Ambedkar & the fourth world

On 14th April of every year, the entire nation pays homage to a great son of India, Dr B R Ambedkar.  The unrivalled intellectual legacy of Ambedkar, buried beneath the layers of indifference, hatred and contempt, finds its resurrection and promulgates him as Mahamanav (Great human being). 

Transcending the generations, the relevance of Ambedkar will persist and steer India as a perennial and perpetual source of inspiration as long as the struggle for justice and equality continue as the endless battle in India.  

As the epitome of all the celestial virtues, Ambedkar has transformed the disillusionment, frustration and anger of the entire nation into the consensus democracy.  He was a prolific writer, reflective thinker and erudite scholar.  He produced voluminous writings: 22 books and monographs (completed versions), 10 incomplete books, 10 major Memoranda and Statements submitted to various authorites, 10 research papers and book reviews besides hundreds of articles in Marathi. 

The range of disciplines that Ambedkar delved into is still an enigma.  As an economist, sociologist, anthropologist, educationist, journalist, jurist, policy maker, parliamentarian and principle architect of the Indian Constitution, he delivered a matchless and magnificent contribution to the evolution of epistemology.  He delivered 537 speeches on wide range of topics in regional, national and International forums, perhaps a fete that remained unmatachable by any social reformer till today.  Ambedkar’s intellectual making, evolution of his thinking and thought process naturally became a good part of intellectual biography of India. 

Conspiracy of silence  
Despite the paramount intellectual contribution, conspiracy of academic silence persists in recognising the much-needed relevance of Ambedkar to literary and critical theory. Ambedkar was the centre of the epistemological evolution in the beginning of the 20th century.  Most of the aspects of Modernism, Post Modernism, Post Colonialism, Structuralism, Post Structuralism, Feminism and the 20th century anthropological and sociological developments are much related to his thought and philosophy. A clinical spectroscopic observation reveals the growing relevance of Ambedkar.  

The Fourth World 
The emergence of ‘Fourth world’ transcends the social and cultural identity of Dalits pertaining to India.   The ‘Fourth World’ is the world of natives of America, First Nations of Canada, Aboriginals of Australia, Maoris of New Zealand, Dalits/Tribes of India and particularly natives of all the nations in the world. The term ‘Fourth World’ was coined by George Manuel and Michael Posluns in Fourth World:  An Indian Reality (1974). It acquired political significance in Noel Dyck’s Indigenous Peoples and the Nation State:  Fourth World Politics in Canada, Australia and Norway  (1992).  

This has paved the way for the convenient literary mapping of Aboriginals of Australia in Adam Shoemaker’s  Black Words White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929-1988 (1989) and Gordon Brotherston’s Book of the Fourth world: Reading the Native Americas through their Literature (1992). This is the convenient literary mapping that consolidated the literary nationalism of natives/aboriginals/Dalits across the world.    

As India is trying to realise the concept of nationalism, even after many years of Independence, it is pertinent to understand that Ambedkar’s national consciousness is beyond the present post nationalism and consolidates the global identity of Fourth world. Ernest Gellner in Nations and Nationalism and Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism argued that nations are planned like buildings and their existence is centred on manufacturing idiosyncratic and concocted cultural symbols.  

Defining that greatness depends on the social purpose that one serves, Ambedkar in his indictment of colonialism emphasised that social reformation is an act of courage rather than political emancipation.  

A social reformer fights with the complete opposition of the society, whereas the political freedom fighter is hailed as the martyr. Social reformer is loathed and shunned by the society. Freedom fighter is hailed as the liberator by the vast majority (Vol.1).  Post-colonial critics considering the struggle for political freedom as the spiritual biography of the elite are silent on Ambedkar’s prognosis of pre-independent India.

The constructed myth of the nation as a rallying point in uniting people is considered as a derivative discourse. Hence, the nationalisms of liberation are seen as the nationalisms of domination. Different castes in India are perceived as different nations.  The spirit of Post Nationalism that transcends the boundaries of nations brings to the fore the very act of Ambedkar’s social liberation  as an essential inevitable social discourse.  

Ambedkar’s idea of nation and his dispassionate support to the creation of Pakistan is branded as an act of betrayal by many critics (Vol.8).  He observed that the feeling of nationality is not manufactured by the created cultural myths.  To Ambedkar, nationality is a social feeling of corporate sentiment of oneness and a double-edged perception. His sublime caution that one cannot build a nation on the foundations of caste remains as perennial reservoir for Post Nationalism and the Fourth World.  

Dalits as part of the ‘Fourth World’ are spread across Europe, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Korea, Sri Lanka, Japan, Somalia, Yemen etc.  Due to immigration and multiculturalism, Dalits are also found in US, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada and Caribbean countries.  Historians have presented similar aspects of social and cultural discrimination between Dalits of India and Burakumin in Japan, Cagots and Roma in Europe, Al-Akhdam in Yemen, Baekjeong in Korea and Midgan in Somalia.  An article published in Daily Pioneer ‘European Roma Gypsies carry Indian Bloodline: A Study’ has argued that the DNA of Dalits in India and the DNA of European Romas is similar. 

These historical comparisons in the light of ‘Fourth World’ evince the manifestation of universal Dalit identity. Unmindful of the fact that the present Dalits are the better social and cultural reflections of natives in India, the dominant political rupture has distanced Dalits and Tribes. It was Ambedkar who reacted against the debasement of Adivasis, genuinely. He predicted the social repercussions, for the failure of Hindu society in civilising the aborigines.  Today, marching against neo capitalism, our failure to merge Aboriginal (Adivasi) identity with Dalit identity, stands befuddled. 

Ambedkar has discussed the issue of Adivasi rights in relation to proportionate representation in his address, ‘The Communal Deadlock and a Way to Solve it’ in 1945.  Cautioning against the absence of political identity among Adivasis, he safeguarded the social and cultural interests of Adivasis.  The Constitution of India makes the ‘State’ the custodian of Adivasi homelands to protect the land from encroachment of the dominant castes.  It is the future vision of Ambedkar that continues to protect the Adivasi culture from the complete obliteration. 

The survival and consolidation of Adivasi culture exclusively depend on considering Ambedkarism as a philosophical foundation.  The Adivasi identity has to be represented through Dalit identity which is philosophically stronger.  The social and cultural segregation of Dalits and Adivasis is the ploy of dominant forces in India to weaken and dissolve the universal consolidation. Now, the term ‘Dalit’ has got the wider ideological and cultural acceptance as the only representation for ‘Fourth World.’  

By: Prof Raja Sekhar Patteti
(Writer is former Registrar, Acharya Nagarjuna University)