In every country and in every era, there has come a time when an extraordinary person has risen to the occasion to challenge the status quo, against all odds. One such is Bharat Ratna Bodhisattva Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. Original thinker, Scholar, jurist, legislator, guiding force and chief architect of the Indian constitution, economist, public policy leader, development practitioner; the magnificent Babasaheb Ambedkar was all of these and more.

Crisp was his thoughts, precise and clear were his views, unabashed and non-minced were his words in every platform from which he spoke or wrote. The more one reads of Babasaheb, the more one admires his unique intellect and understands his significance and the circumstances under which he jolted the status quo and truly sought disruption in calling for the complete annihilation of the caste system.

Babasaheb had seen society from the prism of brute force of caste-based discrimination, like no one else. Thus, he stood for the cause of all-round empowerment of the socially disadvantaged until his very last breath. Even when he was in England for the first roundtable conference in 1930, it is recorded that he wrote in a letter to ‘Dadasaheb’ Bhaurao Gaikwad about how the people there were sympathetic towards him and that he was happy to see them inclined to favour the demands of the untouchables.

In almost all of his writings, speeches, interactions, and meetings he emphasised the need for Dalits to arm themselves with education, knowledge and power. In this, I would say, is a lesson for all Indians and indeed the entire world.

While I believe that Babasaheb’s life is by itself a message, I have found some of his views on communism and China truly revelatory and absorbing. In addition to Hinduism, he understood the glaring fault lines of both communism and China and consistently urged all to be aware and alert about it. Babasaheb, the owner of over 30,000 books as part of his personal library, was widely read, well informed and well-read.

In one of his famous speeches, ‘Buddha or Karl Marx?’ he has minced no words in clearly articulating the fundamental differences between the two. It is worth reading and understanding. Babasaheb was a faithful follower of the tenets of the Buddha and he imbibed and put forth the essence in countering communism which he was vehemently against. Whenever he spoke of Buddhism, he always accorded it the status of a proven scientific religion and not of random mysterious practice. For Babasaheb, communism was synonymous with violence and this he illustrated with great depth, powerful words and meaning.

“Buddha would never allow violence, but the communists do. No doubt the communists get quick results because when you adopt the means of annihilating a man, they do not remain to oppose you. Humanity does not only want economic values, it also wants spiritual values to be retained. Permanent communist dictatorship has paid no attention to spiritual values and does not seem to intend to. Carlyle called political economy a pig philosophy. Carlyle was of course wrong. For man needs material comforts. But the communist philosophy seems to equally wrong, for the aim of their philosophy seems to be fatten pigs, as though men are no better than pigs. Man must grow materially as well as spiritually. Buddha’s method was to change the mind of man without the use of force. Buddha sought to change man’s moral disposition to follow the path voluntarily. The means adopted by the communists are equally clear short and swift; one is violence and second is dictatorship of the proletariat,” he said.

The follow up to this is Babasaheb’s stern proposition to the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on China. There were but few who understood China’s nefarious designs and among them, the leading luminary was without any doubt Babasaheb. His unequivocal opposition to China, or for that matter any communist country, is on record. The astute clarity with which he forewarned the then Prime Minister is another speech worth reading.

“The Prime Minister has been depending upon what may be called the ‘Panchsheel’ taken by Mr Mao and recorded in the Tibet treaty of non-aggression. Well, I am somewhat surprised, that the Prime Minister should take this Panchsheel seriously. The Panchsheel, as you, Sir, know it well, is the essential part of the Buddhist religion. If Mr Mao had any faith in the Panchsheel, he would certainly treat the Buddhists in his country in a very different way. There is no room for Panchsheel in politics, and secondly, not in the politics of a communist country. The communists’ countries have no morality. Today’s morality is not tomorrow’s morality.”

Signed in 1954 under Nehru, Panchsheel was an agreement of a set of principles signed between India and China to govern relations between both countries.

These are two remarkable excerpts from the galaxy of works and speeches of Babasaheb in which he suggested that India should never mistake, entertain or take lightly any interaction with communists. His import of words is revealing because India, at the time of the post-cold war era period, was in effect ruled by a dispensation that shared a left of centre world view.

21st century is most certainly evolving global power politics and power structures but the very root and essence of the 2Cs, that is communism and China according to me, remains the same as what the ‘Yugapurusha’ Babasaheb foresaw and explained.

In November 2017, Laura Nicole from Harvard University wrote in a candid article, “Let us not forget the history of the victims who do not have a voice because they did not survive the writing of their tales. Most importantly, let us not be tempted to repeat it.” She went on to add that communism is by no means challenging the status quo but in effect, it is a violent philosophy and that this has to be understood by all.

It is imperative for the common man to study and understand Babasaheb. The premise that he championed was, is and will always remain relevant and contemporary.