If anyone really wants to know more about the towering Indian scholar and undisputed leader of Dalits, or the so-called untouchables, Iconoclast is a must read.
This voluminous book came out in 2024, written by renowned columnist and published author Anand Teltumbde. It’s a comprehensive study of the life and work of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar.
Fondly remembered as Babasaheb by his followers, Ambedkar was born in 1891 in the family of Dalits in Maharashtra, where he endured caste-based discrimination right from his school days. Yet he crossed many barriers, and with the help of scholarship rose to become a lawyer and an educationist.
He was one of the rare members of the Dalit community who went abroad for higher education in London and the US. He endured many hardships in the foreign lands on account of limited resources, which he mostly spent to either help his family back home or to buy books. He was a thorough reader and made a huge library at his home in Mumbai.
He also published newsletters and articles to give voice to his community, and led peaceful agitations against the banning of Dalits in Hindu temples and from public places. Renouncing Hinduism near the end of his life, he died as a Buddhist in 1956.
Ambedkar is revered in Canada too. With the growing strength of Dalits in this part of the world, he has received lot of recognition in Metro Vancouver. There is a public library room named after him in Surrey.
What is really unique about the biography is that the writer is a grandson-in-law of Ambedkar, who has looked at the issue more critically without taking any sides. He doesn’t shy from pinpointing the flaws and contradictions in Ambedkar, while giving him credit where it belongs. He neither tries to put Ambedkar on a pedestal, nor hides some of his previous regressive views on women.
Ambedkar is widely appreciated for giving women equal rights and empowering the oppressed communities through the Indian Constitution which he drafted.
Teltumbde emphasises trying to understand Ambedkar as a flesh and blood man, with a rich legacy of advocacy for those marginalised, rather than turning him into an icon and discouraging any serious questioning, debate or discussion.
Teltumbde, a vocal critic of the currently ruling Hindu nationalist BJP government in New Delhi, was arrested and thrown behind bars under trumped up charges in 2020. Ironically, the BJP continues to appropriate Ambedkar, based on their selective approach toward some of the contradictory views revealed by Teltumbde in his book.
Teltumbde’s only crime was that he stood up for the poor and downtrodden whose rights are being trampled by the Indian state. He was released on bail in 2022. Protests were held for him across the globe, including some in Canada.
Notably, he dedicated Iconoclast to his wife Rama, the granddaughter of Ambedkar. “Rama, my wife, who amazed me by her courage and humbled me by her support during my incarceration”, he writes at the beginning of the book.
Rama often spoke to the media on his behalf, and had to face many challenges in his absence. I had opportunities to interview her a few times during his detention. One of the worst situations arose when his brother, Milind Teltumbde, a Maoist insurgent, died at the hands of the police in 2021. Anand was denied bereavement leave, even though the family hasn’t been in touch with Milind for many years and Anand did not agree with the tactics of his deceased brother.
Since Ambedkar was a book lover, who often asked his admirers to educate themselves before getting organized to fight against injustice, it would be a great idea to celebrate this year’s world book day by getting a copy of Iconoclast, and read it cover to cover to get familiarised with all the aspects of this fascinating man, who evolved through first hand experience of the brutal caste system that refuses to die both within India and in the Diaspora.
Interestingly, his birthday on April 14 falls in the Book Day month. In fact, a passage from the book gives a telling story about his addiction to books.
Teltumbde writes that around the time in 1935 when he declared his desire to renounce Hinduism, he was invited by a Bishop, who tried to convince him to embrace Christianity. During this meeting, he pivoted his sight on the books in the Bishop’s library. Upon realizing this, the Bishop offered that he could take as many books as he wanted. He took twenty-five or thirty books, and did not return them when the Bishop asked them back after several months. When he angrily went to ask for them, Ambedkar pulled out some ten to twelve books and asked them to search for the balance.
The Bishop commented, “Ambedkar must have built his vast collection of books with others’ books.”
“Indeed, Ambedkar used to say with pride during 1923-29 how he used to steal books from libraries. He said he did not have money to buy books and he adopted the ‘buy, borrow or steal’ principle. To collect books, he would stuff them in the pockets of his coat and leave the libraries. He convinced himself that his theft was not a sin, as he would make the best use of books to spread knowledge among his illiterate people,” writes Teltumbde.
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Reading Ambedkar has become even more relevant today, in light the of growing state repression, especially against Dalits in India, and vicious attacks on his ideas by so- called upper-caste fundamentalists, and lately by a section of Sikh separatists in North America, who accuse him of bracketing Sikhs with Hindus in the constitution, which he himself denounced alongside renouncing Hinduism, and had forewarned much earlier about the devastation Hindu Right can bring to the society.
Gurpreet Singh is a journalist
