00:00 On August 14, 1931, B.R. Ambedkar said to Gandhi in a meeting at Manibhawan in Bombay,
00:06 "Gandhiji, I have no homeland.
00:09 How can I call this land my own homeland and this religion my own, wherein we are treated
00:13 worse than cats and dogs, wherein we cannot get water to drink?"
00:18 The Independence Day issue of Outlook looks at Dalit movements across the country.
00:22 In that, the issue analyses what freedom means for Dalits in our country.
00:27 Ambedkar collaborated with scholar Suraj Yengde to put together the issue.
00:31 The editor Chinke Sinha met J.V.
00:32 Pawar, who co-founded the Dalit Panthers movement in 1972, and asked him to explore the dismantling
00:38 of a literary movement as well, founding a movement by J.V.
00:43 Pawar.
00:44 After Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar's death, Mahapari Nirvan, on 6 December 1956, Pandit Jawaharlal
00:50 Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, described Dr. Ambedkar as a jewel of his ministry, a
00:55 revolutionary, and a challenge to Hindu society.
00:58 His differences with Gandhiji were known to all.
01:01 There was this equation at the time that the Congress party was Gandhi, and Gandhi was
01:05 India.
01:06 Gandhism or Congressism existed at the ground level in villages.
01:09 The Congress party was in power, and hence, Congressmen were responsible for atrocities
01:14 on Dalit communities.
01:15 So long as Babasaheb was alive, the atrocities perpetrated on Dalits were comparatively less.
01:21 Babasaheb was a nationalist, he wanted to convert the country into a nation where Gandhiji
01:26 was casteist, religious, and regionalist.
01:29 Babasaheb used to say that I am first Bhartiya, and Bhartiya last.
01:34 Gandhiji was first a Baniya, secondly a Gujarati, and last a Hindu.
01:38 He was never Bhartiya.
01:40 After Babasaheb's Mahapari Nirvan, several atrocities on Dalits were committed in inhuman
01:45 ways to take revenge on Babasaheb.
01:47 We were writers, we used to write that we will fight against cruelty, but that was only
01:52 on paper.
01:53 During this time, we learnt about the agitation of the black people of America against the
01:57 whites under the banner of Black Panther Militant Movement.
02:00 This movement was formed by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton.
02:03 Time magazine was publishing their stories.
02:06 Indian newspapers were also publishing stories about all types of atrocities committed on
02:10 Dalits in India, especially about the molestation of women.
02:14 One story was about two women who were stripped and paraded naked at Brahmangaon of Parishahi
02:20 district.
02:21 They were blamed for walking past a well from which caste Hindus fetched drinking water.
02:26 Their shadows had been reflected in the water and thereby the water was labelled polluted.
02:31 The casteist villagers stripped the women and thrashed them with the branches of babool
