(Below of is the full text of the speech delivered by Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya, GS while receving the receives the ‘Ambedkar Sudar’ Award, instituted by the the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi on May 28, 2023 in Chennai)
Honourable President Comrade Thirumavalavan, Comrades Sinthanai Selvan, D Ravikumar and other leaders and members of VCK, esteemed fellow awardees Comrade D Raja, Comrade K Balakrishnan, Mr. Appavu, Mrs Thayammal Arvaanan, Mr Mohan Gopal and Sri Rajendra Pal Gautam, comrades and friends,
Vanakkam!
A very good evening to you all!
At a time when the Constitution of India is facing a relentless assault by the forces controlling the levers of the Indian state, the battle for social equality and mobility is being sought to be systematically pushed back and constitutionally empowered citizens of free and diverse India are being subjected to fearful regimentation and hate-filled division, it is extremely humbling to receive an award in the name of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the chief architect of India's Constitution who gave India's oppressed the clarion call of annihilation of caste. Thank you comrades of VCK for this pleasant surprise. In recent years, we have been seeing a welcome trend of coming closer among various streams of India's ongoing movement for social transformation. I sincerely hope that we can carry this forward to build powerful waves of anti-fascist resistance across the country.
Dr. Ambedkar had given us not just the call of annihilation of caste but he had also indicated ways that could take us forward in this direction. He rejected the idea that seeks to legitimise caste as division of labour, on the contrary he called it division of labourers and insisted on uniting labourers or workers as an independent class. The glorious legacy of Independent Labour Party left behind by Dr. Ambedkar remains a treasurehouse of inspiration and insight in our continuing quest for social transformation as does his contribution to working class rights achieved through his role as Labour member of the Executive Council. More than temple entry he wanted equal access of the excluded people to all public resources. More than intercaste dining he emphasised intercaste marriage to stop the reproduction of caste through endogamy and fought tirelessly to secure rights of women to make free choices in life.
He introduced reservation as an affirmative action against deeply entrenched social injustice and asked India's oppressed to move forward in life through the triad of education, agitation and organisation. Today the right to reservation and education is facing a renewed attack. Subversion of reservation, privatisation of education and casualisation of jobs are a trident directed against India's oppressed and deprived poor to stop the onward march of social mobility and equality. On my way to Chennai I had a day's halt in Nagpur and I visited Deekshabhoomi. The mass embracing of Buddhism by Dr. Ambedkar and his followers was a huge social protest against caste oppression, a mass rejection of vedic scriptures and an emphatic collective exercise of the constitutional right to choose one's religion, and it happened right in the ideological capital of Manuvad and Indian fascism.
Right at the time of adoption of India's Constitution, Dr Ambedkar issued a set of clear warnings. He told us not to be complacent with the introduction of universal adult franchise, but to fight hard against economic and social inequality, which if not checked, would render the equality of vote meaningless. For Dr. Ambedkar, liberty, equality and fraternity represented an integral package which alone could put an end to the stigma of the caste system. Today while Dalits experience renewed exclusion on different levels, Muslims subjected to outright marginalisation and ghettoisation are emerging as India's new Dalits even as Christians too face increased prejudices and even violent attacks in many parts of India. Babasaheb warned us against the cult of bhakti in politics which could only be a sure way of democracy's degeneration and descent into dictatorship. Today this bhakti cult is overshadowing India's entire system of knowledge and information dissemination. Above all, Babasaheb Ambedkar had given us the sharpest warning against letting Hindu Raj become a reality in India. He termed it the greatest calamity that could fall upon India and asked us to prevent it at all costs.
Today while we have assembled here in Chennai, a new Parliament building, built at great cost to India's exchequer at a time when the people of India were reeling under the pandemic, has been inaugurated by India's megalomaniac Prime Minister in a brazen travesty of constitutional spirit and propriety. The Sangh-BJP establishment claims credit for giving India her first Adivasi President, preceded by a Dalit President, but when the time came for the laying of foundation or inauguration of the new Parliament building, the two Presidents have been denied their constitutional due. We cannot miss the fact that the new Parliament building and its inauguration are loaded with anti-democratic anti-republican symbolism. When the inauguration of an abode of democracy in a secular republic resembles the coronation of a king in a monarchy, there is something evidently and seriously wrong with it. It marks a clear negation of the very spirit and vision enunciated in the Preamble to our Constitution.
Only the other day the apex court affirmed the administrative powers of the elected government of Delhi and asked the Central government not to intrude into the federal rights of the Delhi government through the office of the LG, but the executive has declared a war on the judiciary and on the federal framework of India's constitutional democracy by issuing an ordinance to nullify the verdict of the Supreme Court Constitution Bench. It is time we the people of India woke up to the threat of the greatest calamity that Dr. Ambedkar had warned us against. We have a disaster to defeat and a dream to win - the dream of a modern India free of exploitation and oppression for which our freedom fighters and great martyrs had sacrificed their all.
I humbly accept this year's Ambedkar Sudar Award on behalf of the CPI(ML) and the revolutionary communist camp of India and rededicate myself to the mission of annihilation of caste and transformation of India into a robust democracy, staunchly secular, vibrantly diverse and genuinely socialist. Thank you all.
Inquilab Zindabad!
