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Shashi Tharoor’s book launch made him forget dates, and called Ambedkar an Indian James Madison

The panel had SC advocate Karuna Nundy, Justice Madan Lokur, and economist Bhalchandra Mungekar. They discussed ideas of fraternity, public memory, and dignity.

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New Delhi: When Congress MP Sashi Tharoor launches a new book, he is expected to get all his facts and argument right. But he can be forgiven for getting the dates a little wrong. After all, he is a busy man with the most important battle ahead of him – the post of Congress president.

“Aleph informed me that the publication date for the book would be 17 October— sorry 2 October,” Tharoor corrected himself quickly as Delhi’s Teen Murti Bhavan audience laughed. “It seems the elections have been on my mind!”

As the countdown to the Congress presidential election begins, which is scheduled for 17 October, Tharoor’s laser focus seems to be a little too steady. In his new book Ambedkar: A Life, he promises a concise and slim narratorial account of B.R. Ambedkar’s life. Only he can call a 240-page book “concise”. And it would be hard to walk out of a Tharoor event without acquiring a new language and parlance. At the book launch in Delhi, Tharoor calls Ambedkar the ‘Indian James Madison’, the ‘first male feminist’, and the ‘optimistic constitutionalist’.

Remembering Ambedkar as a feminist 

The panel consisted of Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy, retired SC judge Justice Madan B. Lokur, and economist and former Rajya Sabha MP Bhalchandra Mungekar — and they disagreed on the idea of fraternity, public memory, and dignity.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in conservation with the panelists | Shania Matthew
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in conservation with the panelists | Shania Matthew

Mungekar opened the discussion by listing all of Ambedkar’s academic and professional achievements. One of Columbia University’s best students, a pioneer in economics and barrister, Ambedkar received “the worst possible treatment from Hindu society”.

He criticised public memory and consciousness and the collective amnesia about Ambedkar’s efforts as a champion of women’s rights and his instrumental role in passing the Hindu Code Bill. “Women belonging to the elite classes in today’s society do not remember Ambedkar the way they remember Golwalkar and V. D. Savarkar,” said Mungekar.

He also argued that Ambedkar “was able to achieve what the Freedom Movement could not”. In his opinion, the two biggest contributors to India’s growth after Independence were Jawaharlal Nehru and Ambedkar. And after 2014, the “annihilation” of both these figures has been rampant and “saddening”. Calling Ambedkar the “optimistic constitutionalist”, he said that the Dalit leader’s optimism could be traced to his vision that takes form in the Directive Principles of State Policy and in the Fundamental Rights. “He knew where he wanted the country to go,” Mungekar added.

Justice Lokur and advocate Karuna Nundy had similar interpretations of the idea of dignity vis-a-vis Ambedkar. They agreed that the issue of ‘dignity’ is strikingly relevant today — the Social Justice Bench of the SC is representative of it. For Justice Lokur, the Bench has the potential to afford dignity to people across caste, class, and gender.

Nundy said that Ambedkar’s vision of ‘one community’ that doesn’t discriminate among caste, class, or gender lines is fizzling out. She cited examples of hate speech and the lack of tolerance that is growing in India.

Some failures and flaws

The panel opened up questions to the audience towards the latter half of the session. Some were St. Stephen’s College alumni picking the mic just to reminisce about Tharoor’s younger days. Only some raised questions about his criticism of Ambedkar in In Ambedkar: A Life. From the onset, the Congress MP made it clear that his book was a biography of Ambedkar that did not intend to glorify him but presented his ‘flaws’ and successes.

Tharoor said he did not agree with Ambedkar’s “sweeping generalisations” on Hinduism. In his book, he also brings up the criticism by Ambedkar of the Gandhian ethos of seeing the village as a unit. “In a vast country like India, decentralisation is an approach that has proved beneficial,” he added.

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