Ambedkar a nationalist, not against Brahmins: RSS functionary

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According to a BHU release, the RSS sah sarkaryavah, Gopal said: “Babasaheb had immense faith in the Vedic religion but was opposed to the later discrepancies that occurred.”

He added that in fact, Ambedkar was never against religion. “He could not envisage a society without religion. But he did not believe in only the rituals, but rather the spiritual part of it, which was evident in the Vedas…,” said Gopal.

Claiming that Ambedkar was never against Brahmins, Gopal requested the audience to read all his (Ambedkar) writings in totality before forming an opinion. “Ambedkar’s views have been presented in an one-sided manner so far,” he said.

Gopal also lauded Ambedkar as a champion of the rights of the downtrodden. “He gave them voice and platform when they had none… When the issue of reservation came up, Dr Ambedkar was against providing any reservation to the SCs,” he claimed.

The RSS top functionary pointed out that to understand Ambedkar’s views, it was important to know the difficulties he faced since childhood. “It was on account of overcoming the fact that he was a Dalit, his name was changed from Bhimrao Satpal to Bhimrao Ambedkar… As a labour minister, he introduced concepts like minimum wages…,” said Gopal.

“Ambedkar, though a multi-faceted genius, was against hero worship…Ambedkar was surprised at being chosen as the chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution,” Gopal said.

Gopal described Dalits as those “marginalized from education, power and property”. He also linked Dalits to ‘kshatriyas’, saying the oppressed among the latter were relegated to the untouchable castes. “Dr Ambedkar finally chose Buddhism because he he did not want to die a Hindu and, Buddhism was closest to Hinduism,” he added.