Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi and Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge attend the two-day Congress Working Committee (CWC) extended meeting ‘Nav Satyagrah Baitak’ to be held in Belagavi on December 26, 2024. attended. Photo credit: ANI
The Congress’s Jai Bapu, Jai Bhim and Jai Sanvidhan rally held in Belagavi, Karnataka on December 27 was adjourned due to the death of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But the party has prepared a template for the year ahead and aims to consolidate its legacy. It is an ambitious and challenging undertaking as it brings together Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. BR Ambedkar into a single story of social justice.
Officially, the campaign launches on Friday (January 3, 2025).
The Congress Working Committee (CWC), which met in Belagavi on December 26 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi presiding over the 39th Congress in 1924, is scheduled to conclude on January 26. Approved a comprehensive program. Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, the birthplace of Dr. Ambedkar.
In frame | Historic 1924 Parliament plenary session in Belagavi
“The CWC and the Indian National Congress are passionately committed to upholding the Constitution of India and the ideals of the Indian Independence Movement.Therefore, to commemorate the entry into force of the Constitution and the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Republic, the Indian National Congress is committed to preserving the Constitution of India and the ideals of the Indian Independence Movement. – Bhim, launch Jai Sanvidhan Abhiyan,” the CWC resolution states.
The party said the drive would be extended beyond January 26 considering the “need to preserve, protect and promote the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi” and the constitutional imperative.
“From January 26, 2025 to January 26, 2026, the Indian National Congress will launch a massive nationwide public relations campaign called Sanvidhan Bachao Rashtriya Padayatra in which all leaders will participate. This padayatra will be carried out in a relay format from village to village and town to town,” the CWC said.
What started as a campaign against Home Minister Amit Shah’s off-the-cuff remark that it had become “fashionable” to invoke Dr. Ambedkar has now been framed as a strategy to center the Congress’s social justice politics around Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar. It is being Ambedkar.
The main opposition party’s calculation seems to be twofold – to blunt the recent attack by the Bharatiya Janata Party that the Congress has historically “insulted” Dr Ambedkar, and secondly, to ensure that the ruling party does not support the freedom movement’s It is important not to allow one leader to “usurp” another leader. The same was true for Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the country’s first home minister.
“During the freedom struggle, the political narrative represented by the Congress took precedence over the radical narrative of social reform represented by Ambedkar. They are trying to mobilize political forces,” said Kumar Sanjay, a professor of history at Delhi University’s Swami Shradhanand College.
In a recent Parliamentary debate on the 75th anniversary of the Constitution, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders discussed how Dr Ambedkar resigned as Law Minister from Caretaker Prime Minister Jawaharlal’s caretaker cabinet after failing to pass the Hindu Code Bill. pointed out.
The BJP also pointed out that Dr. Ambedkar had lost the Bombay North seat to his former aide Narayan Sadhba Kajirokar in the 1951-52 general elections.
The Constitution’s chief framers lost two subsequent elections, both times in Congress.
However, the Bharatiya Janata Party glossed over the fact that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was at the forefront of the movement against the Hindu Code Bill.
“In just one year, 1949, the RSS held 79 meetings in Delhi, where effigies of Nehru and Ambedkar were burnt, and where new legislation was denounced as an attack on Hindu culture and tradition.”History House Ram Chandra Guha writes. Article published in The Hindu on July 18, 2004.
But the Congress’s latest political project of merging the legacies of Dr Ambedkar and Gandhiji into a single coherent narrative is an ambitious one.
The differences between the two stalwarts, largely due to their understanding of the caste system and untouchability, are well documented.
Although scholars like Guha have noted commonalities. “Gandhi and Ambedkar worked in contrasting ways and against each other to make Hindus aware of the evil and horror of untouchability,” he argued in the same passage cited above.
When Ambedkar demanded separate constituencies for Dalits and the British agreed, Gandhi fasted inside Yerawada Jail, eventually leading to the Poona Accord of 1932, when Ambedkar demanded separate constituencies for Dalits and in return agreed to reserve the constituency.
Scholar Ananya Vajpayee, who examines this relationship in her book Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India, points out that Gandhi was “overshadowed” by Ambedkar in British India.
Author and Congress member Shashi Tharoor, in his book Ambedkar: A Life, argues that this defeat was partly due to Dr. Ambedkar underestimating the power of Parliament, and that it was partly due to the fact that Dr. This was because he did not understand how unpopular some of his positions were in the eyes of the public.” of ordinary people.”
issued – January 1, 2025 7:49pm IST
