A few days ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in one of his X posts wrote, “If the Congress and its rotten ecosystem think their malicious lies can hide their misdeeds of several years, especially their insult towards B.R. Ambedkar, they are gravely mistaken!”.
This post suggested that the Hindu nationalist movement – whose key figure today is no one but the prime minister himself – has supported Ambedkar more than the Congress. Historical evidence contradicts this interpretation.
In fact, Hindu nationalists attacked Ambedkar repeatedly in response to his attempts at emancipating the Dalits from the caste system which, he convincingly argued, was inherent in Hinduism.
Congress and Hindutva leaders vs. B.R. Ambedkar
In 1932, Hindu nationalists did not lag behind Congress to fight the Communal Award through which the British government had granted a separate electorate to the Scheduled Castes (SC). In fact, they went further than Mahatma Gandhi, who forced Dr. Ambedkar to give up the separate electorate system by fasting unto death, putting him under tremendous pressure.
Not only did Madan Mohan Malaviya, one of the key North Indian leaders, lead the opponents to Dr. Ambedkar during the negotiations that resulted in the replacement of a separate electorate for SCs by reserved seats, but another key leader from Maharashtra, B.S. Moonje, promoted an alternative to the Communal Award in order to isolate Dr. Ambedkar as early as 1931.
Moonje, a Nagpur-based ophthalmologist, was an important figure of the Hindutva movement, not only in the Central Provinces but also at the national level. An influential personality of the Hindu Mahasabha, he was the mentor of K. B. Hedgewar, the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
