 Greetings for the afternoon. I, Dr. Amirudhya Babar, member of the Department of Political Science, of the Coordination of Part-Parts webinar series, will heartily welcome you. Today, we are going to have a second lecture of the series titled, The Prelevance and Significance of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, today and tomorrow. The previous lecture, that is the first lecture and opening lecture in the series, delivered by Madam Gitaji, and we will, like, enlighten because of that. Today, we have equally energetic, enlightened, intellectual, Dr. Saliku Sankam, with us as our guest. The title of his presentation is, Cast and Tribes, Ambedkar's Thoughts on Social Divinity. Dr. Saliku is an assistant professor at present working in the Political Science and Financial Justice Department of the Northeast Christian University, and it was really a privilege for him to have Dr. Saliku here, not only because he's a friend of mine and I really respect the broad spectrum of his intellect, but also his generosity is higher to discuss Dr. Ambedkar in the London context. I sincerely welcome Dr. Saliku to this virtual platform once again and we are really happy to have you. Before we officially begin, let me just quote Dr. Bihar Ambedkar. Dr. Ambedkar says, freedom of mind is the real freedom. A person whose mind is not free but he may not be changed in space, not a free man. One whose mind is not free but he may not be in prison. He's a prisoner and not a free man. One whose mind is not free her life is no better than dead. Freedom of mind is the proof of one's existence. Yes dear friends, freedom of mind is the proof of one's existence. And that is the reason I believe we have gathered here besides our freedom of mind to discuss Ambedkar in another context and to also help ourselves to understand that how Ambedkarism or Ambedkarite philosophy parts of Dr. Bihar Ambedkar, how they are relevant in another context, how Dr. Ambedkar is connected with all of us, with you and me. To help us to understand, we have Dr. Salithu. So now I request Dr. Salithu to kindly please take charge of this virtual stage and we are really eager to hear you outside. The stage is all yours sir. Thank you, thank you so much. Please go. Okay, can everybody hear me? Can you guys hear me? Yes, yes. So I'm kind of apprehensive about switching on my camera because I have a very old system with me and whenever I do switch on the camera my connection gets off and it becomes too much for the all laptop to handle. So let me just try and see if I can switch on the laptop camera and see if that works. I'm not sure. Is that fine? Can you guys hear me properly? No disturbance, right? No, not at all. Okay, that's very good. Okay, thank you Dr. Anirudh for this very generous introduction. I don't deserve any of the adulation that you have given that you have given to me. I don't think I deserve any bit of it, but thank you so much and I'm very humble and very undeserving regardless and thank you for inviting me for this talk again and it's been an honor to actually be part of degree of thought I think I hope that I do enjoy a lot coming and speaking in these kind of lectures and I do hope that you will not get bored of listening to me over and over again. So with that said, I thank Dettso College as well as Dr. Anirudh and the Department of Political Science Dettso College for organizing such a wonderful talk and also inviting me to speak and when I was actually called by whenever I received a message from Dr. Anirudh and asking me to speak on Dr. Ambedkar, I was apprehensive of so many reasons I was apprehensive for so many reasons not because you see Ambedkar is a highly for me at least, for me at least for my understanding of Ambedkar I appreciate him very much I actually do have high regard for his thoughts and his philosophy and that makes it even more difficult for me to for me to talk about Ambedkar because it's very easy to misunderstand him and that's why history has been so unkind to Ambedkar and has been more than generous, very very generous very very generous to Gandhi which history should not but regardless of your opinion and regardless of my opinion I feel that history has been kind of unkind very unkind to Ambedkar for this simple reason because he's a very complex thought, he's a very complex tinker and that's why it makes it very difficult for me to actually I was apprehensive for that for that sort of reason as to how shall I try to incorporate and try to make Ambedkar's thoughts as relevant as possible in today's society especially here in Nagaland and how do I relate his thoughts to to Nagaland in the context of Nagaland hence I was kind of apprehensive after I said I was still trying to come up and think about what should I give a talk on and it struck me that his idea, his fight, his struggle against the caste system in India has a lot to say and has a lot to say with regards to how we can still learn some valuable lessons and apply that and also learn some ideas about how to deal with this kind of issues here in Nagaland so I do hope that whatever I say even though I'm unworthy to speak on ideas of Ambedkar because I do hope that I will do justice to his thoughts and also do justice to this lecture so trust is trust so you see I think we should all agree many people do agree that she has played, Tokram Bekkar has played an influential role in the construction of what we know as modern India we have one of the greatest constitution in the world, the Indian constitution it is one of the greatest in the world obviously the largest but for a very good reason it is the longest constitution in the world and the reason is because I see that without his without what he has done without his contribution to the constitution of India I think the kind of privilege that we enjoy especially as a person of tribal origins if you think about it we live in a tribal state so we would not enjoy the kind of privilege that we enjoy if it weren't because of Ambedkar no doubt Ambedkar had a lot of challenges ahead of him he had when he was framing the constitution of India it was not easy for him he struggled a lot, he competed with the ideas and thoughts of Gandhi and also ideas and thoughts of Nehru so now you have three great giants of modern Indian history Gandhi, Ambedkar and Nehru and in spite of the giants and heavyweights of Gandhi and Nehru Ambedkar somehow managed to ensure that in the even the weakest section of the Indian society will not be left out and will not be exploited and so for that reason alone I am very very appreciative of what Ambedkar has done for this country and as to the sort of how do we relate the issues of his understanding of caste the Indian caste system and how it relates to us here in Nagaland in order to understand that if I can just maybe give a paranormal view about the caste system in India I'm sure many of you would know more and if not have a better idea about the caste system than I do regardless if I'm wrong please do correct me but from what I see and from his thought is that the reason why Ambedkar was so much against the caste system in India was because it was very very divisive it divided the society and when a society is divided it is very difficult to achieve any sort of unity not just unity but it's very difficult to achieve anything in the society and it creates for instance from his own experiences it creates prejudice discrimination exploiting the weak and all kinds of piousness and all kinds of inhuman treatment and all kinds of indignation which one can face because of one's race, culture and creed and remember India has always been a very divided society from its very inception and we cannot it's very it's very difficult to say that India was united it wasn't socially socially it was not united we can think of a unity of India only in terms of in times of say for instance the in times of Ashoka would be one then we can think of the Mughal empire as one but united India and also the British the Gronils, whether we like it or not they were the ones who united India brought India as a whole but other than that other than those three few instances for the most part of Indian history we were divided socially, culturally, you name it even within on even within on Hindu system Hindu caste system you have so many caste system and you have so many divisions and that created more divisions which for better or for worse created caste such as the Talits to which Ambedkar belonged to and hence those Talits or those undutchables were faced in the daily lives even to this day in the daily lives they face numerous discrimination, prejudice biasness, inhuman treatment insults indignations so all these things would have would have and I'm sure it has and it had had a huge influence upon Ambedkar and seeing that Ambedkar himself coming from the Talit communities from the undutchables we can see that how his own life experiences has his own life experiences has influence him to fight against and even struggle to bring an end to this caste system and bring an annihilation or the elimination of the caste system in India and for whatever reason I think we must say that his insights, his his own personal experiences gave a very critical and penetrating insights into into the things which into the negativities or the limitations or negative consequences of such divisions in the society or as he says to Ambedkar himself he says there cannot be more degrading system of social organization than the caste system and I think it is quite remarkable seeing that Indian society even to this day is divided along this structure and if you think about even Nagaland itself we may say that tribe is different caste is different, however tribe and caste if you just remove the caste and the tribe it is more or less the same, in the caste system you have division of people and here in tribal system here in Nagaland the society itself is structured along this tribal system where everybody is somehow pigeon holed and get across into different tribes so where you belong in Nagaland which tribe you belong to influences your daily life experiences much in the same way as the caste system in the caste system you have the the Brahmins, the warrior class the merchants the artisans and then you have the untouchables so according to where you belong to you were made out with certain kind of experiences much in the same way here in Nagaland the which tribe you belong to the kind of experiences you have in Nagaland depends upon depends upon which tribe you belong to so if you belong to the weaker class if you belong to the weaker tribe then you are more or less like you do know what kind of experiences you do face, some sort of discrimination much in the same way in the caste system itself if you belong to a certain caste the kind of experiences the kind of daily life experiences that you go through it is pretty much colored by the way your experiences is colored by which category of caste you belong to and this we can see explicitly in Ambedskar life himself right if you think about it there are so many numerous instances that I can think of to use Ambedskar experience is that even from his very young age from his schooling days he so he experienced the indignation of being a Dalit his whole society his whole community being treated worse than an animal for instance a barber would not cut his hair because he belonged to a Dalit even his own teacher would not drink from the same mug of water from the same jug of water in the school even his own teacher disinvited Ambedkar because he belonged Ambedkar belonged to a Dalit tribe when he was young for instance he says that he got a ride on a pull-up cart and whenever the guy riding the pull-up cart asked Ambedkar what caste he belonged to the person driving the cart was very very horrified and angry and then he was angry because Ambedkar's presence have solid dirtied the whole environment dirtied and make it impure his own buffaloes just imagine that and even when he was drafting the constitution of India itself whenever he travelled all over India he was denied even in hotels because he belonged to a Dalit community so imagine those kinds of humiliating humiliating and insulting experiences how would you feel put yourself in these shoes and ask yourself that question how would you feel much in the same way here you can think about the tribe if you belong to a weaker tribe weak tribe or smaller tribe you are made up of certain kinds of insults and discriminations what can you do nothing obviously right that's the fact I'm not trying to deny it nobody will deny it because nothing that you can do if you belong to a higher if you belong to a larger tribe or as we call it here in Nagaland more advanced tribe you can do pretty much what you can do and then take certain advantages of the situation right there is very little difference as to what you can do and what you cannot do so those are the kinds of experiences which we can actually those are the parallels that we can learn from Ambedkar for Ambedkar's own experience and for him the most important question for a very divided societies because he knew Ambedkar knew that India has always been a divided society so the question for him was how do we ensure unity how do we not how do we ensure that the new country India which had very recently gained its independence from the British colonial empire how do they preserve its independence so he asked can Indians for instance he says can Indians place will Indians place their caste above their country will they place their country above their caste in fact the answer he says is that I don't know he says I don't know whether Indians will place their caste above the country or will they place their country above the caste system because he knew the intrinsic and the inherent inherent nature of this caste system in India not just in India but it would be wrong to say in India but this inherent caste system this caste system inherent to the Hindu Hindu world view right so now the thing is this is where it gets interesting because you see in such times when Ambedkar was trying to was somehow trying to make sure that the country would disintegrate the country would stay united but also we bring about social justice to those weaker sections of the Indian society now when he was doing that as he was struggling to bring an end to the caste system we have we have characters such as Mahatma Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi now Gandhi we know how Gandhi we know the story of Gandhi we all know we now know him to be the we now call him the father of the nation yes however it is interesting for me because I I'm very interested in the debate I've always been very interested in the debate between Gandhi and Ambedkar and this is where we should this is where we see the real real character of Ambedkar and this is also where we see the real character of Gandhi you see Gandhi was against Gandhi also was in favor of ending the caste system not I'm sorry Gandhi was in favor of ending the untouchabilities however he was against the termination of the caste system in India while Ambedkar himself was struggling to bring an end not just emancipate the Dalit community but also bring an end to the caste system in India and this is where Gandhi and Ambedkar went head to head and in many instances I will not go into detail because you know it's a long story what we find is that in many ways we see the true character of Gandhi and the true character of Ambedkar Ambedkar he saw like he has experienced humiliation indignation insults the realities of his experiences cannot be comprehended by Gandhi because Gandhi belong to a higher caste than Ambedkar so Gandhi's Gandhi's living reality experiences was different and was incomprehensible to Gandhi was incomprehensible and his life life experiences were incomprehensible for Gandhi why because Gandhi did not face the same kind of insults he did not face the same kind of indignation and humiliation in India in his own country while Ambedkar did it even when he was speaker I guess got disconnected let us have patience he will join us shortly please have patience there must be definitely some technical issues he will be right back let us have patience he will join us shortly thank you please kindly do not leave speaker will join us shortly there have been some technical issues at speaker side we will actually have to wait for few more moments till we sort out all the issues patience is really appreciated because the talk I believe is very very important so kindly give us some time to our speaker thank you the session is going on speaker is facing some technical issues please do not leave this virtual stage let us have some patience let us respect the speaker we must be having some technical issues we have to wait for few more minutes thank you Dr. Saleh Kuzantan will join us yes yes yes sir I better request you to kindly switch off your camera yes yes yes I am going to do that yes I am going to do that so I think that is better now right I think yes yes yes we can save some data also yes yes yes exactly so as I was saying it depends even here in Nagaland it depends if you belong in a hierarchy of tribes it depends where you are and depending upon where you are and you are pretty much taking advantage of indeed and maybe you are discriminated but what can you do if you go and ask any person not any person from Nagaland who belongs to smaller tribes they will tell you and in fact it is not difficult to see of course I am not saying that everything is horrible but you do see this kind of of discriminations and in other words we can learn something Ambedkar is talking you see one thing I can tell you let me just call Ambedkar I think this would give you much more clarity he says the undutchables are illiterate ill treated and undutchable for ages all public services were close to them thus being deprived of social, religious and civil rights they had no chance of bettering their conditions in short they were born in death they were undutchables they were born undutchables they lived undutchables and they died as undutchables now this is now these words I do not know whenever you hear these words speeches of Ambedkar I do not know how you feel but it shows the magnitude the magnitude of humiliation, indignation discrimination and insults we measured out to Ambedkar because of his caste and this is something that we can all relate to here even here in Nagaland where you have tribes along this the hierarchy of tribes and so he says that and so he says you see because of these such destructive elements that which caste system can propagate he saw that any kind of social division any kind of social divisions in the society undermines the very essence of that society that is why if you look at one of his speeches in one of his last speeches in the constitution assembly he made a powerful assertion saying that the cast are anti-national in the first place because they bring about separation in social life they are anti-national also because they generate an anti-party between caste and caste this is something that we can all relate to because even here if Ambedkar says that a caste is anti-national because it stands in a way of unity because it creates separation in social life it creates jealousy and anti-party between caste and caste then we can say the same thing with regards to tribes we can say that tribes is itself in Nagaland anti-national because it brings about separation in the social life in Nagaland among the people in Nagaland and also it creates jealousy and anti-party and it creates prejudice and discrimination and disempowerment and selfish group interests and fight for self and fight and control over the resource to dominate the state resources in Nagaland you see the same thing so all these things all these divisions that we have all the divisions that the tribe creates it creates disunity one can never say just like the caste system can never unite can never unite and always been a source of conflict in the Indian society much in the same way here in Nagaland the tribe is always a source of conflict it's always a source of anti-party it's always a source of prejudice and exploitation and it's always a source of anti-nationalism whatever you call it if the caste if it looks like if we ask the same question which Ambedkar has asked asking will the Indians place their country above their creed or will they place their creed above the country I think we can pretty much say now that even in India at this present juncture that people put their creed ahead of their country ahead of the interests of the country much in the same way here in Nagaland if we ask will you put your tribe above your society or will you put your society above your tribe I think the answer is quite obvious I think we can say in all for all practical purposes that tribes is the most paramount thing or the most paramount aspect of an individual's life here in Nagaland and I think this creates such kind of division in the society along the tribal line creates you can say jealousy and hostility in fact if you look at a very good example a very good reason example would be the march 22 incident I think it happened in parent district many people lost their lives three or four people lost their lives civilians lost their lives and you can see what happens when you have tribes when people can hide behind the tribes this is what happens injustice happens but what has the state government done nothing what has it done nothing in other words just like in the caste system if a higher caste member a member of a higher caste and get away with crimes much in the same way I feel like in Nagaland if you belong to a bigger tribe you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want to do and get away with it so there you go so there you have it so that's what caste system so here we find the parallels between the caste system and the tribe system you see I I want to say that you see just like for instance the caste system has been a pariah a cancerous cell of the Indian society much in the same way I think that tribe tribe has always been in Nagaland being a pariah it has been a pariah and it is a pariah it is the ultimate source of communalism of inner-mindedness prejudice, localism and to use Ambedkar's own word a tent of ignorance this is what I find and indeed I think one thing that I really appreciate and something which many people tend to tend to not understand but many people tend to ignore is the prescient insights of Ambedkar's thoughts you see at the beginning of this lecture that you see history has been very unkind to Ambedkar very very unkind to Ambedkar and that's why we tend to not see the the wealth of knowledge he has compared to that of Gandhi Gandhi he is he is known to be what he is today because of public relations I suppose you can say that public relations and advertisements I don't think he is anything but Mahadma and in fact Ambedkar never called Mahadma never called Gandhi Mahadma he only called Gandhi Mr. Gandhi that was it not Mahadma, why? because Ambedkar was very much influenced by the spiritualist Kabir I'm not sure if any one of you are aware of Kabir but if you are it's very good, if you're not you might as well go and check it out because we should there is no human being is worthy to be called Mahadma because it is very difficult to be a human being so how can you call somebody a human being who finds it very difficult to be a human being a Mahadma so like Asa was saying Ambedkar's thoughts is quite it's quite Ambedkar's thoughts is very complex and also very very insightful and this is what he had to say and this is where I say that he is a very great thinker because of this you see he says this in his final speech he says this what protrudes me greatly is the fact that not only India has lost has once before lost her independence but she lost it by the infertility and treachery of some of her own people in the invasion by Muhammad bin Qasim because of King Tahar accepted bribes from the agents of Muhammad bin Qasim and refused to fight on the side of the king it was Jay Chant who invited Muhammad Ghori to invade India and fight against Bikbiraj and promised him the help of himself and the Solanki kings when Shivaji was fighting for the liberation of Hindus the other Maratha nobleman and the Rashid kings were fighting the battle on the side of the Mughal emperors when the British were trying to destroy the Sikh rulers collapsing their principal commanders set silent and did not help to save the Sikh kingdom in 1857 when a large part of India had declared a war against independence against the British the Sikhs stood watch stood and watch the events as silent spectators I think that says a lot and just like India lost her independence because of the treachery and infertility of her own people much in the same way because of tribes because of tribes Nagaland and the people of Nagaland has also lost and squandered many numerous chances to unite and achieve common cause common cause by failing to prudently utilize the freedom and privilege given to us by the constitution and I think that in Nagaland as long as we have tribes because our ultimate allegiance is given to our own tribe I think treachery, deceit infertilities are part and parcel of Nagaland and we are unable to rise beyond the local vicinity of our own interests, of our own tribe and I think that if those who are very well aware and those who have any kind of knowledge regarding the history of Nagaland and the political struggles of Nagaland we will find numerous characters, numerous similar characters to the like the one we find, like such as we will find similar characters to the military commanders of King Dahar Jai Chan, Maratha Nobleman and the Rajput kings who fought on the side of the Mughal emperors against your own king and Kulab Singh I think social division such as caste system or the tribe system I think wherever they exist in whatever kind of form they tend to cripple and destroy the very foundation of the structure where in such kind of society injustice, prejudice, discrimination humiliation, indignation becomes part and parcel of the society and I think that with this fact, with this alone we can find that just as India is perpetually perpetually inflicted by the sickness of caste I think we find that a lot of sickness prevails in Nagaland of course along the lines of the tribe you see, you have also seen so many numerous news regarding, I think it was last year I think there was a news I saw it on a piece of news I think it was an Uttar Pradesh or Charkan Uttar Pradesh or Chaliska somewhere over there there was an an Attali girl was raped and then of course nothing has happened right? because those people who raped her belong to a higher caste so the kind of injustice which Ambedkar faced in his lifetime still exists and still goes on and still prevails much of India and I think India and Nagaland are more or less along the same line of tragedy because a society full of potential but divided along the caste is sure to crumble much in the same way on Nagaland a society very very young which is divided along the tribal lines is sure to be humiliated and sure to crumble one day or the other and of course if you ask the same question can people in Nagaland put their tribes ahead of the society or will they place the society above their tribe I think the answer is quite obvious I think people for years to come and for at least for generations to come people will always put in Nagaland they will always put their tribe ahead of the society hence a tragedy awaits and I don't think this can be in any sense averted yeah so with this very pessimistic note I end my lecture thank you thanks so much and I'm willing to take any kind of questions if you have any shy thank you thank you thank you Dr. Salik as usual the way you have explained Ambedkar to us it was really enlightening and yes I mean I'm sure our speakers have learned a lot see what we learn from the history especially how history understood Ambedkar how the modern Indian society have perceived Ambedkar or rather the political undercurrents have projected Ambedkar and we can really understand that yes it's a tragic story that the worth of Ambedkar was not recognized you know and the kind of you know you may call it discrimination physical discrimination that Ambedkar was fighting for throughout his life you know remained even after you know he's a Mahapariniva and I should say that now when it comes to the parallels that you have drawn between Indian caste system as well as tribal system I think there is a hell lot of truth involved in that because for me also that our society is certainly not new almost a decade I'm exploring and trying to learn more and more about the society and the more I learn about the society the more disturbed I get you know when I come across the painful reality so I just want to congratulate you first of all that society you know because here people know about Gandhi they know Gandhi they know you know Mahatma Gandhi even we have one Mahatma one chair I guess in Nagaland University but yeah but there is no one who actually understand the complex you know theories and the philosophy of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and maybe we can really implement the thoughts of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in the interest of our own society so I open this phone for the question so anybody has any question and maybe if you have any question you can just shoot it I give you some time yes it's not a question but rather I would like some suggestions from Dr. Saleh Q. Saeed Sir thank you so much for showing us the bigger picture of tribalism along the lines of caste and caste studies well I've been trying to explore the very idea of tribalism for quite some time now and the more we get into it the more pessimistic we become because of course because of the you know the comparative study that we do along the side of caste system but I want to seek for your optimistic view on how we can as a young society that you have said push forward to more inclusive society than than what we are now now I think we don't necessarily see the deep cause factor or the deep consequences that are going to come along the line of tribalism but I think it's kind of very disturbing if we think deeply but what would you suggest I just want to ask you that what kind of suggestions would you give to a student who has just started exploring the very idea of tribalism on how we can be positive like if not 10% 5% positive about it like oh ok we have a way forward from here thank you thank you miss that was a very good question and very interesting question actually before I answer your question I think he is a very astute observer by what he said because even he was saying that he has been here for quite a while and then the more he observes and examines society here in Nagaland the more disturbing it gets and he's quite right he's very astute and in fact even I think he has wrote on Ambedkar's thoughts in our local news papers so many times and I actually appreciate his ideas on Ambedkar as well so I think so yeah Dr. Aniruth himself is very astute and a very astute observer so that's one thing and second miss can I set you right I hope that I'm pronouncing your name right and I do apologize if I can so yes I mean I it's very difficult to say like to truly understand the tribe because you also have to the set reality of people here in Nagaland the division is not just along the tribal lines right yes there is there's discrimination along tribal lines but also if you actually look deeper you also find clan you also even within the tribe you also divide among ourselves clan according to clan and again if you look even deeper it goes back to the source of the village right so we are in the very worst position than the caste system in India because at least in caste system it's just caste that's it but then here in Nagaland we divide along tribes and again we divide along clans and again we divide along the village lines so we are in a very horrible situation and on top of that at least for the younger generation I fear because I think the younger generations will be more tribal than we are today tribalism is worse now but it will get worse in your generation and that's my fear and I want to be positive and I want to give you some positive ways to how do you know maybe explore better or maybe you know try to do something for the society I can say but then I don't know if that would be if what I say will be of any relevance to you because I can say one of the ways to somehow mitigate tribalism is for instance when everybody sees each other as a human being right whenever you start seeing each other as a human being regardless of your of the color of your skin regardless of the religion you follow regardless of the tribe you belong to regardless of anything that's one way of eliminating tribes just like it is one way of eliminating the caste system but I don't know maybe maybe you may be maybe you may be the one person who sees everybody else as human beings but then 99% of the society will not see like that will not see the way you see it so the question becomes how do you how do you make those 99% of the society see each other as a human being that's one thing so I mean if you continue to press me and say please tell me at least something so that we can mitigate tribalism here in Nagaland then my uncle I guess again he encountered some technical issues please help patients this is a very important subject of which nobody talks in Nagaland and fortunately Salif Salta is sharing with us let us help patients Salif Salta are you there? yes yes yes so like I was saying you have to start seeing others as a human being only then can you truly address the issues of division because as long as you see another person as belonging to a different tribe, speaking different language following different religion speaking different dialects judge others based on their skin then this division will always remain so my answer would be the only thing that you can do is that you see each other as a human being and as long as you do that I think that's one way of addressing the issues of tribes and as well as caste other than that I don't think I don't think there's any other way of addressing it at all so yeah so yeah that's a good question though good question thank you any other question okay can I ask you another observation from my side well there is one question that is often been asked and come up in the public domain regarding the issue of so called child ever in the Netherlands especially in the context of the domestic helpers and there is a general observation that the maximum domestic helpers and I think it is quite visible that the maximum domestic helpers belonging to so called backward tribes like King or a girl for domestic helpers so as an observer I consider myself simply as a keen observer so as an observer this is again a shocking reality for me because why is it so that only human boys and girls only certain boys and girls only cognac boys and girls have to be found working relatively what we call it the highest status tribes working for them do you see any tribal undercurrent in this dynamics can you interpret it in that way can you please help me to understand to verify my own claim that there is something seriously wrong what is your take on it no that is a very good observation I am actually quite impressed by the observations that you are doing I think you are observing you are a very acute observer of social discourse and social facts I suggest you give it up it is very nice see that you are observing and those things are disturbing you it is very good that shows the human connection we have regardless of what we are all human beings so hence whenever things like this go on we cannot just ignore it in fact me myself I am a domestic servant here I am just kidding coming back to the issue coming back to the issue the other thing is this I think you see whenever you are a backward whenever you belong to a backward tribe it becomes very obvious it affects you psychologically there are also socio-economic reasons whenever in Nagaland you speak of backward tribes such as like you mentioned those Sanktam or Kymungan or many other tribes whenever you speak of backward tribes we are backward not just in terms of socio-economic but also it has a psychological effect on the people themselves hence they become more willing to serve in the servitude of others because there is no self-esteem and if there is no self-esteem you are willing that if somebody from a higher tribe comes and says you know we will take care of the children and then we will take care of the children and give them education and then the future will be good you tend to give into those things because economically speaking you are in no position to take care of the children it will be the same as the caste system if you belong to a Dalit community if you belong to a Dalit community your caste comes to you and says don't worry even though you belong to a lower caste and even though you are treated like piece of poop or piece of you know what I mean don't worry me I come from a higher caste and I will look after your children like my own children I will feed her, feed him let him or her go to school give her education and her life will be good then what would you do if you belong to a Dalit community if you belong to a Dalit family you will do the same thing so yes I think that's why it's one of the reasons because socioeconomically people are in no position to take care of their own children and the any kind of hope that they get whenever people from a higher tribe comes and gives a ray of hope for the children then people tend to say that person belongs to a bigger tribe hands more connection the future will be more or less secured much in the same way in the caste system if you are from a Dalit community somebody from a higher caste comes and says will do this for your children who will not be taken away by that I think just like in India if you go and look at all the all the menial jobs which are being done by the Dalit communities it's the same as over here where most of the domestic servants in the house of big individuals of big families they are carried out by people mostly from backward areas and backward tribes so I think it has an undercurrent of tribes and people tend to stereotype of course for a good reason as well I'm not saying it's like nothing true about it but there are some truth to it but then we tend to stereotype people from backward tribes they are more willing to serve as domestic servants and even the parents of these backward tribes are more willing to send their children especially to a person belonging to a higher tribe household because they'll get education they'll take care of them because they belong to a bigger tribe hence they'll be more or less secure it's not just socio-economic it's also psychological I think it has more to do with psychology than socio-economic because people can really you know people can really be I don't know how to say it can bear the economic hardships people can people really can but if people are psychologically affected then I think that affects the whole indignation and I think it has more to do with self-esteem than indignation because if you look at the bigger tribe if you go and ask maybe a child from a bigger tribe whether they'll be willing I don't know because they have their own self-esteem they have their own self-esteem the issue is that I belong to a bigger tribe so why should I go and work in someone's place because I belong to this tribe that tribe is very important in Nagaland so because people from smaller tribes they have less self-esteem and they know that they cannot do much anything at all in the society hence they are more or less willing to willing to a life of servitude then a person who belongs to a bigger tribe larger tribe and hence they are not willing to at least work in a household work as a domestic servant I'm not saying nobody does there may be some who does it but I don't think it is it happens in regular regularly one way of putting it is this I don't know where I'm answering your observation where I'm helping you clarify your thoughts but here's the thing you see I cannot expect because if I belong to a Bigwood tribe say obviously I am say we cannot expect a domestic servant from a bigger tribe to go and work in a domestic household of a Bigwood tribe I hope you're getting my point much in the same way you will not expect in Hindu system, in Hindu worldview in Indian society you will not expect we even think that a person from a higher caste would go and serve as a domestic servant in the household of a Dalit I don't know if that makes sense to you so that would be the way of understanding it I suppose I'm not sure if I've answered you but that's how I can see it has more to do with psychological than socioeconomic very thought provoking and I do completely agree with you I think this is why we have to think about Dr. B. R. Ambedkar again and again and this is where the relevance of Dr. Ambedkar can be felt I remember something Kanshiram Ji who was the supreme of the people is basically not a struggle of economic justice it is not a struggle for some higher position this is not a struggle for any material gain but actually this is a struggle for self respect this is a struggle of the lost rights and I think you rightly mentioned that basically it is a question of self esteem and maybe Dr. Ambedkar in this context can really be an inspiration however here I would like to quote Dr. B. R. Ambedkar he stated that unlike the drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives man's life is independent is born not for the development of society alone but for the development of his self too now here the question tribalism in the societies where they are infested with the notion of the caste and the divisions within the divisions and within the divisions where is the individual standing that's the question and from your perspective since I really love to address you as an Ambedkar I think that how do you see such a complex reality I think you are quoting all the good ones it's unfair that you are quoting all the Ambedkar but the thing is you rightly mentioned whenever you started this lecture in the introduction you quoted Ambedkar saying that freedom of mind is the proof of one's existence and that I think is what we require I think that is the whole essence of Ambedkar's idea you must be an individual you must be a person you must have an identity if you don't have an identity then you are lost especially because you see when we speak of caste and when we speak of tribe for instance there is no identity the caste system is an amalgamation of so many individuals you as a person you as an individual is lost you are helpless you can't do anything on your own much in the same way in the sense of tribe a tribe itself is an amalgamation of various numerous individuals and if we emphasize the tribe if we always emphasize the group like the ocean that you speak of then we are lost but then once we maintain our own individual self and the basic way of maintaining that is the freedom of thought very much influenced by the thoughts of J.S. Mille so as long as you maintain your individual self as long as you maintain that freedom of thought then I think that way because you see Ambedkar would not have been Ambedkar if he was if he lavishly followed the Hindu system he did not because he was an individual because he prioritized and above all placed the freedom of mind and freedom of thought above all else hence he was what he was he was Ambedkar he could force for himself he could construct for himself an identity which derived from himself and nobody else but when you speak of for instance when you speak of the group whenever if individuals if persons if people continue to derive their identity from the group they will be enslaved they will have no self-esteem because they are very source of self-esteem if the very source of self-esteem is backward if their very source of self-esteem is caste if their very source of self-esteem is Dalit then how will they ascertain themselves how will they show themselves and ascertain that I am an individual that I will not be defined by the caste I belong to I will not be defined by the tribe I belong to now that's a very bold and courageous step which all of us needs to take as long as we remain within the bounds of the caste system within the bounds of the tribal system then we cannot say that you are an individual you cannot say that you exercise freedom of thought because freedom of thought and freedom of mind which Ambedkar prioritized requires courage courage to say and stand up against conventions against traditions so as long as so I think this is where I appreciate Ambedkar because if you are not an individual you will continue to enslave yourself you can never emancipate yourself and that's one reason why Ambedkar converted to Buddhism why because in Buddhism you're more or less you try to ascertain your individuality you try to ascertain you as an individual and those kind of if you belong to a talit you are not an individual but you are a talit if you belong to A and B tribe you are an A tribe or B tribe or a C tribe your identity is a tribe hence if you belong to a bigger tribe then you have no self-esteem you have high self-esteem much in the same if you belong to a lower caste if you belong to a talit from where will you gain the kind of assertion to establish yourself as an individual but if you belong to a bigger higher caste you can ascertain yourself you have high self-esteem why because you derive your identity your self-esteem from the tribe so yeah so that's that's what I feel like yeah so that's what it is it's quite parallel yes it's quite parallel the caste system and the tribal system is there any question which anybody would like to ask or maybe in the observation if anybody would like to share I think we have one in the chat box Mosa in the chat box just a second oh yeah yeah yeah correct correct I missed that in my I lost in the thoughts okay so there is our friend he quoted as reality as we observe seems to be quite antagonist as far as good education is concerned so how do you how do you like to correlate to Ambedkarat discourse what Mosa has observed okay so the thing is this I if by that if the if Mosa is I suppose if he is asking like antagonist as far as good education is concerned then from from Ambedkarat view would be I'm not Ambedkarat but then it seems to be quite true because you see education is a tool for emancipation whether we like it or not and if you are not given a good education then there's no way of emancipating yourself no way of liberating yourself education becomes a tool of you see how did India call this independence you have characters such as Nehru I have characters such as Mahatma Gandhi I should say Mahatma Gandhi but I should say Mr. Gandhi because I don't see him as a Mahatma but nevertheless excuse me they all called a good education from from England and that's how they were able to lead to society and lead to us as independence much in the same way how did Ambedkarat liberate himself how did he emancipate himself given the kind of background he came from he was a Dalit he called his education from Colombia in the United States he called his education from LSE London School of Economics and Political Science from England so those are the tools of liberation those education emancipates the individual it gives you a tool to emancipate yourself and free yourself and thus ascertain yourself as an individual but I think here in Nagaland I think that I don't know but I may be wrong but my observation so far is that I think we tend to use individual as a you see I see the education system in Nagaland as a way to keep people stupid the lack of I mean just to be planned the education system in Nagaland the way it is right now it's here to simply make the students as stupid as possible right because they are not taught how to be a thinker they don't know how to think first of all they don't know how to think second all the students most almost all the students as well as almost all the I mean was to take everything literally right all the understanding is literal understanding which is not how it should be education is not about literal understanding you must teach your children the students how to think critically but then that is not taught the education system is outdated how are you going to emancipate your students how are you going to make your life make lives of the students good and emancipate themselves and set your own identity if you continue to feed them this kind of you know this kind of outdated education system where you don't teach children the students how to think they cannot think anything other than literally they cannot think that they don't understand the meaning of metaphor they don't understand what metaphor how to take the stories of a metaphor they don't understand metaphors at all if you tell them a parable what you are saying and it's not surprise because look at the syllabus I mean you teach political science you just look at the political science syllabus and you tell me where that's where that's I'm a big time critic of it sir so you know what I mean so you know exactly what I mean yes so it is in the sense that the education system in Nagaland is just here to make them just stupid and keep them stupid and if that's the case then you will never get good leaders because to be a good leader you have to emancipate yourself that's why you will never have Ambedkar if Ambedkar did not get education good education because of the education he got he was able to emancipate himself and because he was able to emancipate himself he was able to contribute and help not just in the building of the constitution of India but also in the emancipation of not just the Dalits but all the underrepresented all the underrepresented and all the depressed classes of the society not just that but also his thoughts and ideas influenced so many people it is just unfair that we don't hear about Ambedkar we just only hear about Gandhi actually if you compare Gandhi's thoughts and Ambedkar's thoughts Gandhi has nothing good to say he doesn't say anything he doesn't say anything when it comes to when it comes to complex controversial issues he is always very safe he is a very safe person Mahatma Gandhi and so as Nehru you need people like Ambedkar could take stance on what is right and wrong you see and so much in the semi even here people in Nagaland because they are not taught how to be they have not emancipated themselves most people in Nagaland are very very safe in fact most of the leading thinkers and intellectuals in Nagaland are very very safe they will never directly and even deal with the controversial issue even though they know they can do something they will not why because they are very safe so we have lots of Gandhi's we are not sure of Gandhi's here in Nagaland but we are very very sure of Dr. Ambedkar very true very true and I think it is very difficult to be Dr. Ambedkar rather than becoming the Gandhi we have Gandhi I think more than 100 Gandhi's cost per kilometer sir and and we really we really know that considering the political and social dynamics of this wonderful mission sir I would like to draw your attention to another reality of our modern society and that is the rise of the elite population among the backward tribes like I remember what Dr. Ambedkar was getting depressed at the final stage of his life and it seems all his dreams got shattered it was stated that Dr. Ambedkar was unhappy because the dreams that he was seeing for the people in the Bahujan Samaj the greatest powerful community was somewhat not fulfilling because the newly educated elites the newly educated elites from the Dalit communities somewhat backstabbed Dr. B. R. Ambedkar so this was that is the reason you know Babasaheb used to cry and used to suffer a lot of pain because he had high hopes from the people he had high hopes from those first IS officers from the Dalits first ITS officer first lawyers, first engineers from the Dalit communities from the tribal communities but his dreams would not be fulfilled so somewhere this is the same thing I am observing in our another society also Dr. Saliku that among the backward communities people are getting they are reaching to the higher positions in the society and somewhere they started behaving you know the way they should not you call it in short there is a word for that have you heard about Sanskritization yes yes yes so the kind of my observation is that so the kind of Sanskritization in the backward societies in Nagaland the way it happened in the Dalit societies in India the tribal societies in mainland India and that is the reason you know Babasaheb was very unhappy and got into depression at the later stage of his life so what is your take on it and how to see and view this problem of energeticism in our society over here you are very right I mean it is amazing after your decision of Nagaland really I think you should have given the speech not me you should have given the stop over here not me I think you would have done a lot more you would have done a good justice to the Dr. Ambedkar rather than I but yes you are right I think what you see is what Ambedkar saw amongst the Dalits same thing is happening I think the parallel is happening here in Nagaland as well because over here you have some elites that they would drive themselves and once they reach the status of elites they tend to look down upon the interests of their own people they become blind to the suffering and the discrimination of their own people in fact they are the one who sabotages their own people right that is how it is just like how Ambedkar was sabotaged and deceived and deceived by own Dalit community much in the same way these backward people these elites of the tribes they themselves are deceiving they themselves are deceiving and exploiting the advantage of their own backward of their own backward tribes one thing I can tell you is like there is something I don't know but once say for instance a person say for instance if I if I become for instance like very very you know say I became an elite person from a backward tribe then what happens is that I tend to disassociate myself from the backward tribe and tend to associate myself more with the advanced tribe at one point right so I have more friends I'll have more friends from the advanced tribes I'll have more you know deeper relations with the advanced tribe sometimes I would even before my children a bigger tribe advanced tribe you see something like this and then we then and once you reach that elite stage I tend to look down upon say for instance I will tend to look down upon people from my own backward tribe because I'm too good now and also because again this comes to the issues of the psychological thing because you see as long as you belong to a backward tribe and once you have attained that elite stage because the backward tack the tack itself the category of backward kind of it's a self it's kind of a degrading term to identify oneself with hence in order to get away from that term or that category as much as possible you tend to remove yourself from the backward community even though you belong to a backward community you tend to see yourself as above the backward community and more as you know more as what you say more as the advanced community much in the same way that you know after the second world war after the second world war Japan began to see more itself as a western country rather than Indian rather than Asian country why because this was equated with prestige prestige and power and technology and wealth hence Japan so itself more as more as worthy of those things because Asia in that time was very very poor no advancement no technology so Japan saw itself more as a western country than as an Asian country so you can say that some kind of a Japanese syndrome is taking over or a Sanskritization is happening among the backward tribes in here in Nagaland as well and you're right Ambedkar was backstabbed many times numerous numerous by his own telecommunity and Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru took full advantage of it right they took full advantage of this in fact sometimes it was Nehru and Gandhi who who skimmed who you know skimmed such plans to backstab Ambedkar and Ambedkar being a human I really admire him there he was hurt it's very very unfair to what happened to Ambedkar it's really hurtful whenever I think of those things so yeah same thing happens here in Nagaland it's happening actually yeah absolutely correct because if you could remember the incident which occurred when the elections for the constituent assemblies were going on this Pandit Nehru then Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi then staunchy against the inclusion of Dr. V. R. Ambedkar so Dr. Ambedkar had to be elected from East Bengal yes yes because of Jogendra Mandhal Babasaheb put the constituent assembly otherwise it was next to impossible for Babasaheb to get into that yes so now you see in this broader context of Ambedkarism we reach to another aspect of our discussion that is the education as Moksha also observed and will have also explained regarding the situation of education in Nagaland that is one thing right but on the other hand somewhere I feel that the message of Dr. V. R. Ambedkar that is the educate, agitate and organize must be taught to our students as well because I remember the generations of Dalit community the Dalit and Adivasi youth from 1950 and till 1990 and onwards they literally got inspired and lived those words including even my father also because those people did not have the facilities that we have no clothes, no chapel no books in the hand no food to it but still they did not give up the education and they become someone in life and I think that spirit I observed Saliku in our society especially in our backward students also that spirit is lacking that fighting spirit is lacking and somewhere I feel that this message educate, agitate and organize which Dr. Ambedkar delivered when he was giving a speech before in the other in Bombay before the gathering of the students that he was individually addressing that telling the student that you should struggle as much as possible to take education then you agitate agitate to complete your education be someone in life and once you become someone in life do not forget your own people do not forget the sufferings of your ancestors do not forget the pain of your contemporaries so therefore the organization is necessary this is the message I believe is very relevant to our Nagar students also sir what is your take on it you are right I don't think I have anything else to say because you are right you have mentioned all the things that Ambedkar is talking about and you are right also to say that this spirit is lacking there is a huge I think now their students don't have that spirit to agitate they don't have that fighting spirit anymore I can't see any kind of fighting spirit among people in Nagaland at all not just among the backboard tribes but also in Nagaland in general I think that that is a great disturbing sign actually because people are very easily agitated but also very easily come it's like a child children are usually very easily agitated very easily come no that's the thing and that's why that's why the education system itself is not inculcating in the students the spirit the fighting spirit that they should work hard, struggle but they don't want to struggle now with their students they want comfortable lives even though their family may be struggling they still want comfortable life that's not possible, you must struggle but then nobody is willing to struggle if they don't bring the struggle to human beings and if they are weak then they are bound to be exploited by their own tribal leaders and that's what's actually happening most of the things, most of the time in Nagaland it's the tribal leaders, the politicians the bureaucrats who manipulate and control vast majority of their tribes and on top of that if the students are given good education and if the education system in Nagaland don't inculcate that fighting spirit to struggle, the willingness to bear any kind of challenges and difficulties then how can you assert yourself how can you educate, how can you organize there's no way for organizing and that's what I see that's what I see and that's what I think and that's what you have rightly mentioned and that's what you rightly observe there's a lack of fighting spirit among the students and then because we don't have that I think it becomes very easy to be manipulated that's why the tribe becomes very important the tribalism will be here for a very long time very true after Salik you we are almost running short of time and I'm really happy because whenever I listen to you I get strange kind of satisfaction not just an intellectual satisfaction not just an intellectual satisfaction but also you are one of those intellectuals who are deeply rooted in the reality and that is what I like about you you know I really I really pray to the almighty that almighty will give all strength to you to move ahead in life with all your conviction with all the spirits let us together do what we can do for our society with these words I'm really thankful to you for your time and it's a very disturbing talk actually let us see thank you so much thank you thank you for those kind words I don't deserve it also thanks to our god almighty may our god almighty always seek his ultimate blessing and enduring everlasting blessings to all of you and thank you for inviting once again and I think I think Ambedkar's ideas would have been done a lot more justice by you than me so I think and then that is why I said together we can yes you are right thank you so much thank you everybody for this thank you everybody have a great day thank you so much you too