by Ajaz Ashraf - Firstpost.com
"He saw the universal brotherhood of Islam uniting just
Muslims. He was critical of the spirit of aggression of political Islam that
takes advantage of the weakness of Hindus and follows gangsterism," declared
Prafulla Ketkar, editor of the RSS mouthpiece Organiser, expounding on his
publication's controversial edition commemorating BR Ambedkar's 124th birth
anniversary.
Ketkar went on to claim that Ambedkar supported
'reconversion', saying, "In a way, he also supported ghar wapsi. That he
converted to Buddhism after Gandhi's death and as per his promise to Gandhiji
chose the religion closest to Hinduism after giving a lot of time to Hindu
society."
The attempt of the RSS to focus on Ambedkar's purported
disdain for Islam, of course, diverts attention from his withering analysis of
Hinduism, the pathetic social status it accords to Dalits, and the legitimising
of their exploitation. It also elides the reasons why Ambedkar converted to
Buddhism, and inspired a segment of Mahars in Maharashtra to convert to do the
same in 1956.
Through conversion, Dr Ambedkar subtly sought to overturn
the centuries-old triumph of Brahmanism over Buddhism, the consequence of which
he thought was Hinduism as we know it today – and which he ultimately rejected.
For the RSS bosses wishing to reconfigure Ambedkar’s thoughts through an undue
emphasis on just an aspect of his prodigious writings, it might make tremendous
sense to read his The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why they Became
Untouchables?
From dead cow to sacred cow
Reading Ambedkar's writing will be particularly edifying for
the RSS bosses who are currently spearheading the movement to expand the ban on
cow slaughter to include bullocks and oxen, besides imposing punishment for its
violation far more severe than what even committing of social crimes invite.
The ban on cattle-slaughter, as we all know, has been justified because it is
said to hurt the sentiments of all Hindus.
However, in The Untouchables, Ambedkar’s analysis links the
untouchable status of certain castes to their eating of the dead cow. This
became a marker of untouchability because of the historical process through
which the consumption of beef became a religious taboo.
As Dr Ambedkar writes, “… If beef-eating had remained a
secular affair – a mere matter of individual taste – such a bar between those
who ate beef and those who did not would not have arisen. Unfortunately
beef-eating, instead of being treated as a purely secular matter, was made a
matter of religion. This happened because the Brahmins made the cow a sacred
animal. This made beef-eating a sacrilege.”
In contrast to the extant RSS commentary claiming that the
cow had been a sacred animal for all Hindus from time immemorial, Dr Ambedkar
cites from innumerable ancient texts to show otherwise. “In Rig Veda (X. 86.14)
Indira says, ‘They cook for one 15 plus twenty oxen.’ The Rig Veda (X. 91.14)
says that for Agni were sacrificed horses, bulls, oxen, barren cows and rams.
From the Rig Veda (X, 72.6) it appears that the cow was killed with a sword or
an axe.”
He quotes Taittiriya Brahmana to show it described even the
kind of cows and oxen to be sacrificed for different deities. “Thus, a dwarf ox
is to be chosen for sacrifice to Vishnu; a drooping horned bull with a blaze on
the forehead to Indra as the destroyer of Vritra; a black cow to Pushan; a red
cow to Rudra; and so on,” Dr Ambedkar writes.
He also records a fact which is well known – the killing of
cow in honour of the guest had become so rampant that it inspired the synonym
of go-ghna, or the killer of the cow, to describe him. The Ashvalayana Grahya
Sutra, he says, advises people to let loose their cows to evade adhering to the
social norm demanding they be slaughtered at the arrival of guests.
Perhaps feeding beef to guests became a binding
socio-cultural norm because the performance of religious rituals included
sacrificing the cow. For the non-Brahmins, however, the cow was a prohibitively
expensive animal, sacrificed to propitiate deities only on special occasions.
“But the case with the Brahmin was different,” Dr Ambedkar
notes. “In a period overridden by ritualism there was hardly a day on which
there was no cow sacrifice to which the Brahmin was not invited by some
non-Brahmin. For the Brahmin every day was a beef-steak day.” Considering the
grip of Brahmins over the society, and the importance of the cow in the
agrarian economy then, it was only natural for societal reaction to set in.
Buddhist roots of the beef ban
This reaction against the Brahmin facilitated the rise of
Buddhism, which, contrary to the popular belief in India, did not ban
cow-slaughter, but imposed certain restrictions on it – that is, what was
needless and unnecessary. Since Buddhism was opposed to the extreme,
suffocating ritualism of the Brahmin, the practice of cow-slaughter began to
wane.
However, Buddhism did allow people to eat beef, not even
banning it for Buddhist monks. Dr Ambedkar quotes the Chinese traveller Yuan
Chwang to say the Buddhist monks were disallowed to eat the flesh of those
animals “which they had seen put to death for them, or about which they had
been told that it had been slain for them… (or) not suspected by them to have
been on their account.” Barring these three types – described, rather
evocatively, as “unseen, unheard, unsuspected” – they could otherwise eat meat
of any animal, including of those which died naturally or was killed by a
predatory creature.
The rise and consolidation of Buddhism dethroned the
Brahmins, so to speak, from their pedestal of prestige, prompting them to
rethink the strategies to re-establish their supremacy. The mere banning of
animal sacrifice for religious purposes wouldn’t have sufficed, Dr Ambedkar
speculates, because it would have only put them on par with the Buddhist monks.
The Brahmin’s goal, he argues, was to occupy the place of honour the Buddhist
monk had acquired by “their opposition to the killing of the cow for
sacrificial purposes.”
Dr Ambedkar goes on to write, “To achieve their purpose the
Brahmins had to adopt the usual tactics of a reckless adventurer… It is the
strategy which all rightists use to overcome the leftists. The only way to beat
the Buddhists was to go a step further and be vegetarians.” Thus, the practice
of cow-slaughter was abandoned and vegetarianism began to be considered
virtuous.
As Hinduism began to stage a comeback and Brahmins started
to again enjoy royal patronage, the cow acquired a sacred status, its killing
deemed a sacrilege. “Cow-killing was made a mortal sin or a capital offence by
the Gupta kings who were champions of Hinduism,” notes Dr Ambedkar. He quotes
historian D.R. Bhandarkar, who in his Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Culture
cites a copper plate inscription, dated 465 AD and belonging to Skandagupta’s
reign, which equates gau-hatya, or cow-slaughter, with brahma-hatya, or the
slaying of a Brahmin. This equivalence is more or less echoed in an earlier
inscription of 412 AD. It was from then on cow-slaughter began to be considered
a mortal sin.
Beef becomes a caste marker
Barring the untouchable castes, why did other non-Brahmins
forsake beef? Ambedkar says it was because inferior classes tend to imitate the
lifestyle of superior classes – which the Brahmin had become at least from the
Gupta period. He goes on to ask a pertinent question: Why did the untouchable
castes not give up eating beef? Incidentally, Ambedkar refers to them as the
Broken Men, or tribes which were vanquished and routed and compelled to live
outside the villages.
Dr Ambedkar says these castes, or the Broken Men, were too
penurious to slaughter cows for their consumption. They, perforce, had to eat
the flesh of cows which died naturally. When cow-slaughter was proscribed and
declared sacrilegious, the Broken Men were allowed to consume the flesh of the
dead cow – after all, they were eating what they had not killed, but had died
naturally. It did not flout the violation of the ban. The meat of dead cow
given to them free was, and still remains in large parts of India, their
principal food of sustenance.
In fact, Ambedkar says castes such as the Mahars
traditionally enjoyed the right to remove and carry away dead cows from the
houses of those who owned them. But what was once a privilege became an
obligation, says Ambedkar. He observes, “As they could not escape carrying the
dead cow they did not mind using the flesh as food in the manner in which they
were doing previously.”
Obviously, obligations almost always have the force of
sanction. There is inherent compulsion built into this system. Ambedkar notes perspicaciously,
“There is no community which is really an Untouchable community which has not
something to do with the dead cow. Some eat her flesh, some remove the skin,
some manufacture articles out of her skin and bones.”
Obviously, beef isn’t a taboo for Dalits even today. The
inclusion of cattle in the market economy – to be sold, bought, and slaughtered
– the increase in cattle population, the consequent cheaper price at which its
meat can be purchased, are all factors why Dalits wouldn’t hesitate to consume
beef.
This is why the RSS-inspired ban on cow-slaughter remains as
much a cultural imposition as it was centuries ago. Just as the Gupta dynasty
harnessed their power in the fifth century to declare the killing of cow as a
mortal sin or fit for capital punishment, so is the RSS exploiting the BJP’s
majority at the Centre to expand the ban on cow-slaughter to include the bull
and the bullock.
In this endeavour to further its cultural project,
Ambedkar’s writings become an obstacle difficult to surmount. It just suits the
RSS to project him as anti-Muslim, forgetting his defining interest was to
guide the Dalits to walk the path most favourable to their interests. Islam and
Hinduism were weeds or, at best, irrelevant overgrowth slowing the march of Dalits
to win honour, respect and, above all, their rights.
(Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel, The
Hour Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is available in bookstores.
Email: ashrafajaz3@gmail.com)
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