Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Ambedkar: Oppressors or Liberators?

Mr. Gandhi, you went to South Africa,
Where you claimed equal status with whites.
But they threw you out of the compartment.
Yet you still called Africans:
Prostitutes,
Animals,
Uncivilized,
Dirty,
Thieves,
Criminals,
Savages,
And eligible to be slaves.

You ingrained this supremacist ideology,
You ingrained this racist ideology,
You ingrained this casteist ideology
From your age-old Sanatan Hindu culture.

Where every non-Hindu is:
A prostitute,
An impure body,
A dirty body,
An unseeable body,
An untouchable body,
An unshadowable body,
An unapproachable body.

You proclaimed Ram Raj to establish your toxic ideology.
You established your toxic ideology through independence.

But I remained untouchable,
Unseeable,
Unshadowable,
Unapproachable,
Unspeakable.

I crawled through the past,
And I crawled through your independent country.
You made democracy disappear,
You made equality disappear in your Ram Rajya,
You made freedom disappear in your Ram Rajya.
You welcomed age-old ideologies into your independent country,
Where Dalits remained untouchable,
Where Africans remained prostitutes, criminals, thieves, and barbarians,
Uncivilized, enslaved, impure, and dirty,

Where whites remained prostitutes, immoral, impure, and dirty.
This is your Ram Rajya, Mr. Gandhi.

Mr. Gandhi, you may be revered,
You may be glorified,
You may be worshipped.
But we, the untouchables—
But we, the blacks—know
Your masks of nonviolence and Satyagraha.
Your masks of truth and tolerance.

But Mr. Ambedkar,

You were born untouchable,
You were born unseen,
You were born unapproachable,
You were born unshadowable,
You were born inferior,
You were born impure,
You were born dirty,
You were born outside the village.

You went to Columbia University,
You went to the London School of Economics,
You wrote the Indian Constitution,
You developed theories of civilization.

But you adopted Buddhism,
You became a neo-Buddhist,
You asked your people to follow you,
To embrace Buddhism,
And to seek political power
To get rid of untouchability.

Mr. Ambedkar, you declared:
"Though I was born a Hindu, I will not die a Hindu."

But I ask you, Mr. Ambedkar,
Why did you choose Buddhism?
Why did you lead your people towards another religion
Instead of embracing Christianity,
Whose teachings proclaim the spiritual equality of human beings?

If you sought a civilized religion,
A religion that recognizes no human being as inferior by birth,
Why did you not choose the Christian faith?
Why did you choose Buddhism as your path to liberation?

Was it enough to change the name of your religion,
When the inherited cultures of society remained?
Was conversion enough to destroy the boundaries
That separate the pure from the impure,
The privileged from the oppressed,
And the touchable from the untouchable?

Mr. Ambedkar, I question your choice.
I question your path to liberation.
I question whether a change of religious identity alone
Can transform the social world of the oppressed.

You rejected the name Hindu,
But did you escape every inherited social tradition?
You rejected one religious identity,
But did your conversion automatically erase
The social hierarchies surrounding your people?

Your conversion, in my eyes,
Did not guarantee complete liberation.
You changed your religious name,
But the question of social transformation remained.

And what of cremation, Mr. Ambedkar?
You embraced Buddhist rites,
And your body was cremated after your death.
But why should the burning of a body
Be mistaken for the destruction of caste?

Does cremation prove that you remained Hindu?
No, not by itself.
But I ask whether changing religious rites
Can, by itself, change the social order.

Hindu and Buddhist traditions have shared histories,
Cultural exchanges,
Ritual practices,
And ways of life.
They are identical,
And their shared traditions cannot simply be erased.

My question remains, Mr. Ambedkar:
Did your conversion destroy the social hierarchy,
Or did it leave the deepest structures of oppression
Still waiting to be challenged?

Look at Japan,
Where the Burakumin have endured generations of discrimination,
Social exclusion,
And inherited stigma.
Even in a society shaped by Buddhist traditions,
The Burakumin have suffered discrimination
And exclusion from the wider society.

The Burakumin remind us
That a society shaped by Buddhism
Is not automatically free from social discrimination.
A change of faith cannot guarantee
A change in the treatment of human beings.

Mr. Ambedkar, answer me:

Show me one Untouchable
Who acquired political power
And changed their social status,
From an Untouchable to even a Shudra.

Show me one, Mr. Ambedkar,
Whose political power erased the stigma of birth,
Who rose in political authority
And left untouchability behind.

How come, Mr. Ambedkar,
Is political power the master key to all problems?
How can political power unlock the doors of equality
When the doors of caste remain closed?

You may acquire political power,
You may occupy the highest office,
You may write the Constitution,
You may govern the country,
But can political authority alone erase
The inherited stigma of untouchability?

If an Untouchable becomes a minister,
Does society cease to call that person Untouchable?
If an Untouchable becomes a ruler,
Does caste surrender its power over that person's birth?

Mr. Ambedkar, this is my question:
If political power is the master key,
Why does the lock of caste remain?

Political representation is not social transformation.
Political authority is not the annihilation of caste.
A seat in government does not automatically dismantle
The hierarchy embedded in society.

Show me how political power alone
Can transform inherited social status.
Show me how a change in political position
Becomes a change in caste position.

Until you answer this question,
I will continue to challenge your claim:
Political power may open the doors of government,
But knowledge must challenge the hierarchy
That determines who stands above,
Who stands below,
And who is condemned to remain Untouchable.

This is a masked ideology.
This is troublesome.
This is not the liberation I seek,
But a promise that leaves the deeper structures of oppression unchallenged.

I have never come across a socially ostracized community
That has overcome its status through political power alone.
Jews never overcame their socially ostracized status through the formation of Israel.
They remained as they were in the established society.
But they overcame it through knowledge production.

Untouchables will overcome their status through knowledge production,
not by acquiring political power alone.
The idea that political power is the master key to all problems
Is itself a corrupt ideology.
No civilized leader should teach his people
To seek political power as the sole solution to their social status.

Social status must change through the acquisition of knowledge.
Knowledge is power, not political power.

Just as Hindu canons contain caste hierarchies,
I question the hierarchies found in Buddhist traditions.
My Untouchables continue to struggle
Against inherited social status.

The history of the Burakumin exposes the persistence of discrimination
Even within societies shaped by Buddhist traditions.

No Buddhist country loves my black skin.
No Buddhist country loves my Untouchables.
No Buddhist country loves my African people.

How could a theorist like you,
Who studied and developed theories of liberation,
Ask your people to embrace Buddhism
As a path out of oppression,
When histories of discrimination persist
Among marginalized communities in Buddhist societies?

You are not a liberator,
But an oppressor like Gandhi, in my judgment.

Hence, let me declare
That you and Gandhi share ideologies
That, in my view, perpetuate the subordination
Of Dalits and Black people.

We reject the authority of Gandhi.
We reject the authority of Ambedkar.
We reject both in totality
As unquestionable icons of liberation.

We will seek liberation through knowledge,
Through critical thought,
And through the rejection of every ideology
That keeps human beings inferior by birth.

You are not civilized,
But agents of age-old ideologies,
Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Ambedkar.

We will never worship your false gods.
We will never worship your masked gods.
We will never worship your totalitarian gods.

Bio: Dr. Suryaraju Mattimalla is an exiled Indian poet based in Germany, a prolific human rights writer, a vegan, a refugee, and a free-speech advocate. Born into the Dalit-Yadav Christian community, which has historically faced caste-based untouchability in India, he writes poetry addressing Dalit genocide, Dalit pogroms, atrocities against untouchable castes, caste discrimination, human rights, and social justice. He has written and published hundreds of poems in the United States, Europe, Israel, France, India, and Nagalim. He has also published academic papers in prestigious journals, including The Age of Human Rights Journal and Peace Chronicles. His poetry has been translated from English into French and published by the French-based humanitarian organization Salam. Through his writing, Mattimalla seeks to challenge caste oppression, defend human dignity, and give a voice to marginalized communities. He lives with his Ethiopian wife, HRH Selamawit Hailu Bezabih, and their three children: Saviour Suryaraju Mattimalla, the late Stanford Suryaraju Mattimalla, and Skylar, alias Strathfield Suryaraju Mattimalla. His first child was killed by Hindu grandparents in the name of honor in India in 2010, and his second son, Stanford Suryaraju Mattimalla, died following forced vaccination administered by a neo-Nazi German gynecologist on June 28, 2023, in Regensburg, Germany.