Encounter of the titans

What happens when BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi look down from heaven? Two brilliantly imagined soliloquies

The Flaming Feet and Other
Essays: Permanent Black,
254 pages, Rs595.

Two voices suddenly pipe up midway through The Flaming Feet, D.R. Nagaraj’s book of essays on the Dalit movement, and they turn out to be those of the principal protagonists of the book: B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi. For once, we see them not spoken about, but speaking in their own voices, as if restored to life.

It is 1997, the 50th anniversary of India’s independence—an independence about which both men were, from the very beginning and for different reasons, sceptical. Ambedkar and Gandhi occupy adjoining rooms in heaven, and look down somewhat disconsolately on an India that has moved on. Ambedkar speaks of his immense antipathy to religious superstition and myth-making, and acknowledges that “my intimate enemy, that Gujarati Bania Mr. Gandhi, also does not like these things”, even if Gandhi is always seen as a man of religion. Gandhi, meanwhile, is found contemplating “how Hind Swaraj would be if my nextdoor neighbour, the learned Babasaheb, had written it”, and thinks that Ambedkar, a trained economist and the quintessential rationalist, would have found an enormous array of statistics to improve the argument.

Full review here Mint 

The reading life - Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar

As another August 15 passes by, here’s a thought: what would our country have been like if the leaders of the freedom movement had not been readers?

It’s easier to see them as writers. Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiographies, letters and other work have provided gainful occupation for thousands of scholars. Pandit Nehru, incarcerated in jail, bereft of reference books, set pen to paper and produced The Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History and Letters From A Father To His Daughter. B R Ambedkar’s Who Were The Shudras, Castes in India and the autobiographical Waiting For A Visa still hold the attention of readers.

And it is their progression as writers that historians and thinkers like Ramachandra Guha and Sunil Khilnani have written about. But to study the libraries of India’s leaders is to realise how relentlessly, and sometimes restlessly, all of them, from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad to Sarojini Naidu, read as a way of understanding the values by which India would be formed.

Gandhi came to English uneasily; the alien tongue made him a virtual prisoner of silence on his shipboard journey to England. In South Africa, as a lawyer who had got over his initial fear of speaking in public, he put together a formidable and eclectic library.

Full report here Sify

Banning books doesn’t work

In an age of digital media and rampant piracy, efforts to keep books away from readers are increasingly meaningless, even counterproductive

This newspaper doesn’t quite like the idea of anybody having the power to ban a book, but isn’t unduly worried that such attempts (and more on these anon) will stop the spread of thoughts, stories or ideas.

Depending on geography, history and background, the list of subjects considered “sacred” in the country include the extended Gandhi family, Ambedkar, Periyar, Subhas Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Veer Savarkar and maybe a few thousand more people, some alive, some dead. James Laine’s book has met with opposition in Maharashtra because it is about Shivaji, the Maratha king many people in the state—at least those making a living from politics—hold dear.

The reason such bans do not work is because the nature of the books business has changed. Paper isn’t the only medium through which ideas or stories can now be communicated. Many of them can be communicated through digital media. And while piracy (just to clarify, this newspaper is against it) prevents the creators of content from being rewarded for their efforts, it ensures that books and movies that aren’t meant to be available in a particular region are—freely.

Full report here Mint

Ambedkar’s complete works a bestseller

The writings of Dr  B R Ambedkar are attracting book-lovers to the annual book fair organised by the State Institute of Languages at the VJT Hall in Thiruvananthapuram. Among the 18,000 books exhibited in over 2,500-odd titles, ‘Dr. Ambedkar: The Complete Works’ is becoming one of the main attractions. The collection, which spans over 34 volumes, is the first of its kind in Malayalam. No other publisher has so far published the complete works of Dr Ambedkar for Malayalam readers.

M Rajendran, the coordinator of the exhibition, told ‘Expresso’ that it was for the first time the 34 volumes of Ambedkar’s complete works were put for exhibition in Kerala. “The response from the public is very warm that by the third day of the exhibition, many volumes in the complete works have been sold out,” he added. The paperback edition of all 34 volumes together costs Rs 1,200 at the exhibition.

Shamlal T A, a research aspirant from Kochi, was delighted to find the complete works of Ambedkar in the exhibition. He said that he had been searching for it in many other places, but he found it only here.

Full report here New Indian Express