During his lifetime Dr. Ambedkar had consistently faced despise, ignominy and insults at the hand of caste establishment. Even after his death, despite his outstanding statesmanship and sterling contributions like drafting the Constitution of India, Ambedkar continued to be despised and ignored by the ungrateful mainstream till the emerging imperatives of electoral politics needed him. Before that, the mainstream even did not concede him so much as leadership of all the untouchables and preferred to belittle him by projecting as a leader of his own community. It systematically either blacked him out from the recorded history or allowed him place in its margins. It strove to confine him to a small community of Maharashtra in which he was born. So effective was this establishment cunning that barring a few pockets outside Maharashtra, where the movement had penetrated in his lifetime, he remained a stranger for a long time to the very people for whom he lived and died. His published writings were all out of print and were available only in a few reputed libraries. A vast unpublished material was embroiled in ownership disputes and hence was decomposing in the custody of courts of law. A few biographies of Ambedkar, among them notably one written by Dhanajay Keer in English (first published 1962) and the other written by Mr. B.C. Khairmode in multiple volumes in Marathi (first volume published in April 1952 and the last volume yet to come), that constituted the earliest source material on Ambedkar had significantly contributed to spread awareness and evoke curiosity about him. However, in absence of an easy access to his original writings he was not even known to the well-meaning intellectual community beyond certain heresies and anecdotes. It is only as a result of struggles of his people that claimed increasing space in contemporary politics and partly influenced by the intrinsic need to woo dalits that the State moved to undertake publication of his writings. The Government of Maharashtra undertook to publish his writings and speeches and came out with its first volume in April 1979. So far 16 volumes have been published which are being translated in Indian languages of some States. Before this project, it needs to be noted that many organisations and individuals claiming allegiance to Ambedkar-thought had brought out reprints of his published writings, compilation of his speeches scattered at many places, and secondary material in his eulogy. It certainly did contribute to spread awareness about the Ambedkar-thought, but due to their meagre resources its reach remained acutely constrained. This constraint was largely overcome when the Government of Maharashtra offered his writings and speeches in well-edited volumes at reasonable prices. Thanks to it, this publication, particularly the ones containing his hitherto unpublished writings, for the first time provided comprehensive introduction to the treatise of his thoughts and expectedly gave impetus to discussions and research work on Ambedkar-thought. The eruption of dalit militancy in the form of Dalit Panthers movement in 70s and the spate of anti-reservation flare ups in 80s, that shook the oppressors as well as oppressed, also significantly motivated the study of Ambedkar-thought.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 05:55:53 +0000
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