Ambedkar a pioneer like Savarkar, Malviya: RSS

New Delhi: Hailing B.R. Ambedkar for his work to reform Hindu society, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Saturday put him in the pantheon of Hindutva icons like Veer Savarkar and Madan Mohan Malviya and said he had opposed conversion to Islam and Christianity.

With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress trying to outdo each other to claim the legacy of the architect of Constitution, RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya has come out a with special cover story on Ambedkar, lavishing praise on the Dalit leader and projecting him as a hero of Indian values who spent over a decade in “organising Hindus”.

His birth anniversary falls on 14 April and both parties have planned a number of events to mark it.

“As Buddha followed by Kabir, Guru Nanak and then Jyotiba Phule and Vivekananda worked to rid the society of the ills of their time... Ambedkar was the pioneer of the fifth phase of resurrection, whose earlier heroes were Savarkar, Mahatma Gandhi and Madan Mohan Malviya,” it said.

Noting that Ambedkar spent his life for the uplift of untouchables and Dalits, the article says he spent 11 years between 1924-35 to organise Hindus because he believed it would end ritualism and make India an able country.

“He wrote that Dalits also have a right over the values of Hindutva,” it writes.

It blames upper castes Hindus for spurning his attempts to get equal social and religious rights for Dalits which made him turn against Hinduism in “anger and frustration”.

It writes that Ambedkar was against Dalits converting to Christianity or Islam because he believed that “ if the numbers of Muslims and Christians rise and it will cause danger to India.”

“He took 21 years before he converted because he thought if Dalits convert to Christianity or Islam they will go out of the fold of Indianess... The idea of betraying the Indian values was unacceptable to him,” it says.

The story claims that Ambedkar told Hindus in 1942 when the demand for creation of Pakistan was rising that he believed “Hindu society will defeat Muslims”.

He, however, supported the creation of Pakistan in the same way the captain of a ship wants “excess baggage” discarded so that “Indian ship could sail without any danger.”