“Babasaheb Ambedkar for me is not just a person, but he also personifies the movement that shaped the life of over 200 million people. His story therefore is simultaneously the saga of that struggle too. More importantly, he is not part of the bygone past but is a live force, perhaps more powerful than during his lifetime, that is still impacting the future of millions, not only of the living ones but also of those who are yet to be born. My objective therefore is to tell his story in a manner that would facilitate people to understand the forces that shaped their lives and enable them to assume agency to rethink their present.”

This is from the Preface to the book under review. When a biography is written with a lofty goal like this, it becomes a veritable tool of ideological struggle -- a struggle to rediscover and popularise the real radical Ambedkar from behind the smoke screen of bhakts, and also from the official conspiracy of misrepresenting and misappropriating him only as a wise statesman who wrote the Constitution of India. The Iconoclast seeks to challenge and repudiate this imagery, best captured in the iconic statue of Ambedkar holding the Constitution, with the index finger on his other, stretched hand pointing to the (old) Parliament. In sharp contrast with this now ubiquitous stolid statue, the book cover sports a representational image of an old, rugged warhorse moving ahead with a big danda in his hand and determination writ large on his face, reflecting Ambedkar’s life-long struggle for social justice and equality. 

Turn over the cover, go to the Preface. There you will find the author explaining why he chose this eloquent and very suggestive title and why it is critical not to forget that Ambedkar was, first and foremost, the most influential iconoclast of modern India:

“Babasaheb Ambedkar is depicted by many adjectives and metaphors with the surprising exception of what he defined himself, as an ‘iconoclast’, the breaker of icons. … He spoke of ‘dynamiting’ the Hindu Dharmashastras, ‘destroying’ the religion of rules and discarding the Hindu Gods, … also the big stalwarts of his time including the greats like John Maynard Keynes, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Bertrand Russel…It is in his iconoclastic zeal that he discarded his own opinions and judgements akin to demolishing himself without batting an eyelid that stunned others as astounding inconsistencies. It is an irony that he himself became one of the greatest icons in history. I chose the title that represents the essence of Ambedkar’s life and his rationalist zeal, which is what his followers need to imbibe. His iconization is not just a matter of intrinsic devotion of the grateful people; it is being competitively promoted by politicians of all hues to deradicalize Ambedkar and depoliticize Dalits. It has become a major fulcrum for electoral politics in the country. It is vital that he is presented as his true persona, an Iconoclast.”

We have added the emphasis above to underscore one of the author’s chief concerns in writing this exceptional biography. Anand continues, without a break:

“The method of meeting such an objective through a biography, I thought, lies not just in presenting the life story dispassionately but also in supplementing it with my reflections. … My reflections are in the form of comments, question marks, and discussions on the points I thought were consequential to the lives of Dalits as well as others.”

Judiciously using such forms of reflections or interventions, Anand opens up a very substantial dialogue with his readers, activists and social scientists, a conversation on how to correctly interpret Ambedkar’s key ideas and creatively work for realisation of his vision. This can be effectively done, he asserts, not in contention but in cooperation with other left and democratic forces. In many places in the book, and in other writings, he pleads for militant unity of Dalit and Left organisations and regrets the lack of that. While narrating the great industrial strike in Bombay (1938), in which both the CPI and the ILP (Independent Labour Party) were actively engaged, he observes,

“The strike paved the way for the coming together of the two streams (Dalit and communist) of working-class movements but none would use it. While communists would be wary of sharing Ambedkar’s anti-Congress stance, as it decided to work with Congress as an anti-imperialist peoples’ front, … and Ambedkar would keep blurting out his resentment against the attitude of the communists. For instance, just a year back in a district conference of the Depressed Classes at Masur in early September 1937, he had declared that he was a confirmed enemy of the communists who exploited labourers for their political end.”

The excessive harshness of the above statement was perhaps uncalled for, but Anand did not hesitate to report this to his readers. His unbiased attitude shows up here, as in other places.

But before proceeding further, it would be better to share with our readers some quick facts about Iconoclast. It includes, in addition to a very thought-provoking preface, a long list of notes and references, a very detailed index, and a gallery of photographs covering Ambedkar’s entitre life. As expected, the get-up is very good. But Penguin fails, at least in the PDF version which this reviewer got hold of, to do justice to its reputation as a publishing house when it comes to proofing. There are many typos, and at least in one insance the same photograph is displayed twice, with two separate titles. It is worth remembering that the book was in the final stages of editing when he was incarcerated under UAPA in connection with the Bhima Koregaon Case. He could resume the interrupted work only when he was released on bail, after suffering a Covid attack in jail, in November 2022 and completed it in 2024.

In this highly impressive work, Anand smoothly cris-crosses past and present, biography and political discourse, theory and practice – all in the wide backdrop of India’s fight to free whatever democracy we still have from the tightening grip of Fascist Hindutva. It is this expansive panorama, duly matched by the sharp, deep analysis and strongwilled straightforwardness characteristic of Anand, that makes the book a real page-turner.

“The motivation behind writing this book… is to urge the new generation of Dalits not to become sectarian devotees of Ambedkar, but rather to see him as an integral part of their liberation struggle and to learn from his legacy.”     -- Preface

While highlighting Ambedkar’s great ideals, initiatives and achievements in the face of tremendous uppper caste resistance throughout life, severe financial constraints up to mid life and in the last ten years, devastating health conditions resulting largely from excessive labour (according to his first English-language biographer Dhananjay Keer, during the last few weeks Ambedkar actually  worked himself to death) Anand does not shy away from pointing out a number of what he considers serious misconceptions or unacceptable statements. For instance, he holds Ambedkar’s   “Communist Phobia” of the last few years partly responsible for the extreme anti-communist sectarianism in Dalit movement today.

But do not such critical comments help the Ambedkar bashers? Not at all. They have their own paid intellectuals, who routinely supply all materials that could be used for propaganda purposes. Constructive criticism --  actually self criticism in Anand’s case, given that he is one of the most resourceful and articulate organic intellectuals of Dalits in India -- actually help the movement rectify mistakes, attract broader forces and reinergise itself. We in the CPI(ML) can vouch for this cardinal fact on the basis of our own experience.

Anand presents Ambedkar, mainly in Iconoclast and also in other works, in a way that bears close resemblance with Ambedkar’s method of presenting the life and teachings of the Buddha, and he says this himself . Once Ambedkar  settled for mass conversion to Buddhism as a way of escaping the curse of caste, he took upon himself the Herculean task of radically reformulating Buddhism and crafting a new, third version or “third way” of that religion -- Nayayana, after the old ones, the Mahayana and Hinayana. In this reinterpretation or reformulation of Buddhism, he picked up the core ideas and principles of the Buddhist tradition, highlighted the most humane, rational and relevant ones and discarded the unacceptable tenets and rituals which he believed had accumulated over the post-Buddha millennia, thus adapting the new version as an aid to social reform and as a moral foundation of society in the modern era.

Largely in a similar spirit, Anand separates and upholds what is essential, rational and relevant today in Ambedkar’s oeuvre, and keeps aside what seems to be superfluous,  dated or inaccurate, as part of history. This is an extremely important work, which will help the people of India, Dalits and other followers in particular, to know the essential Ambedkar -- the tireless explorer in politics, the iconoclast who also had a vision of radical reconstruction of India’s society and polity in the highest ideals of Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. This may also help clear many doubts about Ambedkar in Left circles and make it easier for Left and Dalit/ Dalit Bahujan organisations to bury the hatchet and carry forward the legacy of the short-lived camaraderie between us in the 1930s against our common enemies, Brahmanism and Capitalism.

In this very substantial work, the author has done a great job at highlighting and elucidating the core ideas of Ambedkar's political philosophy in their specific historical setting and simultaneously also in terms of the present Indian conditions. On issues where Ambedkar’s position changed subtly or drastically over time, he has diligently referenced and linked up the shifts and pointed out the plausible reasons behind these helping the reader get a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Most important, as an interpreter and communicator of Ambedkar’s socio political views, he has not allowed his reverence for Babasaheb come in the way of an impartial judgement and dispassionate, truthful portrayal of the esteemed leader. On a good many points, he joins issues with Ambedkar, at times in very strong words.

For example, Anand forcefully contradicts Ambedkar’s rejection of a proposal to include the words socialist and secular in Article 1 of the constitution, and another proposal of a Proportional Representation System (PRS) for elections to legislatures. In both cases he repudiates Ambedkar’s arguments in detail, point by point. Opposing Ambedkar’s assertion that with the provision of the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy the socialist principles were already embodied in our Constitution, he asks, “Did the fundamental rights with leaks and directive principles without teeth make up for Socialism?” Annand’s own answer is, “neither the Constitution was secular nor socialist; the fundamental rights and directive principles, which actually were good-sounding provisions but without any force were just subterfuges to delude people into believing that the Constitution had all that they desired.”  Given that the FRs and DPs are not legally enforceable, Anand seems to be standing on stronger legal grounds vis-à-vis Ambedkar. His position was further corroborated when, weeks after Iconoclast was published, the SC rejected a batch of petitions seeking deletion of the words “secular” and “socialist” especially because the words were included in the Preamble, which forms part of the basic structure of the constitution.

We might go on like this, but let us conclude with two brief obsevations.

We in the CPI (ML) are alive to the fact that Ambedkar today is a much stronger influence in our country and in some other countries than when he walked the earth. We are happy that the Iconoclast, which many believe is Annand’s best production so far, affirms this.

Iconoclast appears on the scene exactly when it is most needed. It comes in the wake of a welcome surge in serious Ambedkar studies in India and abroad, which forms part of a growing ideological resistance against the neoliberal-far right aggression on democracy. In our country this attack is spearheaded by a Hindu Raj, about which the visionary in Ambedkar forewarned us right at the moment of birth of the Democratic Republic of India. The urgent need of the hour is to strengthen this resistance in the arenas of mass movement and, no less important, on the ideological front, the two being closely interconnected. We earnestly believe that Iconoclast will make a crucial contribution here and help bridge the gulf between what Anand calls “the two streams (Dalit and Communist) of the working class movements”. 
--

Note:
1. Ambedkar saw Atma Deep Bhabo or ‘be a torch unto yourself’, taken from the Buddha, as a guiding principle in his life and this was his parting advice to his followers on the occasion of Buddha Dharma Diksha on 14 October, 1956 at Nagpur.