Zoomed Vinay Special · First-person editorial

Ambedkar Warned That in Politics Hero-Worship Is "a Sure Road to Degradation." Since 1990 Party After Party Has Raised Him Higher. I Tested Him Too: On Hinduism, Six of His Claims Fail the Texts. Here's the Record

On 25 November 1949 B.R. Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly that in politics, "Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship." Forty years later the Government of India announced his Bharat Ratna, the Prime Minister unveiled his portrait in Parliament's Central Hall and a Year of Social Justice began in his name; since then governments run by several parties have built him bigger statues, and parties have accused their rivals of insulting him. I tested this file's own first version against Parliament's records, government orders, a Supreme Court order and his collected works, claim by claim: what the record carries stays, what it does not is withdrawn, and the motive, "for votes", is a charge made by critics, not a finding. And because his own warning says no great man should be beyond question, I tested twenty of his own claims, most of them from his unpublished appendix on Rama and Krishna in Riddles in Hinduism, against the Sanskrit texts: six are wrong, two leave out what the texts say, six overstate, and six hold.