Book: "Contesting Marginalisations | Conversations on Ambedkarism & Social Justice"

Vivek Sakpal

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Well known, political commentator, human rights defender and a humanist, Vidya Bhushan Rawat launched his latest book “Contesting Marginalisations | Conversations on Ambedkarism & Social Justice” which is a compilations of Interviews conducted by Vidya Bhushan Rawat with eminent  Ambedkarites and human rights intellectuals in the past 15 years. He was closely associated with some of these extremely committed intellectuals that he decided to record their conversations.

The first among these conversations belonged to veteran Ambedkarie Bhagwan Das, later he recorded spoke to N G Uke and Dr R M Pal but as happens with all those who struggles for their basic needs, Rawat too had loads of problems with him and he could not get these published or even edited for the lack of resources. He says, I did not have the luxury to have even an assistant. Most of the interviews that he recorded were without any assistant or even a recorder so they are definitely not great in video quality but his aim was to keep the documentation and hence he felt that it was important to preserve the history than thinking or waiting for a day to get resources. He regrets that many of the interviews that he wanted to do but could not because of limitations due to resources.

This 323 page book, published by Peoples Literature Publication, has 22 interviews from across the globe and age group. He has interviewed many veteran Ambedkarites who had the opportunity, in person, to work & interact with Dr Ambedkar and learn from him directly.

This book attempts to bring in such voices and documents their views to preserve and promote their idea of Ambedkarism. Understanding Ambedkarism through the eyes of Ambedkarites like M/s Bhagwan Das, L R Balley, V T Rajshekar, Raja Dhale, Vijay Surwade and many others as well as those who may not claim to be Ambedkarite yet remained supporters of the movement and vision that Dr Ambedkar espoused for such as Dr R M Pal and Mr Anand Patwardhan. You will read Mr Anand Teltumbde’s fierce critique but also Mr A K Biswas and Manohar Biswas’s narratives about dominance of brahmanical politics in West Bengal.

The conversations are wide ranging with activists as well as human rights defenders in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, United Kingdom and United States of America. For the first time, here is a book that gives you indepth understanding of caste, race, class and other ethnic issues. The conversations are also about Dravidian legacy of EVR Periyar as well as the issues of Chakmas in Bangladesh too. The Dalit question in Nepal is well discussed with an Ambedkarite as well as one leader of the left movement in Nepal. Read the fascinating work of Ambedkarites in UK through the prism of Ms Santosh Dass, Mr Arun Kumar and Mr Bishan Dass Bains. A well explained interview with Prof Kevin Brown about the issues of African American as well as his fascination towards Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar.

While some interviews were video recorded and are transcript of the video, some have been interviewed over email. Rawat raises critical and challenging questions to make the interviewee confront the reality. Many things go under the carpet with time and are forgotten. Whereas the ones who have been a part of that history, as eye witness, need to come out in open and disclose the facts to the people.

Conversations are an important part of our lives through which we can also preserve the oral history of our time. While those who are authors, historians, social scientists by profession, do get opportunities to express their expertise at various platforms not only speaking at forums or seminars but also writing scholarly papers too, there are hundreds of others, who might not have a ‘valid’ ‘professional’ qualification yet have wide experience of social movements that we study. There is a huge information and knowledge waiting to be recorded at various levels explains Rawat in his introduction of the book.

These interviews give different perspectives of Ambedkarism, and also explores views on Buddhism, Marxism and Gandhism. They explore history and unearth facts about the great leader, visionary Dr Ambedkar. This book is a very important document to researchers and also shall help the followers of Ambedkar to understand and interpret him better and in more contemporary context. This books shall help the reader to answer the question What if Ambedkar was alive today, how would he respond, react or reply.? (on contemporary issues)

While the political class has limited Ambedkar to be a dalit icon, the book attempts to emphasise the fact that Ambedkar is a global icon, a philosopher for the people who struggle for their rights. The author hopes these conversations will give us ideas to strengthen anti caste-anti patriarchy movement to make India truly a secular socialist republic as envisaged by Babasaheb Ambedkar and many other leaders of our freedom movement.

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The book can be purchased at the below mentioned link

• For Indian Buyers:
  http://peoplesbookshop.com/product/contesting-marginalisations-ambedkarism-social-justice/
• For Foreign Buyers:
  https://pothi.com/pothi/book/vidya-bhushan-rawat-contesting-marginalisations