuade him from converting – not out of genuine concern for the Dalits.
Because merely two weeks prior to this sudden new reality, Moonje writes in his diary:
“At the present time, the most urgent task for which we must put together all our strength, money, and resources is military training for Savarna (caste) Hindus. Once they receive such training, they can then punish those who leave the Hindu religion or encourage others to abandon Hindu faith.”
If we look closely, in the 1932 Poona Pact, Moonje was one of those who signed – on behalf of the Hindu community – the agreement for Dalit upliftment that Gandhi had proposed.
Even so, in 1935, he expressed his hatred for the Untouchables and Ambedkar very explicitly:
“…Spending money on Ambedkar and the Untouchables is like feeding milk to a snake. We should not offer them any help but rather let them experience their own difficulties.”
[See Moonje Diary, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, cited in Keith Meadowcroft’s The Moonje–Ambedkar Pact]
It is this very incident that Ambedkar refers to in his work, Annihilation of Caste, when he mentions that certain Hindu leaders regarded him as “a cobra in the deity’s garden.”
This is the same Moonje who, along with Savarkar’s elder brother and Hedgewar, helped found the RSS in 1925.
In 1932, he travelled to Italy, met Benito Mussolini – the fascist dictator – and returned wanting to organise Hindus militarily on the same model, advocating a doctrine of Aryan supremacy and caste supremacy.
Although Savarkar’s ideas and practices were just as anti-Dalit, ever since the Modi government came to power, a halo has been built around him suggesting that Savarkar had been striving to annihilate caste from the start and was a great emancipator of Dalits, supposedly supported by Ambedkar.
The Sangh Parivar has been spreading half-truths and lies that when Savarkar was under house arrest in Ratnagiri in 1924, he built the Patit Pavan temple to grant entry to untouchables, that he resolutely opposed untouchability, and that Ambedkar himself praised his efforts.
Let us first examine Savarkar’s stance on the Manusmriti.
Savarkar clearly articulated his views on it in a series of articles he wrote in 1932 for a magazine called Kirloskar, and later in his writings from 1956.
Drawing on all these, Prof Shamsul Islam has done a thorough analysis of the narratives around Savarkar in his book Savarkar: Myths and Facts.
Though members of the Sangh Parivar have written many pieces criticising Islam’s writings, they have never claimed that the references he provides regarding Savarkar’s opinions are false!
First of all, let us note Savarkar’s 1932 article in Kirloskar. However, we must remember that as early as December 1927, Ambedkar had already burned the Manusmriti, denouncing it as a text hostile to Dalits, to women, and to humanity.
He had also made it clear that the root of untouchability lies in the Hindu religion itself; that its essence is found in the Manusmriti; and that the present Brahminical social system stands firmly on the directives and inspiration of the Manusmriti.
Regarding the Manusmriti, in his Kirloskar article, Savarkar writes:
“After the Vedas, the most highly revered scripture that our Hindu Rashtra honours is the Manusmriti. Since ancient times, it has been the foundational text for our culture, traditions, ideas, and practices. This book has codified the spiritual and divine progress that our nation has achieved over centuries. Even today, crores (tens of millions) of people in this country live and conduct themselves according to the Manusmriti. Now, the Manusmriti itself has become the Hindu law, and this is a Hindu nation.”
[See V.D. Savarkar, ‘Women in Manusmriti,’ in Savarkar Samagar [collection of Savarkar’s writings in Hindi], Prabhat, Delhi, vol. 4, p. 415; cited in Shamsul Islam’s Savarkar: Myths and Facts]
By that time, Phule, Ambedkar, and other Bahujan thinkers had already exposed how extremely anti-woman and anti-Dalit the laws and doctrines of the Manusmriti were.
Therefore, in response to the questions raised about the Manusmriti, Savarkar tries to address them cleverly – while still upholding the primacy of the text.
According to him:
“…From today’s perspective, whatever aspects of the Manusmriti appear regressive should be discarded; that is correct. But that alone does not make the Manusmriti dangerous or obsolete. When compared to the social codes of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, the Manusmriti stands taller than all of them. Therefore, we must pay it full respect.”
Thus, he directly challenges Ambedkar, who had burned the Manusmriti.
If, according to Savarkar, the Manusmriti is superior to the social codes of other ancient civilisations, then what was the stance of Savarkar and the RSS regarding the Indian Constitution – drafted under Ambedkar’s leadership in 1950 – which established values higher than all these ancient social codes, including the Manusmriti?
On 26 November 1949, the Constitution was drafted and presented to the nation. Barely four days later – on 30 November 1949 – The Organiser, the mouthpiece of the RSS, criticised it in these words:
“The worst thing about the Indian Constitution is that there is nothing Indian in it. In fact, our ancient Manusmriti is so revered throughout the world that people everywhere spontaneously express immense respect for it. But to the pundits of our Constitution, it means nothing.”
Golwalkar goes even further and rails against Ambedkar’s proposal for the annihilation of caste:
“These plans for the annihilation of caste are bringing India’s politics to ruin… Therefore, some people claim that the RSS wants to take India back by merely two hundred years, which is not true. In fact, we want to take India even further back – at least a thousand years – to that glorious era.”
[See The Organiser, 26 January 1962]
Because of this, the Sangh Parivar’s own high priests then advance further peculiar yet dangerous arguments.
In their view:
“The reason India’s northeastern and northwestern regions so easily succumbed to Muslim invasions is that their social systems, under the detrimental influence of Buddhist ideas, had loosened the caste structure. On the other hand, the Delhi region – despite centuries of direct Muslim rule and attacks – remained predominantly Hindu. We should not forget that the main reason for that was the firmly preserved caste system there.”
[See RSS and Democracy [Delhi: Sampradayikta Virodhi Committee, n.d.] – cited in Hindutva and Dalits, edited by Anand Teltumbde]
Another RSS guru – often quoted by Modi – Deendayal Upadhyaya, carries this same extremely dangerous thinking forward, but in very mild language:
“In this modern era, we keep talking about equality all the time. But the concept of equality must be used very carefully. Practically and from a realistic standpoint, no two individuals are the same.
“Each person has their own unique qualities. Every individual has duties corresponding to their own inclinations, qualities, and capacities, and each of these duties possesses equal dignity. This is what is called Swadharma.
“Following one’s Swadharma is akin to following God. Therefore, if everyone carries out their Swadharma without clashing with each other, that leads to a better society.”
This is precisely the line of thought that Modi extended when he hailed sanitation workers – those cleaning drains – as karmayogis, asserting that they see dignity and divinity in their vocation.
[See Upadhya, P. Bhishikar, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya: Ideology and Perception – Concept of the Rashtra, vol. 5]
This Brahminical worldview flows through the veins of the RSS and Savarkar’s followers. Because the Buddha preached equality, both Savarkar and every leader of the RSS bear an immense grudge against him.
In his final book, Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, Savarkar labels Buddha and Buddhism as the nation’s first traitorous religion and entity – doing so at least 28 times.
Moreover, when Ambedkar embraced Buddhism in 1956, Savarkar contemptuously referred to Ambedkar as having joined a “cowardly religion.”
In response, the magazine Prabuddha Bharat, which reflected Ambedkar’s views, reminded everyone of the incongruity of Savarkar’s title Veer (heroic) and noted his own history of seeking clemency.
[See RSS and Ambedkar: A Camaraderie That Never Existed; The Wire.in]
Even so, in order to present Savarkar as a great liberator of Dalits, Modi and the RSS cite numerous examples that supposedly show how he worked to achieve ‘Hindu unity’ and eradicate untouchability.
However, both Savarkar and Hedgewar had provided written assurances that they would not take any reform measures that went against the wishes of the upper castes.
For instance, at the 1939 session of the Hindu Mahasabha, they promised that their organisation would not introduce in any legislature any bill that made it mandatory for temples to grant entry to untouchables.
Again in 1941, Savarkar reiterated this same assurance.
That is precisely why, in 1951, while drafting the Republican Party of India election manifesto, Ambedkar declared that under no circumstances would his party form any alliance with the highly reactionary Hindu Mahasabha or the RSS.
At that same time, Ambedkar also announced he would not ally with the Communists. But that is another story, related to the reasons for the uninterrupted triumph of Brahminical power – material for a separate article.
(Shivasundar is an activist and columnist based in Bengaluru. Translated from Kannada and edited by Dese Gowda)
