Savarkar-Ambedkar Samanvaya For Sanghatan: Possibility Or A Fallacy?

Possibility Or A Fallacy?

In his remarkably coherent and value-driven essay, 'Caste, Civilisation, Contradiction: Ambedkar and Savarkar Cannot Be Reconciled', Sri Sameer Prashanth Rao argues that contemporary attempts to harmonise Ambedkar's radicalism with Savarkar's civilisational pragmatism are exercises in intellectual futility. The humanistic depth of Rao's analysis, which unlike regressive pro-caste polemics centres its critique on the genuine Savarkarite stand of a casteism-less society, makes it necessary to evaluate whether his insistence on irreconcilability overlooks a potential, if arduous, path of Ambedkarite-Savarkarite Samanvaya toward that very shared goal of a healthy and strong Hindu society.

The Historical Roots of Sanghatan Samanvaya

One must first address the foundational premise: that the contemporary Right's embrace of Babasaheb is merely a strategic manoeuvre, a cynical co-option designed for the ballot box. Such a claim betrays a historical myopia regarding the organic currents of the Hindutva movement.

For those whose formative years were spent in the RSS Shakhas of the 1980s, an introduction to Dr Ambedkar was not found in state-sponsored textbooks, which then relegated him to a mere footnote, but in the Baudhik (pedagogy) sessions of the Sangh.

Crucially, this instruction was not predicated on a reactive reading of Ambedkar's critical views on Islam. Instead, it centred on the conviction that Bodhisattva Ambedkar's pursuit of a casteless society was an obligatory component of Hindu Sanghatan. This project of social harmony achieved without compromising social justice resonated profoundly with the foundational visions of both Dr Hedgewar and Veer Savarkar.

To suggest this integration is a recent electoral optic is to ignore a half-century of heartfelt effort that has made tremendous inner churning and path correction to understand, accept, and adapt to the mission of Bodhisattva Ambedkar, not as a contradiction to Hindu identity, but as its necessary spiritual fulfilment.

Annihilation of Caste for Sanghatan, Not Destruction of Dharma

Turning to the textual evidence, Rao leans heavily upon Annihilation of Caste (1936) to suggest that Dr Ambedkar viewed the caste system as the inseparable, negative core of Hindu Dharma. However, a more penetrative reading reveals a strategic nuance. Ambedkar's demand for annihilation was rooted in a profound concern for the "weak and meek" state of Hindu society. To him, caste was the primary inhibitor of Sanghatan and Shuddhi:

So long as caste remains, there will be no Sanghatan and so long as there is no Sanghatan the Hindu will remain weak and meek... Indifferentism is the worst kind of disease that can infect a people. Why is the Hindu so indifferent? In my opinion this indifferentism is the result of Caste System which has made Sanghatan and co-operation even for a good cause impossible.

Annihilation of Caste, 1936, p.55 & p.56 [Collected Works, Vol-III]

To Dr Ambedkar, therefore, the radical reorganisation of Hindu society through the annihilation of caste, which necessitates the mandatory dismantling of its supporting philosophy, was not merely a social preference. However well-entrenched that philosophy remained in the contemporary collective Hindu mind, he viewed its eradication as an existential necessity, essential for the civilisation's very survival in the impending storms of civilisational wars.

Crucially, in his vision, the dismantling of this hierarchy was a non-negotiable imperative of justice; it was a fundamental reckoning that should never be relegated to the status of a Savarna luxury, a matter of upper-caste convenience.

The Paradox: Injustice of Graded Inequality or Dharma Eternal

Now comes the centre of this discord, which is Rao's assertion of a terminal incompatibility between Veer Savarkar and Bodhisattva Ambedkar regarding the nature of Jaathi: the former...