Irrigating the fire of equality
Ninety-nine years ago, the ‘norm of equality’ was declared in India for the first time.
On 20 March 1927, a small municipal town near Raigad in Maharashtra, Mahad, became the site of this momentous event. Babasaheb Ambedkar led a massive gathering of some three thousand followers to Chavdar Tank to partake of its waters. Untouchables had been barred from using the tank for generations. The invisible hand of the Manusmriti was ever-present, keeping a people at bay. The Savarnas of Mahad, unable to bear this act, went to court to get the tank declared private property. Privation after all was their dharma.
Later that year, on 25 December, Ambedkar called another conference in the town and consigned a copy of the Manusmriti to flames. More than any modern thinker, Ambedkar knew the pervasive influence of this text on Indian society. People didn’t have to read it, or know of it, to follow its injunctions. Its moral ideology had seeped deep into the unconscious of an anti-social civilization that held inequality as its highest value.
Ankit Kawade’s debut book, The Ambedkar–Nietzsche Provocations: The Genius of the Chandala and the Gospel of the Superman, is an in-depth study of this pervasive influence of the Manusmriti. Ankit examines Nietzsche’s seeming adoration of the lawbook and Ambedkar’s condemnation of it, to compare the two thinkers and the possibilities their philosophies leave us with. How did Nietzsche, in late–nineteenth century Germany, come to positively appropriate the Manumsmriti? Why did Ambedkar refer to Hinduism as ‘the gospel of the superman’? Read an excerpt from the book published in Scroll on Mahad Day.
In 1927, Mahad witnessed Ambedkar employ ancient symbols in his revolutionary movement—water signifying freedom, and fire rebellion. These immiscible elements were brought together in defiance of ancient law. Kawade attains something similar in bringing together two incomparable figures—Nietzsche and Ambedkar—to lay out their provocative similarities and irreconcilable differences.
The looming shadow of Mahad pervades The Ambedkar–Nietzsche Provocations. But the story still remains unfamiliar to most Indians. In his award-winning A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar, Ashok Gopal retells the history of the event in two detailed chapters titled, “Making of History” and “Declaration of Rights”. The elementary nature of the Mahad struggle also finds form in the graphic book, Bhimayana. Ambedkar’s story is brought to life by world-renowned artists, Durgabai and Subhash Vyam. This Mahad Day, bathe in the fire of Ambedkarite freedom; go with him to Mahad, you might come back quenched.