My Ambedkar and his Buddha

When I was in the 4th grade, the first time I heard the name, "Dr. B.R Ambedkar", I felt a connection to that name. My initials are also B.R., so that 9-year-old boy did not have to put much effort into memorizing that name for his social science class tests. This was probably the reason why when I was in 6th grade and the teacher asked the class who drafted the Constitution, I was the first to raise my hand and shout out the answer. Everyone applauded, I am not the type of student who gets applauded in class, so this event has held a place in my heart, and so does the name Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. That was the only connection I felt with Ambedkar, that we share the same initials, so for nearly ten years it remained like that. I, like most of the young students, was aware that Ambedkar was the person who drafted the constitution and did something against caste not knowing exactly what he did for that, and what he stood for. It took me more than ten years to know more about Ambedkar, the more I knew the more I felt connected.

It started with the book "The Doctor and the Saint" by my all-time fav Arundhati Roy. Then it continued to "Annihilation of caste" by Ambedkar himself. An autobiography by Shashi Tharoor called "Ambedkar; A Life." Most recently I read "Buddha and his Dhamma" by Ambedkar which made me write this. I know that I have not read that much, or even if I read some of it but, have I succeeded in properly understanding everything? And whether I'm capable of writing about Ambedkar. So, this is nothing sort of a review or analysis of Ambedkar, but merely about how the idea, not the person, of Ambedkar has influenced me. There is a song by Arivu, a leading Tamil pop artist, called "Jai Bheem anthem", in it there is a stanza which goes like "Eduth padith parr Ambedkarai athark piragu parr un vaazhkai" "Read Ambedkar and see how it changes your life". I got what Arivu meant because reading Ambedkar has changed my views and understanding of our society.

"Buddha and his Dhamma" could be said as a semi-autobiography of Buddha by Ambedkar. This book discusses in detail how Buddhism is the most modern religion that a man could follow. Unlike any other religion, Buddhism is solely focused on the cause-and-effect theory whereas the rest of them are based on superstitious belief.  Reading this has shed a new light on atheism for me. If there is a god, then religions that are focused on superstitious are the only obstacle to finding that true god. Because these religions give absolute answers. Once when Stevens Hawkins was having a public speaking session, he asked an old lady where is the earth standing and the old lady without hesitation said that it was standing on the back of a turtle, further Hawkins asked what was underneath the turtle, and the old lady said "of course its turtles all the way down.' This belief is found in most religions. They give comfort to the believers by giving absolute answers, but these absolute answers are the obstacle to finding out the truth.

Aztec empire drew their world map small believing strongly that there is nothing beyond the sea, while the Spaniards drew their world map with question marks. They admitted that they don't know what's beyond the sea, leading adventurers and conquerors to seek out what is beyond it. I'm not using this example to justify colonialism, I'm trying to say that Spaniards admitted that they didn't know what was beyond the sea which led to discovering a new place while the Aztec empire believed absolutely that there was nothing beyond the sea which led to their annihilation. Buddhism admits that it doesn't have absolute answers and that it follows strongly cause-effect theory, while most religion gives absolute answers.

According to Ambedkar, a part of Indian history is solely focused on the conflict between two major ideologies of the Vedic period. Buddhism and Brahminism. This ideological conflict and differences are explored vividly in his book “Buddha and His Dhamma”. Long before Buddha was considered one of the avatars of lord Vishnu (which is not that long if we look into it), there is evidence to be found of headless Buddha statues throughout the sub-continent. These disfigured statues were the empirical evidence of the existing conflict between the two ideologies. And how are we so sure that representatives of the Brahmins are the reason for these headless statues and disruptions? One basic thing to be considered is the core ideology of both groups are polar opposites. Brahminism focused the superstitious beliefs and less on social inclusivity (caste) whereas Buddhism was focused on the rational cause-and-effect theory and social inclusivity. These two major ideologies found it hard to survive in the same period, which resulted in the disturbance, which further paved the way for the amalgamation of these ideologies, from which period we see Buddha as the avatar of Lord Vishnu.

To have social inclusivity as the main focus of a society it becomes significantly important to practice a belief that can be viewed only on rational terms.