Ebook: Worshipping false gods: Ambedkar, and the facts which have been erased

Right till 1946 - that is, till just a year before India became independent - Ambedkar was a vehement opponent of the Freedom Movement, indeed of Freedom being given to India at all. He claimed with pride that it is the people whom he said he represented who had conquered India for the British. He said that he was supporting the demand for Pakistan because this would mean that the British would continue to stay in India. The Freedom Movement is a sham, a ruse, he proclaimed, Gandhi an agent to perpetuate the Nazi-like suppression of the masses, and the British Viceroy the saviour of the Depressed Classes. The British put "suggestions” to him, and reported to each other how well he had acted in accordance with those "suggestions", they urged each other to strengthen his hands, to put him in positions that would give greater weight to the theses and formulae he was putting forth, theses and formulae which served British imperial interests to the dot. It was because his association with the British was known to all that he and his party were wiped out in every single election he fought - in 1937, 1946,1952. But today he is Bharat Ratna !

Whereas Gandhiji taught that the way to reform is for each individual, each group to make demands on itself, Ambedkar reared his followers into a demand-and denounce brigade, he denounced "the cultivation of private virtues" as worse than useless. Whereas Narayan Guru, himself from an oppressed caste that was not just Untouchable but Unapproachable, attained the highest spiritual states, thereby acquired unquestioned authority, and transformed society from within the tradition, Ambedkar heaped calumny on that tradition, and eventually proclaimed a "Buddhism" that had nothing to do with the teachings or life of the Buddha. The legacy of one kind of reformer - of Narayan Guru, of Gandhiji -- is a people transformed and ennobled, the legacy of the other is a people embittered and wallowing in backwardness. The legacy of one is a society at peace and in harmony, that of the other is a society riven. The legacy of one is enlightened and serene discourse, the legacy of the other is intimidation as argument, assault as proof. But today scarcely anyone outside Kerala even knows about Narayan Guru, and Ambedkar's statues outnumber those of Gandhiji !

What are the consequences when a society repudiates its own gods and idols and adopts instead those of the ones who would put it down, who would tear it up ? A major reconstruction of events in our Freedom Movement, an exhumation of startling facts - the stratagems of the British, and of their associates, the sacrifices of Gandhiji and the nationalists. A withering examination of the myth that Ambedkar wrote the Constitution.

A must for understanding our times, for strengthening our country.


This volume includes studies of Lokesh Chandra that have been finalised during the last five years.