Today, Babasaheb Ambedkar would have turned 134.
Born in 1891. Architect of the Indian Constitution.
Economist. Jurist. Philosopher. Feminist. Anti-caste crusader.
Rockstar!
The man who called out Hinduism for what it was,
and refused to die a Hindu.
He wrote in safeguards for the marginalised.
He institutionalised affirmative action.
He built an unapologetically secular framework for the Indian republic.
And then, with full consciousness and clarity, he walked away from Hinduism
taking millions with him.
So, here’s the question.
Why do the very people who shout from rooftops about “Hindu civilisation” and “Sanatan dharma”
keep garlanding his statue?
Why do they include him in their manifestos?
Why do they flood our timelines with his photo every 14 April?
The answer is simple.
They don’t revere him.
They fear him.
They fear the power of the people who follow him.
The voters who still see him as the clearest voice of justice in modern Indian history.
The citizens who know that without Ambedkar, they would still be on the margins of the margins.
The right-wing doesn’t embrace Ambedkar out of conviction.
They do it out of compulsion.
He is too big to erase, and too powerful to ignore.
So they co-opt.
They photoshop.
They cherry-pick quotes.
They pose under his portrait.
Just like they do with women.
Goddesses in posters.
Real Laxmis in prisons, in kitchens, unsafe in their own homes
Real Durgas online, in offices, in factories, on streets, underpaid
Real Saraswatis in schools, colleges, universities, research institutes, ignored
in headlines for all the wrong reasons.
You can’t call Ambedkar your icon
while dismantling the very ideas he fought for.
You can’t sing praises of a man
whose values you quietly poison.
And you certainly can’t build a nation on a foundation of lies
while claiming legitimacy from the man who wrote its moral architecture.
So today, don’t just post a photo of Babasaheb.
Ask yourself:
Do you want just his name?
Or his mission?
Because the two are not the same.
And he, of all people, would have seen right through it.
Jai Bhim!
