W

hen BJP leader Vinay Katiyar described B.R. Ambedkar as “anti-Muslim” in December 2002, he made many bristle, the Bahujan Samaj Party not the least of them. While it was predictably dismissed as an attempt to saffronise and appropriate Ambedkar, it did throw up a complex and little-explored aspect of the Dalit leader’s identity—his stand on Islam and Muslims and what exactly his views were on the Partition. It is a subject that even today brings up conflicting views amongst scholars.

For those who would like to appropriate Ambedkar as an anti-Muslim icon, his book Pakistan or the Partition of India (first published in 1940 and reprinted in 1946) is replete with references to Islam and Muslims that can easily be interpreted as originating from a strong bias against the two.

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Ambedkarspeak