Abhinav Singh Week 3

Abhinav Singh
20141297


                                 

                                               Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals

This book is a study of socioeconomic perspectives of the leading anti-caste intellectuals. From the two chapters we have to summarize this week, first I would like to write a  synopsis on the chapter Kabir and Ravidas (Envisioning Begumpura). In this chapter, the author talks about two visionary subaltern saints who though had the same guru Ramadas but had very contrasting approaches to life. Both men were born in Banaras and belonged to lower muslim and hindu castes respectively, in contrast to Kabir’s sharpness and denunciatory individuality, Raidas appears in almost all the extant songs as serene. Ravidas is the one who gave the term Begumpura, a city without any taxes or private property or political torture, basically a city without any sorrows. In the poetry of both these radical voices of social protest in a medieval socio-political milieu, there is strong urge to remove hostility and inequality between castes and religions. They are not hoping for an obliteration of their existence but a re-working of the exploitative and unequal relationship that were binding them together. As the caste system was inextricably tied to the way material production was organised in medieval times, it was obviously a Utopia that could be aspired for but not achieved. Yet, both these saints gave voice to the oppressed castes, using a religious and spiritual vocabulary and arousing a sense of self-confidence and human identity among the oppressed and depressed castes.

The second chapter I would like to discuss is Ambedkar (Prabuddha Bharat). In this chapter, the author discusses Ambedkar’s evolution from being a Marxist to turning to more liberal Buddhism. Ambedkar in the early nineteenth century was a integral part of the leftist movements in India, which led to his inclination towards Marx but this didn’t suffice for a long period as he saw the complexity caste can have on the united working class of Marx, which will then derail this movement in India as unification of the working class is only possible in a caste-less society. Ambedkar thus turned to Buddhism as the solution for the utopian India, Ambedkar’s India was an enlightened India, which believes in freethinking traditions, where you can challenge the religious books and restore the freedom to individual to decide about his life and choices. Ambedkar’s India does not believe in the ‘sanctity’ of ‘dogmas’ whether political or religious. The centrality of Ambedkar’s India was the restoration of human dignity and human rights for all and without that all ideals and political philosophies would be clear humbug, it was this India he termed as the Prabuddha Bharat.
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