Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of our Constituent Assembly. The basis of the Constituent Assembly was laid during the struggle for independence, which was fought by the entire country, in which women and men of different ideas, religions, castes, classes, workers and farmers, intellectuals, even children contributed.

This struggle gave a message of harmony, brotherhood and sisterhood. Many freedom-loving youth, among whom the names of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Ashfaq Ullah Khan and tens of hundreds of unknown people sacrificed even with their lives. Hundreds suffered extreme torture in Andaman and Nicobar jails.

All of these people wanted a self-governing nation based on the principles of justice & equality, without any discrimination based on caste, religion, ethnicity, gender and for a secular democratic and socialist India. The Constituent Assembly, therefore, had representatives of all political parties and intellectuals. Even Shyama Prasad Mukherjee of the RSS was there, even if the RSS did not take part in the freedom movement. The RSS supported the British much the way some fanatical Muslims did.

Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar's greatness lies in the fact that he tried to incorporate the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, revolutionaries and leftists in the Constitution while completely rejecting the idea of creating a religion-based country - a 'Hindu Rashtra'.

Discrimination on the basis of caste is a hard truth. The Constituent Assembly had a daunting task to remove this inhuman aspect of our society. The assembly adopted the policy of reservation for the Dalits - the SC & ST and Other Backward Castes, people who were marginalised both socially and economically.

Without this step, these oppressed sections would have got a chance to beat the odds stacked against them. Ambedkar himself was a Dalit, so he understood the problems faced by the Dalit but also faced this discrimination first-hand. Being a gifted individual, he excelled in academics.

The manner in which Amit Shah sarcastically called 'Ambedkar Ambedkar Ambedkar...' six times reflected the anti-Dalit mentality of the RSS which Shah gave voice to. It is a truth of our country that caste and class come together in many places. For example, the majority of the oppressed and poor classes come from the SCs and STs.

According to statistics, the average income of the Scheduled Caste person is Rs 7500 per family per month which is about 1500 rupees per person per month. This is a joke, but also reality. And this is why India lags at 105 out of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index. The children of the poor and oppressed mostly do not get education. The youth are destined to do manual labour.

According to a study, manual workers are mostly Dalit with a lower life-expectancy than the national average. It is now crystal clear that the RSS was against the toiling masses from the very beginning. No wonder the BJP government unashamedly aligns with corporate and is anti-people, anti-worker and anti-farmer.

However, sometimes they do offer some doles. Ambedkar emphasized the need for education for the Dalit and described education as the way to their emancipation. The opposition to Amit Shah's statement is not only based on his casteist outlook but also on the class position of being corporate-friendly. (IPA Service)