Gram Panchayat Quotes

I am not trying to offer an evaluative description of the Ambedkar— Gandhi confrontation which facilitated the birth of the Dalit movement. If one notices the contending propositions, a deep irony emerges. Though Ambedkar was talking in the language of modern and liberal democracy, ironically Gandhi had no reason to reject his demand for separate electorates. Given Gandhi's commitment to village democracy, which had practised the idea of community representation—i.e. a defence of the exclusive rights of the people of a community without the intervention of others—why couldn't he understand the traditional nature of the demand? To put it plainly, in the gram panchayat of pre-modern times, all castes and communities would send their representatives to the village body. Gandhi was speaking the language of liberal citizenship and Ambedkar the practice of a gram panchayat. Didn't they understand the real nature of each other's position? This continues to be one of the most important enigmas of modern Indian history, an enigma which has conditioned the political theory and practice of the Dalit movement. With hindsight it can be safely said that it was not the correctness or lack of it in the parties involved which caused the birth of the Dalit movement, but the politico-psychological tensions released in the confrontation made the birth of the new politics of Dalits inevitable.