Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s Indian Revolution: Fighting Caste, Gender, Sexuality and Forging a New Womanhood
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- Опубликовано: 12 июн 2024
- Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) was an important revolutionary political thinker, anti-caste activist, intellectual, architect of India’s constitution, and formidable leader of modern India. Ambedkar famously called for the annihilation of the hierarchical caste order to create a just society based on liberty, equality, and fraternity. His critique of caste was deeply connected with gender, sexuality, labor, and the new Dalit political. His thoughts are most significant in the present times of strengthening right-wing Hindu fundamentalism, rising caste-based gendered and sexual violence, increased lynching of Dalits and Muslims, and amidst a new resurging wave of Dalit and anti-caste politics.
About the Speaker
Shailaja Paik, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Cincinnati. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of a number of fields: modern South Asia, Dalit studies, gender and women's studies, social and political movements, oral history, human rights, and humanitarianism. As a historian, she specializes in the social, intellectual, and cultural history of Modern India. Dr. Paik’s current research is funded by the American Council of Learned Societies Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship, StanfordHumanities Center, National Endowment for the Humanities: American Institute of Indian Studies Senior Long-term Fellowship, and a Taft Center Fellowship.
Many thanks for exposing the issue of India’s caste discrimination issue which is a much bigger imminent and existential crisis than India’s religious issues and gender issues. One way to get over this caste discrimination and age-old self-imploding customs in South Asia is by active participation of lower castes and atheists in media, politics, government and businesses without the fear of getting killed. The oppressed staying in villages by working traditional jobs and demanding equal rights is just futile. How can one expect Governments filled with upper castes and their nepotistic foreign educated families to know about the problems of oppressed? Also if the NGOs in villages are not able to uplift lower castes and only engaged in religious conversions what's the benefit? Therefore there must be NGO programs to help Tribals, Dalits and other lower castes to find work in cities. You see Gujaratis have Hostels for Patels, Brahmins, Baniyas, Jains, Pharsis etc. in major cities for those working or studying at universities. Similarly there must be hostels for lower castes also who are working or studying at universities either for fee or free. That will help the marginalized communities to get closer to seats of political and business power to influence Government decisions.
Another best way is to increase the number of multi-disciplinary universities in sciences, technologies, business and politics in South Asia. People are not born leaders, they are made. With best post-graduate education, the leaders will have ability to read documents, control impulses and make decisions rationally, be logical in their speaking etc. You see, Dr. BR Ambedkar was highly educated. There are more names like that but for the size of India, the number of thinkers has to be on par with other nations. As those leaders die, there must be a new generation of leaders better than previous generations in communities. Then those educated will have ability to help others but also understand the importance of standard-of-living over fighting foolishly over religion, tribe, sect, caste, last-name, pin-code, race, region, language etc. After graduating, the alumni may strive to actively raise the standards of other universities that need them most. The pluralist intellectuals may come up with an online ranking for all universities based on diversity and its tolerance. With such ranking, the aspiring students may opt for those more diverse universities where they can study without distractions or discriminations of any kind thus becoming the light of their own communities, states and the nation.
The ultimate aim of graduates and post-graduates from marginalized communities cannot be only finding Government Employment. This problem arose due to the license-raj capitalism under the garb of socialism. Not able to find Government employment cannot be end of a graduate's success in life. We must all ask which is better, unemployed-uneducated youth or unemployed-educated youth in India? As many in a nation as possible must be educated in graduate and post-graduate degrees to improve their loyalty to that particular country. Unemployed post-graduates are least worry to a country and majority may ultimately strive to be entrepreneurs, join civil services like IAS or IPS or armed forces, start NGOs, become politicians, go to foreign countries etc. ensuring India will also develop on par with China at least if not USA.
A sovereign Democracy works only when a critical mass of the population of a nation is well versed in national, international politics and economics. With as much education as possible including higher education, India's future can be improved. People are not born leaders, they are made. With best post-graduate education, the leaders will have ability to read documents, control impulses and make decisions rationally, be logical in their speaking etc. For the population size of India, the number of thinkers has to be on par with other nations. Then those educated will have ability to help others also understand the importance of standard-of-living over fighting foolishly over religion, tribe, sect, race, language, region etc. Without a critical mass of educated intellectuals throughout India, there won't be much democracy in India how much ever one may try. Look, what’s happening to Myanmar & Afghanistan next door.
RUclips video discussions are fine for the sake of chronological evidence of brain-storming sessions. However, one must also implement tangible ideas for the betterment of marginalized communities like Dalits, Adivasis, LGBT, marginalized OBCs and even the low-level labor stuck building railroads, airports and highways. In other words, voicing problems to make everyone aware is only like setting direction for an ideological journey. However one must also think about what all steps/tasks/vehicles are required for that journey to reach the successive mile-stones on that ideological journey. One must Plan, Organize, Execute and check the progress of that ideology or strategy among the masses. Without proper institutionalization, planning, execution and then quantification of the results, any activism is just another brute-force gathering which may succeed or fail due to random causes nobody ever thought about.
For instance, the population of USA is only 33 crores. The population of India is over 139 crore people which is 4 times that of USA. With 4 times the population of USA and sunlight all over the year in most parts of India, the foremost thing is improving the effectiveness of India’s 139 crore people by educating as many of them as possible in tertiary education. According to the 2022 US News report of Best Global Universities Rankings, there are 282 globally ranked universities in USA with a population of just 33 crores and only 93 globally ranked universities in entire India with a population of over 139 crores which is more than 4 times USA. In other words, there is one world ranked university for around 11.5 lakhs people in USA. In India, there is one world ranked university for around 149.5 lakhs people implying that many states of India don’t have a world-ranked university at all provoking the intelligent youth of those states to start thinking whether they should leave the country or migrate to another Indian state. Therefore, increasing the number of universities and their global rankings must be the focus of all intellectuals and NGOs in India now so that India will have choicest man-power to work on not only latest sciences and technologies but also social and political reforms ultimately improving the overall standard of living of all and their families.
When the overall standard of living of all communities is improved, then they will have time to discuss, debate, research and become more aware of their voting power inside universities and also outside in communities. Majority of Indians cannot be living like cattle in a cattle-shed and when someone wants to rent a few, the cattle-herders are happy to give them away. Also India cannot be an amusement park of stone-age for the rich travelers from developed countries and their kids. Therefore South Asia’s human resources must also be developed by educating as many as possible at Universities. For those who can’t pursue studies at Universities, there must be vocational colleges teaching them 21st century job skills so they either provide their services or start their own trades.
Ever wonder how such small countries like Taiwan, Korea, Japan or Singapore doing such wonders in technologies and India, Nepal, Sri Lanka or Pakistan with their vast populations cannot do the same even with so called literacy and great religions. South Asian Governments only concentrated on basic literacy for so long and have not been paying as much attention to the tertiary studies at Universities of sciences, technologies, engineering, medicine etc. Due to inadequate number of universities with world standards, the number of South Asian startups, innovation and patent filings are way too less compared to East Asia let alone Europe or Nations of European Settlers. According to 2022 US News report of Best Global Universities Rankings, here is how South Asia compares to East Asia with respect to the number of world ranked universities in Sciences, Technologies, Engineering, Mathematics, Medical sciences etc.
India(93)+Pakistan(17)+BanglaDesh(1)+Sri Lanka(2)+ Nepal(0)+Bhutan(0)+ Afghanistan(0)=113
China(309)+Japan(111)+S. Korea(58)+Taiwan(33)+Thailand(13)+Vietnam(5)+Singapore(4)=533
Innovation, Patents and startups appear to be directly proportional to the number of universities with world standard education in Sciences, technologies, engineering, mathematics, medical sciences, management etc. Therefore we must all make everyone understand what is meant by A KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON GLOBALIZATION. Same amount of metals in kitchen utensils gives less profit than a car or a smartphone. The difference is knowledge used to make a car, a micro-chip or a smartphone or other such high-tech product. The same weight of potatoes gives less profit than same weight of a bag of delicious chips. That’s the power of KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY.
My dream is to see every university student in every university all over South Asia, given 247 access to a super-computer nearby so they can research on history, politics(local & international), jurisprudence, journalism, forensics, latest gadgets, medicines, AI, drones, robots, space crafts, global warming, climate change, biodiversity etc.
Ultimate
Dr. Ambedkar is known as the Symbol of Knowledge & No.1 Scholar in the world.
Did you really mean to use 'the' instead of 'a' in the above sentence first time it was used? If that is your wrong usage then may be you should really search internet and learn the differences between the articles 'the' and 'a'.
I apologize for saying anything inconvenient. I myself do not know English language well and constantly strive to better myself at communicating in English.
You see, Dr. BR Ambedkar was highly educated and also an excellent orator in English language. There are more names like that but for the size of India, the number of thinkers has to be on par with other nations. As those leaders die, there must be a new generation of leaders better than previous generations in communities. Then those educated will have ability to help others but also understand the importance of standard-of-living over fighting foolishly over religion, tribe, sect, caste, last-name, pin-code, race, region, language etc. After graduating, the alumni may strive to actively raise the standards of other universities that need them most. The pluralist intellectuals may come up with an online ranking for all universities based on diversity and its tolerance. With such ranking, the aspiring students may opt for those more diverse universities where they can study without distractions or discriminations of any kind thus becoming the light of their own communities, states and the nation.
A sovereign Democracy works only when a critical mass of the population of a nation is well versed in national, international politics and economics. With as much education as possible including higher education, India's future can be improved. People are not born leaders, they are made. With best post-graduate education, the leaders will have ability to read documents, control impulses and make decisions rationally, be logical in their speaking etc. For the population size of India, the number of thinkers has to be on par with other nations. Then those educated will have ability to help others also understand the importance of standard-of-living over fighting foolishly over religion, tribe, sect, race, language, region etc. Without a critical mass of educated intellectuals throughout India, there won't be much democracy in India how much ever one may try. Look, what’s happening to Myanmar & Afghanistan next door.
The ultimate aim of graduates and post-graduates from marginalized communities cannot be only finding Government Employment. This problem arose due to the license-raj capitalism under the garb of socialism. Not able to find Government employment cannot be end of a graduate's success in life. We must all ask which is better, unemployed-uneducated youth or unemployed-educated youth in India? As many in a nation as possible must be educated in graduate and post-graduate degrees to improve their loyalty to that particular country. Unemployed post-graduates are least worry to a country and majority may ultimately strive to be entrepreneurs, join civil services like IAS or IPS or armed forces, start NGOs, become politicians, go to foreign countries etc. ensuring India will also develop on par with China at least if not USA.
Thus in my view, Dr. BR Ambedkar is a scholar and one of the epitomes(symbols) of Knowledge. And we need many more leaders like him in the contemporary India proportional to the population of India which is now over 1390 millions of which 65 percent is below 35 years old.
I apologize for saying anything inconvenient. Majority of people in this world reason though they may be afraid to express themselves in public. That said I am not affiliated with any religions, sects, castes, tribes, languages, political ideologies, food habits, dress habits etc. Also due to time constraints, please kindly forgive my Indlish mistakes too! I will correct my Indlish mistakes as time permits!
Ending this reply, Internet is one peaceful and cost effective way to mitigate issues related to caste issues in a poor developing nation like India. You see though I live at the fag-end of the flat world few thousand miles away in a different time-zone, we are able to watch this video and write here because we both have a high-speed internet connection. What about those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who do not have electricity and internet? (Especially those in small towns and villages and whose voices are not heard). Hence let us accelerate on ‘war footing’ two most important infrastructure projects, Electricity and Internet proliferation to mitigate ignorance and reduce ‘information gap’ strengthening ties between all “human beings”(Insaaniyat) on earth and make the world one big global village.
If one does not have time, there are good resources on internet to educate oneself. Even Central Government and State/provincial governments may publish educational materials on internet for the benefit of not only India but also entire world; if not free at least for a tuition fee (Resident and Non-Resident tuition fee may also vary). Hope one day, one doesn’t need pay high tuition fees or travel across the world to study if one has no money to study sciences, business, law, politics, sociology, Psychology, medicine, religion etc. Just a computer and internet connection will do. Also, Girl-children who are under several restrictions by their traditional-parents could get educated from their own homes under supervision of their traditional parents. If a Tea-Seller from a desert can become Prime Minister of India, then why not a girl-child of poor sewage cleaners from Uttar Pradesh state of India?