The Humanist who fought for the human rights of most marginalized
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
It was Prof Y.P.Chibbar, the PUCL
General Secretary for years, who introduced me to Dr R.M.Pal when I visited him
at ARSD College where he was teaching. ‘Dr
Pal is the right person for you. He is the editor of PUCL Bulletin and lives in
Greater Kailash. You must meet him,’ suggested Prof Chibbar. And after that it
was a relationship that grew up every passing day. As a young aspiring boy from
a nondescript town of Uttarakhand, I had come to Delhi ‘incidentally’, during
the tumultuous years of anti Mandal agitation where most of our ‘intellectuals’
had been exposed. Staying with Dr Mulk Raj Anand, pioneer of English writing in
India, there was a period of great personal churning for me and Dr Pal made it
clear to me to earn to learn. ‘What are you doing there’, he asked. Jee, I am
looking after his work, typing his scripts and accompany him to various places
where he moves, I said. My aim is to do social work and it is a great honor to
be with a man who calls himself a ‘Gandhian’. For a young person like me who
had so many fantasies about Gandhism as perhaps we did not have the opportunity
to know and understand ‘others’ and it seemed the only way to fight against oppression
particularly untouchability which Gandhi had claimed to be the biggest ‘sin’ of
Hinduism. So for me any one who had seen Gandhi or worked with him became a
hero and ‘Lokayat’ where Dr Mulk Raj Anand stayed became my ‘sabarmati’. Dr Pal
was a no nonsense person who could speak fearlessly without being hypocritical
in front of you and he remained unimpressed. ‘Well, I can tell you Mulk Raj
Anand will not help you’, he said. ‘ Don’t live under the romance of ‘Gandhian’
fame as it is good to do ‘social work’ but you need to be independent and earn
to do things, he suggested. I know you came from Dehradun and may face
prejudices here because of your village background. Better you do some evening
courses as you plan and earn for your living and hopefully you will be able to
contribute to society as you wish. And I can say with firm conviction that
after coming to Delhi and staying here as meek and submissive person for over
two and half years, Dr Pal gave me the confidence in myself and helped me become
independent and rebuild my self respect and confidence.
Over the years our interaction
grew and he became fond of me. He would guide me and ask me write in particular
way. He suggested diverse topics to me and so much was the trust that many time
he would send me to go on fact finding on particular issues and get direct
information for him. It was not just he
would ask to write but he would call me and discuss with me the issue in detail
and point out those particular references which he would wish me to focus. I
was fortunate to have met and acquaint with a number of eminent, Human Rights
activists, Ambedkarite scholars and writers at young age and all of them
respected me and appreciated my courage and enthusiasm but Dr Pal remain the
one who mentored me and guided me. He would appreciate a number of my elderly
friends but unlike them he would guide me and even point to me the grammatical
mistakes in my writings. I knew them very well and the fact was that being a
teacher, it was like a student sitting in his class as if he is dictating and
then checking our assignment. Many times, he warned me of being neutral in my
criticism and asked me to be as ruthless to Muslim fanatics too who try to
defame the community but one thing was clear that he made a distinction between
minority communalism and majoritarian communalism and cautioned India of the dangers
of the Hindu communalism. He was afraid of the fact that India might become
victim of the majoritarian communalism and for that all the like-minded parties
and people have to join hand. He would often quote that no movement will
succeed unless it is preceded by a political philosophy.
I still remember how he guided me
to write a paper for a seminar being organized by Indian Social Institute,
Delhi, in collaboration with UGC, on
Ambedkar and M N Roy’s relationship and Roy’s thought on rationalism and
Buddhism. He was determined despite my own feeling that it was a misfit for a
seminar on Human Rights education issue yet he felt only I could have done justice
to this and he guided me. Yes, that paper took me to various files including
that information where Dr Ambedkar had, as a minister in Viceroy’s Council,
sanctioned an amount of Rs 13,000 for anti war efforts of M N Roy and on the
basis of this information ‘inspired’ Arun Shourie to write ‘Worshipping the False God’, a book based on
hard prejudices and lies. I met Justice Tarkunde several time and got those
letters where he mentioned that it was he who took the money many time on
behalf of the Party and that Roy never took the money himself. Ambedkar was in
deep appreciation of MN Roy and his intellectual honesty and that is why there
are lots of similarities on their thoughts and philosophy, which need further
elaborations. I can say with conviction that if Dr Pal had not guided me in
this regard, I would have missed the great opportunity and work of M N Roy
related to caste, religion and fascism.
As the editor of PUCL Bulletin he
was able to focus a lot on atrocities against Dalits and issue of communalism
in India. Both the issue of caste violence against Dalits and communalism were
matter of great concern for him and he remained uncompromising in his
condemnation of them. At the various national and international forums he
always focused on the issue that Human Rights are not just state laws and their
steady implementation which of course are important, but what he spoke and
emphasized was ‘societal violation of human rights’ which he always felt, got
out of the scrutiny of the human rights defenders and the organsations working
for the human rights. It was his conviction that Dalits, Muslims and other
marginalized people should join Radical Humanist and Human Rights Movement to
raise their issues. As he became president of Delhi PUCL, he ensured that these
segments are fairly represented and we know personally many of the radical
humanists and PUCL ‘leaders’ were not very happy with his ‘casteist’ approach.
For long he listened to many
youngsters claiming that ‘human rights’ organisations in India have no space
for the Dalits. He always mentioned to me this point that PUCL is a membership
based organisations and if the Dalits, Muslims wanted to lead it, they need to
become member and increase their numbers. He introduced many eminent persons in
the human rights and said that there is no point complaining if you are unable
to be member of it. People’s organisations are led by people and need further
understanding and working of the organisations and its structures. Merely
blaming the organisations for being representative of ‘upper castes’ was not
correct according to him though we knew that many activists became members but
frankly speaking the functioning of the organisations like PUCL did not change.
The dark fact is that he was not liked inside the PUCL as well as in the
Radical Humanists circle for his ‘overemphasis on caste and communalism. His
unambiguity and openness made many people his enemy who would be jealous of his
forthrightness. The man always enjoyed being with young activists, guiding them
and providing ideas to write on particular issues. I can vouch with my own
experience having met numerous people of eminence how they just use you. The
dirty secret of the ‘intellectual’ world is that it does not want to engage in
dialogue with people but work on ‘networking’.
We had lots of disagreement
particularly on the issue of Gandhi and Ambedkar. He knew it well that I have
no liking for Gandhian philosophy, which I called humbug and absolutely
patronizing as far as Dalits are concern. He would always say that though
Gandhi made eradication of untouchability and fight against communalism pivot
of his philosophy, he failed in both count yet he felt that Gandhi’s intention
were not wrong but lots of discussions and debate on the issue actually saw his
opinion changing. He said any one who read ‘annihilation of caste’, will only
find Gandhi on the wrong side and Ambedkar fighting for the rights of the
people. He felt Ambedkar was wronged.
His personal association with M N
Roy and later working on the human rights issues had broadened his horizon much
bigger than many of his contemporaries who remained very narrow in their
personal lives. There are very few who would spare time for you and guide you
whatever possible ways and feel good at your achievements. He loved speaking
Bangla and always followed the incidents happening in East Bengal or what we
call today Bangladesh. The pain of division and migration was always with him
and that is why he was always warm to people like me who left home in search of
a new identity and to fulfill their commitments. He would always warn me like a
teacher of what to do and what not to do. There are so many things to remember
where he asked me to write on and suggested me to attend particular programmes.
The last togetherness of mine
with him was at a seminar that he has been trying to organize for years in
Mumbai on Dr Ram Manohar Lohia but always felt lacking supporting hands there
as he would have them in Delhi as it was the city he always missed and left
after he had paralytic stroke that confined him on wheelchair and external
help. Many of my friends actually spoke to me after visiting him and felt
pained to see a vibrant man depended on people for help, a man who was always
active doing things at his own. But it was his strong willpower that despite
being confined to bed he could do a lot of work, which is highly impossible for
many of us to do. I never saw him complaining about himself whenever I spoke to
him on phone as it was work work and work. He would ask for certain book or
speak to certain person or provide the phone numbers of some friends. He
complained that being in Mumbai has curtailed his freedom as he always enjoyed
his friendship circle in Delhi and felt that he has got isolated in Mumbai.
The seminar on Ram Manohar Lohia
in Mumbai reflected how he wanted to do things so fast. Academics saw him
speaking passionately on Lohia-Ambedkar relationship where he quoted Lohia
saying that he wanted Dr Ambedkar to lead the entire Indians and not confined
to the leadership of the Dalits even when people like me questioned Lohia
suggesting his vision ended at Gandhsim, Dr Pal remain open to new ideas which
supported freethinking and secular democratic traditions in India.
There are so many memories. I can
only say that he was the one on whom I could count for guidance and support. He
never failed and once promised would go to any extent to finish the task. I
grew up admiring him for his courage and forthrightness as whenever he spoke he
was to the point and blunt. At a seminar, a leading human right academic, who
happened to be a Muslim, actually supported practice of Sati as cultural
practice and therefore outside the purview of human rights laws in the name of
‘personal laws’ of Hindus. I got up and objected saying whether he feel that
veil and Burqa should be put beyond the limit of human rights laws. It became
heated and Dr Pal came for my rescue saying that he always wanted human rights
defenders and organisations to speak against societal violation of human rights
as human rights in South Asia are not just violated by the state but majority
of violation happen because of cultural practices and we need to come out in
open against such rigid and inhuman practices such as caste system and
untouchability.
The demise of Dr R M Pal at this
crucial moment is a great blow to all the right thinking secular forces as we
would often go to him and seek his advice on many issues confronting us. He was
the man who always believed in the idea of a secular inclusive India and spoke
regularly against the Hindutva’s communalism. Though he is no longer with us,
his writings will always inspire us to work for a secular democratic India. We
promise to carry on his legacy for our better future.
