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‘Civis Indianus sum’? Ambedkar on democracy and territory during linguistic reorganization (and partition)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2019

OLIVER GODSMARK Open the ORCID record for OLIVER GODSMARK [Opens in a new window]
OLIVER GODSMARK*
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University of Derby Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article considers Ambedkar's ideas about the implementation of democracy in India, in the context of the linguistic reorganization of provincial administrative boundaries. In doing so, it looks to emphasize the importance of territorial configurations to Dalit politics during this period and, in particular, the consequences of ‘provincialization’, which has received little attention within the existing literature. Rethinking space by redrawing administrative territory provided Ambedkar with one potential avenue through which to escape the strictures of Dalits’ minority status. In this vision, linguistic reorganization (and partition) were harbingers of greater democratization and potential palliatives to the threat of Hindu majority rule at the centre. In turn, however, Ambedkar simultaneously came to perceive the creation of these new administrative spaces as marking a new form of provincial majoritarianism, despite his best efforts to form alliances with those making such demands. In this sense, the article also seeks to address some of the shared processes behind linguistic reorganization and partition as two related forms of territorial redrawing. In the face of these demands, and the failures of both commensuration and coalition politics, Ambedkar turned to the idea of separate settlements for Dalits, whereby they might themselves come to constitute a majority. Whilst such a novel attempt at separation and resettlement was not ultimately realized, its emergence within Ambedkar's thought at this time points towards its significance in any history of caste and untouchability in twentieth-century South Asia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , March 2020 , pp. 384 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

The phrase ‘Civis Indianus sum’, an adaptation of the infamous ‘civis romanus sum’, is taken from Ambedkar's Pakistan, or the partition of India (Bombay: Thacker and Company Limited, 1946), in Babasaheb Ambedkar writings and speeches [henceforth BAWS], vol. VIII, (ed.) V. Moon (New Delhi: Dr. Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1990]), p. 188. Elements of this article were presented at the ‘Re-centring the “pariah”’ workshop at the University of Leeds in June 2017. The author is appreciative of the audience's observations on that paper, as well as the critical recommendations offered by the two anonymous readers of this article.

References

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2 To avoid confusion throughout this article, I shall refer to subnational units of administration within both colonial and post-colonial India as ‘provinces’, despite the fact that the nomenclature was changed to ‘states’ under the Indian Constitution of 1950. Where I have quoted directly from other works that use these phrases, I have retained the terminology used in the original.

3 Dalit, literally meaning ‘ground down’ or ‘broken to pieces’, is used as the preferred designation for India's former ‘untouchable’ community, who are also known, in the parlance of the late-colonial and post-colonial state, as ‘Scheduled Castes’. I generally use Dalit as the preferred term throughout this article, but retain the original terms used in direct quotations.

4 See, for example, Zelliot, E., Ambedkar's world: the making of Babasaheb and the Dalit movement (New Delhi: Navayana Publishing, 2013 [1969])Google Scholar; Omvedt, G., Dalits and the democratic revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit movement in colonial India (New Delhi: Sage, 1994)Google Scholar; Jaffrelot, C., Dr Ambedkar and untouchability: analysing and fighting caste (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005)Google Scholar; Rao, A., The caste question: Dalits and the politics of modern India (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009)Google Scholar, Chapter Three; Kumar, A., Radical equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the risk of democracy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

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17 Rawat, ‘Occupation, dignity, and space’, pp. 1059–1060.

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25 For a more complete overview of this literature, see Sen, ‘Caste politics and partition’.

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28 The Poona Pact established a two-tiered electoral arrangement, with Scheduled Caste constituents voting for Scheduled Caste candidates in a primary election. The four Scheduled Caste candidates that received the most votes then went forwards into a second election involving the entire ‘general’ (i.e. Hindu) constituency, including Scheduled Caste voters, who voted for their favoured Scheduled Caste candidate out of the four remaining nominees. The vexed relations between M. K. Gandhi and Ambedkar that led to the pact, including Gandhi's ‘fast unto death’, have been described in detail numerous times elsewhere, and hence are not examined here.

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31 Ibid., B. R. Ambedkar, ‘A scheme for the assignment of seats reserved for the Scheduled Classes by the Poona Pact to the constituencies to be formed under the new Constitution’, 2 May 1934.

32 Bandyopadhyay, Caste, protest and identity, pp. 65, 70; C. Jangam, ‘Dilemmas of Dalit agendas: political subjugation and self-emancipation in Telugu country, 1910–50’, in Dalit Studies, pp. 104–130 (p. 116); Rawat, R. S., Reconsidering untouchability: Chamars and Dalit history in North India (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011), pp. 160–161, 173–174Google Scholar; Sen, D., ‘Representation, education and agrarian reform: Jogendranath Mandal and the nature of Scheduled Caste politics, 1937–1943’, MAS, vol. 48, no. 1, 2014, pp. 77–119 (p. 113)Google Scholar; Rawat, ‘Making claims for power’, pp. 596, 600–601; Sen, ‘“No matter how”’, pp. 336–337.

33 Rao, The caste question, pp. 134–135.

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49 New Delhi, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library [henceforth NMML], K. M. Munshi Papers, Roll 31, File 47 (1939), ‘C. C. Shah (Gujarati President of Praja Mandal), Baroda Disturbances Enquiry’, 20 August 1939.

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58 Ibid., p. 104.

59 Ibid., p. 124.

60 Ibid., p. 101.

61 Ambedkar, Pakistan, or the partition of India, p. 42.

62 Ibid., p. 110, underlined emphasis in original.

63 Ibid., p. 119.

64 Ibid., p. 121.

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66 Ambedkar, Maharashtra as a linguistic province, p. 120.

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71 Ambedkar, Pakistan, or the partition of India, p. 362.

72 Ibid., pp. 358, 359.

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75 ‘Ambedkar finds champion in Churchill’, The Bombay Chronicle (Bombay), 31 May 1946, in BAWS, vol. XVII, part II, H. Narake, M. L. Kasare, N. G. Kamble, and A. Godghate (eds) (2014 [2003]), p. 210.

76 Ambedkar, ‘Resolution regarding aims and objectives’, Constituent Assembly Debates, 15 December 1946, in BAWS, vol. XIII, V. Moon (ed.) (2014 [1994]), p. 9.

77 Zelliot, Ambedkar's world, pp. 190–191; Zelliot, E., ‘Congress and the untouchables, 1917–1950’, in Sisson, R. and Wolpert, S. (eds), Congress and Indian nationalism: the pre-independence phase (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 182–197 (p. 193)Google Scholar; Bandyopadhyay, ‘Transfer of power’, pp. 934–936; Cháirez-Garza, J. F., ‘“Bound hand and foot and handed over to the caste Hindus”: Ambedkar, untouchability, and the politics of partition’, IESHR, vol. 55, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1–28 (pp. 24–26)Google Scholar; Rawat, Reconsidering untouchability, p. 179.

78 Quoted in Keer, D., Dr Ambedkar: life and mission (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1981), p. 399Google Scholar; see also Bandyopadhyay, S., Caste, culture and hegemony: social dominance in colonial Bengal (New Delhi: Sage, 2004), pp. 236–237Google Scholar.

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80 Ambedkar, ‘Report on the Constitution’, pp. 316–317.

81 B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay City), ‘Resolution re: creation of a separate Karnatak province’, 4 April 1938, Bombay Legislative Assembly [henceforth BLA] debates, vol. III, part 18–34, March–April 1938, p. 1722.

82 Ibid.

83 B. R. Ambedkar, ‘Need for checks and balances’, Times of India, 23 April 1953, in BAWS, vol. I, p. 134; see also Ambedkar, B. R., ‘Andhra State Bill, 1953’, 2 September 1953, in BAWS, vol. XV, Moon, V. (ed.), 2014 [1997], p. 856Google Scholar.

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87 Ibid., Reforms Department File 172, ‘Collector, Ahmadnagar’, 10 October 1932. Quoted in Godsmark, Citizenship, community and democracy, p. 45.

88 Ambedkar, Thoughts on linguistic states, p. 168.

89 Ibid.

90 Ambedkar, ‘Need for checks and balances’, p. 134.

91 Ambedkar, ‘Report on the Constitution’, p. 317.

92 Ambedkar, ‘Resolution re: creation of a separate Karnatak province’, p. 1723.

93 Ambedkar, Pakistan, or the partition of India, pp. 187–188, 194, 339, 341.

94 Bandyopadhyay, ‘Transfer of power’, p. 937.

95 Ambedkar, Thoughts on linguistic states, p. 146.

96 Ambedkar, Pakistan, or the partition of India, pp. 99, 111, 117–120, 125–126.

97 Ibid., p. 359.

98 Ambedkar, Maharashtra as a linguistic province, p. 103.

99 Ambedkar, Thoughts on linguistic states, p. 146.

100 Rao, The caste question, p. 185.

101 Ambedkar, Maharashtra as a linguistic province, p. 102.

102 Ambedkar, Thoughts on linguistic states, p. 145; see also Maharashtra as a linguistic province, pp. 104–105.

103 K. G. Gokhale (Belgaum South), ‘Resolution re: creation of a separate Karnatak province’, BLA debates, p. 1726.

104 Ibid., p. 1728.

105 Rao, The caste question, p. 159, emphasis in original; see also pp. 148–149.

106 AISCF, ‘Memorandum Submitted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to the Cabinet Mission’, 5 April 1946, in BAWS, vol. XVII, part II, p. 176.

107 Ibid., p. 177.

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109 Ibid., p. 276.

110 Ibid., p. 285.

111 Ibid., p. 266.

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115 Viswanath, The Pariah problem, Chapter Six.

116 Zelliot, Ambedkar's world, pp. 187, 255.

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119 ‘Memorandum Submitted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to the Cabinet Mission’, p. 177.

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125 B. R. Ambedkar, ‘Scheduled castes settlement be made at par with Bantus’, Times of India (Bombay), 23 April 1946, in BAWS, vol. XVII, part I, p. 351.

126 ‘Memorandum submitted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to the Cabinet Mission’, pp. 178–179.

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129 Bandyopadhyay and Chaudhury, ‘Partition, displacement, and the decline’, pp. 69–75.

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132 Ibid., p. 127.

133 More research into the question of migration, resettlement, and voting patterns amongst Dalits in post-colonial India is required, particularly in the context of increasing Dalit migration from India's villages to urban and semi-urban settings after independence. Whilst this ultimately goes beyond the remit of this article, explorations of this nature certainly provide potentially profitable avenues for future scholarship.

134 P. Sinharay, ‘Building up the Harichand-Guruchand movement: the politics of the Matua Mahasangha’, in The politics of caste in West Bengal, pp. 147–168 (p. 161); cf. Bandyopadhyay and Chaudhury, ‘Partition, displacement, and the decline’, pp. 75–79.

135 Sinharay, ‘Building up the Harichard-Guruchand movement’, p. 163.

136 Ambedkar, Pakistan, or the partition of India, pp. 114–115.

137 Ibid., p. 382.

138 Ibid., pp. 380, 382.

139 Ibid., p. 384.

140 Ibid., p. 379.

141 ‘Election manifesto of the AISCF, by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’, n.d., in BAWS, vol. XVII, part II, pp. 393–394.

142 Ambedkar, Maharashtra as a linguistic province, pp. 109–110.

143 Ambedkar, Thoughts on linguistic states, p. 146.

144 Ibid., p. 161.

145 Ibid., p. 165.

146 Ibid., pp. 157–158.

147 Rao, The caste question, pp. 68–69; Cháirez-Garza, ‘Touching space’.

148 Zelliot, Ambedkar's world, pp. 208–209; Rawat, Reconsidering untouchability, p. 182.

149 Ambedkar, ‘Scheduled castes settlement be made at par with Bantus’, p. 351.

150 On the further interactions between South Africa and India at the United Nations in the context of the post-colonial transition, as well as their implications upon Dalit politics, see Cháirez-Garza, ‘Bound hand and foot’, pp 20–22.

151 Cháirez-Garza, ‘Bound hand and foot’, p. 14.

152 Ambedkar, Pakistan, or the partition of India, p. 115.

153 Ibid., p. 205.

154 Mann, M., ‘The dark side of democracy: the modern tradition of ethnic and political cleansing’, New Left Review, vol. 235, 1999, pp. 18–45 (p. 33)Google Scholar.

155 Ibid., p. 44.