B.R.Ambedkar is not only the chief architect of Indian Constitution and a social revolutionary with an enviable intellect, but a leader who has crossed national boundaries with his ideology and struggles for social justice, but still he has been shown disrespect in one form or the other which is a shameful condition said, Thol.Thirumavalavan, president of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and M.P.
Addressing a massive protest meeting here on Friday to condemn the vandalism on Dr.Ambedkar and freedom fighter and Dalit icon Immanuel Sekaran statues in Madurai, he said that this act and Paramakudi police firing are acts of conspiracy to create a situation and show Dalits as violent people. This act of vandalism was a handiwork of certain anti-social elements who wish to create a volatile situation and disrupt peace in southern districts.
However as followers of Dr.Ambedkar, a constitutional democrat and one who believed that issues affecting oppressed sections could be resolved through the means of legislature and legality, we will not fall victims to such a conspiracy, he said.
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Today, Ambedkar’s statues outnumber any of the Indian leaders’ statues and most of them were not built by the State but by the oppressed sections as a means of honouring the leader who fought relentlessly for their rights.
Ambedkar’s politics was farsighted, he ideologically countered his opponents, even Periyar E.V.Ramasamy could be accused for directly attacking the Brahmins, but Ambedkar was against Brahminism, imperialism, hindutva and even fought for the rights of labourers with his Independent Labour Party.
He fought for all the toiling masses irrespective of caste/class or religious bias; it was his intellectual vigour and scholarly erudition which got him a chance to become the first Law Minister of Independent India. Otherwise how could a man who was seen as a lifelong opponent of Congress became the Chief architect of drafting the Constitution.
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Thirumavalavan recalled the words of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that Dr.Ambedkar was the brightest jewel in his cabinet and said that it was his intuitive secularist credentials in the making of Constitution protects various sections of the minorities in India. Despite all the above said qualities just because he is a Dalit he is being disrespected by people even for whom he fought tirelessly. It is indeed an ironical situation to note, he said.
Lambasting against the state government and its machinery, he said that it was always the poor Dalits who become easy targets of state sponsored violence. Pointing out the encroachment of lands meant for Dalits at Vandiyur Theerthakadu here by caste Hindus, he said that its been thirty long years but neither the district administration nor police were able to retrieve the land and give it back to Dalits.
He also condemned the police and revenue officials’ action to remove the Ambedkar statue at Subramaniapuram( a predominant Dalit neighbourhood) which was installed in the year 1994 within the locality. Earlier in the day, Mr.Thirumavalavan visited Perungudi and Chinna Udaippu village where the statues were desecrated and spoke to the villagers who are continuing their protest there for the fourth day.