Ravi Ratan

Here is the entire video of the exchange, an incomplete version of which is being circulated to determine my views on Ambedkarite politics and anti-caste struggles. I hope you will listen to the entire section. Issuing a clarification because misrepresentation must never weaken the united fight. The question being asked was how come certain 'Ambedkarite' or other parties win elections when you don't when both of these are said to represent marginalised groups? Below is an attempt to explain my answer including the section which was omitted from the clip in circulation. -- Several bourgeois parties claim to be anti-caste, celebrate Ambedkar and even call themselves Ambedkarite. They invoke Ambedkar during election campaigns yet seldom do they seem to be working towards building movements on Ambedkarite principles or serve the interest of the socially marginalised. Rather, often they appear to be working with forces that are champions of the same casteist and Manuvadi system. This is also exactly why they will not take a stand for the implementation of UGC Equity Regulation or oppose EWS Reservations amongst others because taking an anti-caste stand on these issues would cost them their elections. I don’t see how electoral successes of such parties further the cause of the marginalised sections of society -- On the other hand, there are such parties/forces who actually strengthen the anti-caste politics by mobilising the marginalised into mass movements on the ground. They are sometimes even successful in causing breaks in history by tilting the social balance of power. In such moments, genuine representatives of anti-caste struggles get elected to the parliament who then use the institution to effectively empower the socially marginalised sections. -- Also, answering the question on the Left's performance in Parliamentary elections: I accept that the Left can do much better in this respect. But how do we define ‘better’? ‘Doing better’ is often interpreted as winning more seats in the parliamentary elections. But I strongly believe that being able to organise and mobilise the marginalised sections and working classes as a political force in mass movements on their own issues and achieving successes in those movements is where we need to do ‘better’. If the left does this better, electoral success that would actually be effective will follow. And, without such movements and mobilisations, no amount of electoral success will bring about any substantial change. In this sense, the contradiction today isn’t between the ‘left’ and ‘ambedkarites’ but between those who call themselves representatives of the marginalised or the working class but are singularly focussed on winning elections and those who give primacy to political movements and see electoral successes as just a part of it. That is why, on campuses and in society at large, we see the movement-oriented Ambedkarite and Left groups fighting together and organising mass movements and raising the slogan of Jai Bheem together. My aim in this message is to clarify my attempt to reflect upon the limitations of Left-Ambedkarite politics today and how those limitations are often wrongly conceived. Left and Ambedkarite political principles are foundational to my politics, and I don’t see either as contradictory or antagonistic and, hence, I had no intention to hold one as superior to the other. My reflections were those of an insider, and I would take all expressions of disagreement from our Ambedkarite-left comrades in the spirit of serious discussion.