manyawar shri kanshi ram ji

8/3/2019 Manyawar Shri Kanshi Ram Ji

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Manyawar Shri Kanshi Ram Ji:

Founder of Bahujan Samaj Party

"I will never get married, I will never acquire any property, I will never visit my home, Iwill devote and dedicate the rest of my life to achieve the goals of Phule -Ambedkarmovement"

These pledges remind the work of Manyawar Kanshi Ram Sahib who is remembered inthe history of India as a True leader of Bahujan Samaj . The journey of ManyawarKanshi Ram Saheb and his movement of socio-cultural revolution and economic

emancipation of Bahujan Samaj started way back in 1964. Kanshi Ram, the eldest sonof Mr. Hari Singh, resident of Khawas Pur village of Punjab 's Roper district, was bornon 15 th March, 1934 , in a Sikh family belonging to the Ramdassia Community. Hecompleted B.Sc. and joined as an assistant Scientist in DRDO in Kirki PuneMaharashtra in 1957 where he was exposed to the bad breath of Hindu social order i.e.atrocious caste system. In the ordinance factory, where Kanshi Ram was working, themanagement cancelled the holidays of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Jayanti and BuddhaJayanti and instead granted Tilak Jayanti holiday and an additional holiday during Diwalifestival. As a reaction to this, not the Ambedkarites from Maharashtra but a ScheduledCaste Mr. Dina Bhana, from Rajasthan, protested against the cancellation of these twoholidays. Dina Bhana's protest resulted in his suspension. By this atrocious act, agitated

Kanshi Ram fought the legal battle for Dina Bhana.

As a result, not only was Dina Bhana reinstated but the holidays were also restored.The unjust and casteist act on the part of management resulted in a new awakening inKanshi Ram, as he did not properly realize the casteist divisions in his youth in Punjab .Thereafter Kanshi Ram studied the literature of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the biggestdestroyer of Brahmanism after Buddha, Jyotiba Phule and Periyar. Kanshi Ram Ji read"Annihilation of Castes" three times in one night which created not only an impact onKanshi Ram, but shaped his thinking and future course of actions. Beside Dr.

Ambedkar's writings, Mr. Kanshi Ram found the path of further movement in Dr.Ambedkar's plan for political action. Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji quit the job in 1964 and

decided that he will never marry and devote his life for social transformation.

On 24 th September 1944 , at Madras , Dr. Babasaheb declared the political goal of hisstruggle. Dr Ambedkar said, "Understand our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is tobecome the rulers of this country. Write this goal on the walls of your houses so that youwill never forget. Our struggle is not for the few jobs and concessions but we have alarger goal to achieve. That goal is to become the rulers of the land." On 4 th October,1945 , in the Working Committee meeting of All India Scheduled Castes Federation


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again he elaborately stressed on the political power and said , "Politics should be thelife-blood of the Scheduled Castes." Since politics of Congress party, the mouthpiece ofthe dominant castes was detrimental to the very existence and interests of backwardclass people, Babasaheb tried to form a broad - base movement of all the victims ofBrahmanism.

On 18 th March, 1956 in a public meeting at Ram Leela ground, Agra , he said that thehighly qualified people belonging to SCs have betrayed us. They are occupying the keyposts in government and doing nothing for their poor, oppressed brothers and sisters.

It was a great loss for the movement when Dr. Babasaheb unexpectedly died on 6 thDecember, 1956 .

After the death of DR Ambedkar, the Republican Party of India (R P I) as visualized byDr. Ambedkar was formed on 3 rd October, 1957 . But from 1958 the party began tosplit up under various leaders. The biggest set-back to the party was that, it became a

party of Maharashtra and the Mahars (later converted to Buddhism after 1956) and theother sub-castes remained the supporters of Congress and others. The clash ofpersonalities and personal political ambitions took the caravan in a reverse directionrather taking ahead.

Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji noticed the dynamism of Dr Ambedkar's movement. Hestarted working with Republican Party of India. After near about eight years of workingwith Republican Party of India, he became disillusioned with its functioning. His dreamof Ambedkarite movement was completely shattered when Dadasaheb Gaikwad joinedthe hands with Mohan Dhariya from Congress for a petty one Lok-Sabha reserved seatand few lakh rupees. He observed that supporters of RPI were celebrating the pact of

RPI and Congress where RPI got just one seat and rest of seats were given toCongress. This event was the beginning of his dissociation from Republican Party.

Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji decided that he will develop a society which will work tospread the thoughts of Dr Ambedkar and other social reformers and will never sellthemselves for a small gain. He independently started organizing the employees ofScheduled castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes mainly from Pune, Bombay, Nasik , Nagpur and Delhi .

He traveled all over the India along with his few activists to know why Caravan of DrAmbedkar was brought back rather than taking ahead. During these days he neverbothered about his health, food, transport and worked tirelessly to awaken the educatedemployees. Organization of employees of Backward Class and Religious Minorities,after doing a necessary preparatory work within a period of five years decided to floatan organisation in 1973. As a result of it, and as per the vision of Dr. Ambedkar, KanshiRamji's started his first organization on 6 th December 1978 in Delhi , called asBAMCEF. Subsequently, he formed Buddhist Research Center (BRC), DS-4 and BSP.


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Kanshi Ramji decided to take the Caravan of Dr Ambedkar ahead and he considers itas his responsibility to fulfill the same. Then he started working among educatedemployees and awakens them to work for the upliftment of the downtrodden. In thisprocess he was successful to a large extent in awakening, realizing and transformingthe expectations of Dr Ambedkar from educated class. After the necessary ground work

and positive response from some employees in Poona , Nagpur , Delhi and other placesKanshi Ramji decided to launch an organization for pay-back to society. Thus, the ideaof BAMCEF was conceived on 6 th December, 1973 . After ceaseless field workthroughout the country for near about five years the birth of BAMCEF took place on thelawn of Boat Club in New Delhi , on 6 th December 1978 . During this time, heconducted several cadre camps, meetings, seminars in different parts of the country toawaken the employees. The basic aim of BAMCEF was to develop genuine andcapable leadership among the oppressed. Basically it has been the organization aimedto build up the non-political roots for the success of Dr. Ambedkar's political vision andaction. BAMCEF's typical feature was that it was an organization of the employees, bythe employees but not for the welfare of the employees. The first concept given by

Kanshi Ram Ji was "people who should succeed politically must have strong non-political roots"

He witnessed the failure of Ambedkarite movement in Maharashtra ,

Kanshi Ramji had realized that the people whose non-political roots were not strongwere bound to fail politically. They can have their political party, but they cannotsucceed politically. Therefore, in order to strengthen the non-political roots of backwardclass people, he began BAMCEF experiment and spent 10-11 years in organizing theeducated employees of SC/ST/OBCs and Minorities, who were benefited by the policyof reservation. BAMCEF created a new missionary political conscience among the

backward caste educated employees and also established a national network for furtherKanshi Ram's movement.

Kanshi Ram Ji did not project himself a leader but worked silently as organizer andhence he did not mind to invite Ram Vilas Paswan, Karpoori Thakur to address 3 rdNational Convention of BAMCEF which was held at Chandigarh on 14 th -18 th October1983 .

After spending 20 yrs of his young age Kanshi Ramji realized that merely organizingemployees would not be enough to fulfill the dreams of Dr Ambedkar. Unless they getpower and cannot become rulers. Therefore he created another concept, i.e . 'Powerwill be the product of struggle'. He realized that Employees cannot do struggle hence hestared DS-4 Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti. According to him, "not that ourpeople were not struggling. They were struggling, but not for themselves. They were notstruggling for their own cause. They were and are struggling for somebody else asstooges. Because we are passing through the Chamcha Age, the era of stooges, andas stooges we are struggling."


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BooksKanshi Ram in his historical book, "THE CHAMCHA AGE", (an Era of the Stooges)published on 24 th September, 1982 , on the occasion of 50 th anniversary of the Poona-Pact, has vividly exclusively dealt with the disadvantages of the Chamcha Age.

A) Caste and Community-wise Chamchas.1 ) The scheduled Castes - Reluctant Chamchas.2) The Scheduled Tribes - Initiated Chamchas3) The Other Backward Castes - aspiring Chamchas4) The Minorities - Helpless Chamchas.

B) Party - Wise Chamchas.C) Ignorant Chamchas.D) Enlightened Chamchas or Ambedkarite ChamchasE) Chamchas of the Chamchas.F) Chamchas Abroad.

It will be apt to say that, Kanshi Ram has been the only leader who has understood thedamage caused by the Poona Pact and applied the necessary measures as it wasexpected by Dr. Babasaheb. His only book deals with the Chamcha Age phenomenonin detail.

Kanshi Ram has been very crystal clear in understanding the Poona Pact and thereforehe said, "Babasaheb Ambedkar wanted to take the downtrodden people from Dark Ageto bright age. But Gandhi intervened in this process of change. Hence we entered into a

different age then onwards, which I have named as the age of Chamchas-the ChamchaAge-the era of stooges".

Thus, from the day of launching D -S4, an agitational and awakening wing of BAMCEF,till the formation of Bahujan Samaj Party, on 14 th April, 1984 , Kanshi Ram conductedseveral experiments of social action countrywide successfully. The programmes createdsufficient awareness in the Bahujan Samaj about their socio - political, economic andcultural status. Hence, D-S4 proved as a milestone preparation for the long battle ofpolitical action, social transformation and economic emancipation.

Up to 1976, Kanshi Ram, being in Pune - the center of Maharashtra witnessed thedown-fall of Ambedkarite movement. In his scientific analysis of the Chamcha Age, hehas focused on the fall of Ambedkarism from the first general election i.e. 1951 till 1980.By 1971 alliance between R P I and Congress, his all hopes of Ambedkarite movementdashed into dustbin. Therefore, following the advice of Dr. Ambedkar i.e. 'political poweris the key to all social progress,' he felt absolutely essential for the members of alloppressed and exploited communities to prepare themselves for agitational and politicalaction.


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Most of the politicians, Researchers failed to understand the vision of Kanshi Ram Jiand hence could not understand the Role of BSP in Indian Democracy. Today in Indiathere are 7 national political parties which are lead by so called upper caste Hindus.They control all the affairs of their parties to establish the rule of Hindu upper castes andexploit the 85% Bahujan Samaj.

Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji refined the rules of Indian politics. He developed a conceptthat the unstable government at center is beneficial for Bahujan Samaj as you canderive maximum advantages to deprived sections. Therefore he used say frequently," Iwant Mazboor (weak) government at centre and not Majboot (strong) till we reach to theCentre". Kanshi Ram Ji articulated positively the Bahujan ideology from Buddha to

Ambedkar. Kanshi Ram Ji always acknowledged the contribution of Ex-Mahars nowBuddhists for supporting Dr Ambedkar in his war against Manuvadi system. He said," Ihave learnt two things from them one how to learn the movement I leant from Dr

Ambedkar and second how not to run the movement from his followers in Maharashtra."

Manyawar consistently led his movement for almost 38 yrs from 1965-2003 till hisillness. Bahan Mayawati has taken up the unfulfilled dream of Manyawar Kanshi Ram Jiand proved to be the successor of Kanshi Ram ji's sociopolitical struggle when shebecame CM of UP 4 th time with an absolute majority in may 2007.

manyawar shri kanshi ram ji

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