Gail Omvedt: Subaltern Perspective
Gail Omvedt:
Subaltern Perspective
Gail Omvedt is an American-born
Indian scholar, sociologist and human rights activist.
She is a prolific writer and
has published numerous books on the anti-caste movement, Dalit politics, and
women's struggles in India.
Omvedt has been involved in
Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental, farmers' and women's movements,
especially with rural women.
She got her PhD in sociology in
1973.She has been an Indian citizen since 1983.
She currently lives in rural
India in a town in Maharashtra called Kasegaon with her husband, Bharat
Patankar.
Omvedt's academic pursuit:
Omvedt's academic writing
includes numerous books and articles on class, caste and gender issues.
Besides having undertaken many
research projects, Dr Omvedt has been a consultant for FAO, UNDP and NOVIB and
has served as a Dr Ambedkar Chair Professor at NISWASS in Orissa, a Professor
of Sociology at the University of Pune and an Asian Guest Professor at the
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen.
She was a Senior Fellow at the
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and Research Director of the Krantivir Trust.
Gail Omvedt Works:
A prolific writer, Gail Omvedt
has published a large number of books including Dalit Visions (1975).
Violence against Women: New
Theories and New Movements in India (1991).
Dalits and Democractic
Revolution (1994).
Buddhism in India : Challenging
Brahmanism and Caste (SageIndia, 2003)
"Ambedkar: Towards an
Enlightened India " (Penguin, 2005)
Seeking Begumpura: The Social
Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals (New Delhi, Navayana, 2009)
"Understanding Caste: From
Buddha To Ambedkar And Beyond" (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2011)
Gail Omvedt’s Ideology on
Ambedkar:
There is undoubtedly most
Statues of Bheema Rao ramji Ambedkar in India than any other historical person
of a last Millennium.
Ambedkar is not just a dalit
leader but also a national leader. He played a major role in the constitution
of Indian planning in the formation of irrigation and energy policy and his
work in setting up colleges and educational institutions represented the
efforts of all anti-caste leaders to win education as a tool of liberation.
Following his works in chairing
the committee to draft the Indian Constitution, he was the law Minister in the
first cabinet after independence whose most famous achievements was guiding
'The Hindu code bill' as a charter of women's rights in free India.
All this represented and
nationalism that was not simply the winning of political Independence but of
nation building the creation of social equality and cultural integration in a
society held enslaved for so long by the unique tyrannies of caste and Varna
ideology.
Gandhiji was Hindi 'Bapu' the
father of a society in which he tried to inject equality while maintaining the
Hindu Framework. Ambedkar was 'Baba' to his people and the great liberator from
that Framework.
Gandhiji fought for freedom
from colonial rule while Ambedkar fought for a broader liberation from
exploitation and oppression.
Ambedkar like Marx was not simply a philosopher
reinterpreting the world but a leader of those who wanted to reconstruct the
world by abolishing exploitative social structures.
Caste system has plagued the
Indian society since ages. The initial texts of Hinduism, the Vedas, have
defined the Chaturvarna system and the most elite sect called Brahminism, which
is supposed to have the elite and scholarly minds, has also been biased when it
comes to many distinctions in the society.
Girl criticized the sensibility which equals Indian tradition with
Hinduism and Hinduism with Brahmanism which considers the Vedas as the
foundational text of Indian culture and discovers within the Aryan Heritage the
essence of Indian civilization. It shows how every secular mind remain
imprisoned within the brahmanical vision. She tries to bring out the failures
and triumphs of many efforts that have aimed to dissolve the oppressive facets
of Hinduism and its cast ideologies and continue to organise in new ways.
Dr. Bheema Rao Ramji Ambedkar born
in 1891 to an untouchable family in Maharashtra later on was instrumental in framing
the constitution of India. He empathically presents the experiential world of the
untouchables.he experienced a harsh world around him that left an indelible impression
on a tender mind.
At the tender age itself Ambedkar
began to understand that his position in society was challenged by his caste
identity. Ambedkar put forward the point that a person who is an untouchable to
a Hindu is also treated as an untouchable by a Parsi as well. It was his return
from abroad to Baroda in 1918 that opened his eyes to the deeply entrenched
practice of untouchability in India. He talks about the disjointed dehumanising
experiences an untouchable experiences which is the real picture of a caste
conscious India. Such a repertoire forms the social component of Bhim Rao
Ambedkar thoughts and engagement with Indian society and polity. (Kundu, 2018)
She not only studied about
Ambedkar but also about Jyotiba Phule 1826-1890 was not a dalit himself but a
man of what would today be described as an affluent OBC caste the Mali a garden
is by traditional occupation he began as a social reformer establishing schools
for both girls and untouchable boys and founded the Satya shodhak samaj in 1875
which organised the non brahmins to prepare pond rationally and giving up of
Brahmin priest for rituals and the education of children. (Omvedt, 2011)
The Dalit movement thus
originated and posed a strong opposition in this context.
Various other religions like
Buddhism saw their inception.
Dalit movement was made strong
by some of the most humane and great minds whose art, thoughts and ideas have
been timeless.
Some of them were Kabir,
Tukaram, Ramabai, Periyar, Phule and in the recent past, Ambedkar. Buddha
himself propounded ideologies that transcended all inequalities to a more
united, intermingled human consciousness.
compiled by
Ani Merly Paul.
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