We are celebrating 129th birth Anniversary of beloved Babasaheb in a very uncertain and strange climate. The Bhim Jayanti is celebrated as a mega public event and it is like a festival all over India and parts of the world where Ambedkarites migrated. The mention of 14th April strikes a cord of Joy and happiness in our hearts.14th April is our biggest festival.

This year, due to Coronavirus lockdown, the Bhim Jayanti will see a different way of celebration. Instructions from Ambedkarite public figures have been circulated widely and different and innovative form of celebration is emerging.

The songs, lectures, poems, essay competition, and other possibilities are explored using digital and social media.

The 14th April 2020 will be the BIGGEST CELEBRATION OF LIFE OF ANY MAN on the digital and social media platform.

As we are locked down in our houses due to a threat from a biological virus, but millions among us are threatened and severely affected by the social virus of caste and communalism in India. In this confused, obscure, and uncertain times when things are on hold, we can liken it with the transition. We surely will succeed in fighting the coronavirus, but the combined force of biological and social virus will be difficult to fight: Perhaps the social virus will mutate as it always does in the more vicious form given the authoritarian regime that we are living in India today. So yes, there is this nightmarish scenario that hints as impending darkness and suffering.

On the other hand, the buoyant celebration of Bhim Jayanti using all the possible media and forms, the never-to- die attitude of Ambedkarite public, and the eagerness of millions of hands to serve the community during the lockdown is a great hope.

Bhim Jayanti will be the largest and the longest digital Jayanti in the world.

In this paradoxical and contradictory situation and uncertain times, millions will remember Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Why?

1. Because his gratitude cannot be paid back by. What he did for millions cannot be repaid

2. He is the role model in any time, but in uncertain times he stands like a pole star.

3. he is a harbinger of hope in the hopeless times

4. He is loved immensely by people

5. Seeing millions love him, an individual cannot but love him if they know who he was

Babasaheb Ambedkar has a dream for an individual and society. He himself realised any dream of an individual by the cultivation of his own human personality to the highest possible level. For the individual to be free, fearless, cultured, creative, compassionate, and socially committed is a mark of freedom that Babasaheb embodied. He actualised the possibilities latent in him.

How did he do it?

When Babasaheb Ambedkar graduated from Bombay University, he did not have an exceptional qualification and his subject of graduation were like Persian language.

He started studying in Columbia University, for the first few months, six hours a day, and then on clocking 12-18 hours every day mastering every subject he laid his hands on. When he finished his PhD, he has double credits than required in just 2 years and a few months.

Hard work and patience got him where he stood on the highest mountain of knowledge and his modesty of claiming himself just a student throughout his life.

His commitment to his cause of justice was unshakable. He was ready to sacrifice his life for his people.

He cultivated the minds of the people around him patiently.

He engaged in dialogues with both friends and foes and tried to persuade with love.

He drank deep into knowledge.

Though he realised the highest possibility for any human to reach, he strove to his last breath for others.

He led by his own example and he was truly a light onto himself.

He had experienced personal nightmares:

1. Early death of his mother
2. Discrimination as a child
3. Discriminated even as one of the most educated persons in India
4. Acute and abject poverty
5. Painful deaths of beloved children and darling wife
6. Horrible setbacks
7. Unbearable pain due to discrimination around him

Even today, the life of suffering continues in the most severe forms for communities like Dalits, tribals, MBC, and minorities. The social virus of caste and communalism continues to haunt million.

However, there is a growing strength and emerging new possibilities among the Ambedkarite public:

1. An emergence of dedicated an intellectual class due to efforts of Babasaheb Ambedkar.

2. Growing awareness among the various section of Indian society

3. Religious minorities looking up to Babasaheb as a role model

4. Rise of Pan- India Ambedkarite consciousness

5. Increasing international awareness.

However, still so much needs to be done and so much can be done. The Ambedkarite movement is full of innumerable possibilities opened up by Babasaheb Ambedkar himself.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist