Indian dalit-bahujan youth see Gandhi as a figure of the past and Ambedkar as the figure of the future
When I was in school final in 1969, Ma-hatma Gandhi’s 100th birthday was celebrated with visible propaganda. As school children, we enjoyed that celebration. But at an advanced age of 66 I have to assess his role in our lives now. By ‘our’ I mean in the life of the dalit-bahujan mass, who constitute the majority of Indians.
One visible change I see is that in 1969 there was no competition to Gandhi’s moral and socio-spiritual leadership and his Mahatmagiri. But by 2019, Dr B.R. Ambedkar had challenged him. Ambedkar later acquired the status of ‘Father of the Constitution’ by disturbing Gandhi’s status of the ‘Father of the Nation’, though title is with him.By 1969 ‘harijan’, the name that Gandhi had given to the untouchables of India, had become both popular and legally and socially accepted name. But the dalit movements over a period of time successfully fought to erase that name from the Indian diction.
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