Eleanor Zelliot's Understanding Dr.B.R.Ambedkar

Understanding Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Eleanor Zelliot ¹*

¹ Carleton College

ABSTRACT

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, also called Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in affection and respect, was born in 1891 in a Mahar Untouchable family and died in 1956

after a lifetime of service to his people and to India. His influence has spread throughout India and his image, a Western-dressed gentleman pointing to the future and carrying a book, is found in many villages and all cities.

The book represents the Constitution of independent India. His followers know the facts of his life and are so reverential that one right wing critic called him a 'false God'. The word now used broadly for Untouchables, Tribals, and other low castes and classes is 'Dalit', which means ground down, but began a proud use in the 1970s with a literary movement called 'Dalit Sahitya', made famous at first by the 'Dalit Panthers' named in reference to the militant American 'Black Panthers'. Like the word 'Black', it can be a source of controversy today. The term coined by Mohandas K. Gandhi, 'Harijan' or people of God, was resented by Ambedkar as patronizing, and the two also clashed over the idea of separate electorates for untouchables; Gandhi's win is still resented by some as depriving Dalits of their chosen leaders. Dr. Ambedkar's influence may be seen in literature, in educational and political institutions, in a massive Buddhist conversion, and in increased pride and self-confidence among Dalits.

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Religion Compass 2/5 (2008): 804–818, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00094.x

Against Ecological Romanticism: Verrier Elwin and the Making of an Anti-Modern Tribal Identity, By Archana Prasad

From the Publisher:
The three essays in this book develop

a systematic critique of the romanticised notions of tribal life, identity and ecology that informs so much of today’s scholarship as well as the popular perceptions and ‘everyday commonsense’ relating to these themes.

The author has examined genesis of certain vision found in the work of Verrier Elwin, the grand old man of Indian anthropology and ‘tribal’ policy, and has shown how it links up with the contemporary

realities of ethnicity, caste and community in India and a hegemonic Hindutva politics.

ISBN: 8188789038
Publisher:Three Essays Collective
Book Format: HardCover
Language: English
Physical Description: xxiv, 118 p
Year of Publication: 2003

Remarkable Biography & Excellent Review of a Book! by Bal Anand

Saint said...
Excellent Review and remarkable life story.

I wish, those of your colleagues in such civil services get some insights like yourself in writing or doing services to Dalits in every or any ways they can. If all the educated mass of dalits were conscious enough about this society, dalit society would have reached to a greater heights, just because the educated Indians and educated dalits betryaed the poor and needy citizens of India, this nation is an aparthied and poverty riddent nature with deadly discrimination against each other, while they trumphet everywhere that India is shining and India incredeble??? while 700 million Indians make a pitiable less than dollar income, what a nation that our people made India into?.Thanks for such a wonderful and touching review.

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1:07 PM, 01/28/2008

Book Review:

Chhangia Rukh - Dwarfed Tree

* Published in 'Balbir Madhopuri di Svai-jeevni Chhangia Rukh da Sahitak -Samajik Mulankan' - a socio-literary evaluation of Balbir Madhopuri's autobiography

An Autobiography By Balbir Madhopuri
A Critical Appraisal and an Overview :

Baal Updesh Anand
This bare, bold and tragically-touching beautiful literary creation of the autobiographical kind, first published as a book under the above title in January, 2003, has been receiving a wider appreciative acclaim of the select top critics and the limited but cultivated readership of the Punjabi literature. The fact that the book has already run into two hard back and three paper back editions is indeed a great news which should cheer up all those who are always complaining about the vaporous nature of the readership of Punjabi language. The poetic title of the autobiography – Madhopuri made his literary debut with an anthology of poems titled, ‘A Tree of Desert’ (1992) to be followed by ‘The Smouldering Underworld’ (1998) – could, perhaps, be faulted by a Botanist but it does pinpoint the deep deprivations and corroding compulsions encountered by an Indian born an Untouchable in a landless family in rural India – here in a comparatively progressive State of Punjab – even decades after

Independence and adoption as law of the land of the noblest Constitution crafted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the greatest thinker-emancipator in the history of mankind. It may indeed be educative to note how the Untouchables have undergone significant transformations since the scriptural Shudra / Achhuth / Bahishkrit; socio-economic Depressed classes; Gandhian Harijans; Secular and constitutional Scheduled Castes till the contemporary nomenclature of the Dalits, echoing daring defiance, political protest, solidarity with all the oppressed in the world, particularly the Black in the U.S.A. 

Read further at the above Link.

e-mail : baal.anand@gmail.com)

Ambedkar Code of Conduct by D.R.Jatava

AMBEDKAR Code of /D.R. Jatava. Jaipur, ABD, 2005, ix, 302 p., $42. ISBN 81-8376-012-0

This book is available from:

Vedams eBooks (P) Ltd. Vardhaman Charve Plaza IV,Building # 9, K.P Block, Pitampura,New Delhi 110 034, IndiaFax: 91-11-27310613 e-mail: vedams@vedamsbooks.com

Review:

"The present book deals with the philosophy and thoughts of Dr. Ambedkar, carving out, at the same time, a code of conduct based on his life and mission, for all those who call themselves as Ambedkarites and also, for the youngsters who wish to be activists under the ongoing Ambedkar movement in India and abroad.
This work, being a piece of research, has discovered certain parameters as to know how far one may be an Ambedkarite, both in spirit and action. The code of conduct is undoubtedly strict in its rules, norms and ideals; however, giving some opportunities to the activists to be true Ambedkarites in the long run, is the specific theme of this volume. Hence the book has its own significance, value and wisdom for knowing the meaning, nature and scope of Ambedkar movement in India and elsewhere in the world." (jacket)

From Untouchable to Dalit, by Eleanor Zelliot

From Untouchable to Dalit
(Paperback)by Eleanor Zelliot (Author)

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Ambedkar and Buddhism By Bhikshu Sangharakshita

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