Gandhi & Ambedkar

"Creation of Pakistan was victory of Jinnah and a loss of congress whereas Non-existence of a separate 'Dalitistan' can be referred to as sensibility of Ambedkar and victory of Gandhi"

According to Indian historical perspective Ambedkar is considered as a "champion of caste-struggle and equality."He had faced many caste-based atrocities throughout his life and after his higher education in UK and USA  he became a staunch critic of the "varna-system" which is the basis of the Hindu Religion.He returned to India around 1925 and his politics started from the "Mahaar sammelan " in a village named "kokal" near the Mumbai(then bombay) in which he was crowned as "Messiah of Dalits".

On the other hand Gandhi  of 1920-22 had already started his war against untouchability which he considered as a cancer to  the hindu society. Although he was in favour of the varna system in the beginning his views on it changed during the later years. The biggest influence on this gradual change of thought in the Mahatama was of Bhimrao Ambedkar.

Earlier politics of Bhimrao ambedkar

Earlier glimpse of Political leadership of Bhimrao ambedkar,which started with the mahaar sammelan,can be seen in the water issue in 1927 which is popularly known as the "mahaar satyagraha".

The kolaba district municaplaity had permitted the dalits to take water from the chavdar lake but the upper-caste hindus or the "swarnas" were gainst this decision.A gathering was called under the leadership of Dr Bhimrao ambedkar and they rushed towards the chavdar lake to take water from it.The leadership act shown during this whole episodes made ambedkar the undisputed leader of the dalits in maharastra.

Now seeing it from the Gandhian perspective his fight against untochability was non-violent whereas mahaar satyagraha resulted into violent clashes between the upper-caste and the lower caste hindus.Moreover leadership of ambedkar was limited in maharastra only whereas Gandhiji had already took the message of equality and abolishment of untouchability in every nook and corner of the country.Infact the only portrait on the dise of the "mahaar satyagraha" was of Mahatma Gandhi and this according to me makes Gandhi a bigger leader of dalits than ambedkar.

Major differences among Gandhi and Ambedkar were that Ambedkar believed in total abolishment of caste-system or the varna-system whereas Gandhi advocated for the varna system as he considered it as an important part of the structure created by the hindu society.secondly indian-swaraj was the main focus of politics of Gandhi and the case of untouchablity and equality among caste was just a small part of his larger struggle for freedom he rather feared that his call for abolishment of the varna system may take the upper-caste hindus away from the freedom struggle whereas Ambedkar believed in the complete abolishment of the varna system and considered it as the root cause of the evil atrocities named untouchablity and according to him in order to get rid of untouchability it was necessary to abolish the varna system.Gandhi never advocated for complete abolishment of varna system whereas Ambedkar was of the view that in order to get rid of untouchablity abolishment of varna system is must because it's the varna system which gives birth to cancer called untouchability.

thirdly Gandhi believed in a society in which everyone was allowed to vote and choose their representative from their area.whereas ambedkar believed in separate electoral college for dalits in which only dalits were allowed to vote for their representative just like the muslims and the sikhs under the leadership of Muslim league and shiromani akali dal respectively. 

Although in 1929 when the separate electoral theory was proposed ambedkar criticised it by giving the argument that there are many countries like greece bulgaria romania yugoslovakia russia where muslims are in minority but there is no concept of separate electoral collage in those countries and hence there is no need of that in India.But again in 1931 he himself was representing the dalit society for a separate electoral collage in the second round-table conference in London.

The second round-table conference remained unresolved and it rather widened the gap between the congress and the minority.Gandhi came back unsatisfied and decided that he wouldn't allow the dalit society to separate itself from the Swaraj movement as it would turn out to be disastrous for India.He wrote a letter to Sir samuel hoare and threatened the goverment that he would sit on a indifinite hunger-strike if the government dares to divide the hindu society by giving separate electoral collages to the dalits.

And then on august 1932 the prime minister of britain ramsay macdonald announced the "communal award" according to which the muslims,sikhs,anglo-indians,christians along with dalits were allowed to have a separate electoral collage for themselves.This can be seen as a victory of Ambedkar.