There’s been a mad rush to appropriate Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s political legacy by parties of all political hues, which just goes to show how Dr Ambedkar has become more important than ever before. The irony is that our political establishments took almost six decades to recognise and pay reverence to the Dalit leader and the architect of the Indian Constitution.

On April 11, the Congress party concluded its year-long program to commemorate Ambedkar’s 125^th Anniversary with a rally at Nagpur. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi invoked Rohith Vemula and Ambedkar, and vowed to “never bend before the ideology of Manu as it has destroyed India.”

Congress President Sonia Gandhi used the platform to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She said, “PM Modi and his team want to kill the ideology of Babasaheb Ambedkar and everything he stood for.”

Congress vowing to save Ambedkar’s political legacy is the peak of irony because the party made a concerted effort to ensure his defeat in electoral politics during the 1952 and 1954 elections. The bitterness between Congress and Ambedkar can be understood in the leader’s own words. When he resigned from the position of Law Minister,  Ambedkar wrote: “The offer [to be India’s first Law Minister] came as a great surprise to me. I was in the opposite camp and had already been condemned as unworthy of association when the interim Government was formed in August 1946.”

The first Round Table Conference, held at London in 1930, historically stands as the first significant political difference between the Congress and Ambedkar. While Congress had distanced itself from the conference which Ambedkar attended, in India, Mahatma Gandhi vehemently rejected Ambedkar’s proposal of separate electorate for Dalits.  A scholar of Ambedkar’s work and Jawaharlal Nehru University Professor, Vivek Kumar said, “Despite the fact that Ambedkar was representing Dalits of India, Gandhi maintained that he himself, and Congress alone, represented all Indians.”

Ambedkar started the Independent Labour Party on August 15, 1936. A year later, the ILP by won 14 seats in Bombay provincial election and proved its electoral competence. In 1942, widening his political ambit, Ambedkar established the All India Scheduled Caste Federation (SCF), a political party mandated to work for the emancipation of Dalits.

Even though he is now famous for chairing the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar’s chances of being a part of the Assembly were considered bleak back then. Anand Teltumbde, a Dalit scholar and author, said, “The Congress did not want him in the Constituent Assembly.”

According to Ambedkarites, had it not been for Jogendra Nath Mandal, a pivotal figure to Dalit-Muslim unity in undivided Bengal, Ambedkar would have failed to get a seat from Bengal Province and consequently, a place in the Constituent Assembly. Mandal was the Bengal chief of SCF and also enjoyed cordial relations with the Muslim League. He convinced them to support Ambedkar.  French author Christophe Jaffrelot writes in Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: “In 1946, Ambedkar had contested elections to join this body [Constituent Assembly], not in Bombay, where Congress was the ruling party, but in Bengal, where he was elected after winning the support of the Muslim League”.

After Partition, Jessore and Khulna (the constituency which Ambedkar represented) went to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly. In order to remain a member of the Indian Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar needed to get re-elected or be nominated from an Assembly. That was when the Congress stepped in and Ambedkar was elected unopposed on Bombay Province’s seat, vacated by MS Jayakar. “Considering his contribution to the Constituent Assembly, Congress got him to enter through Bombay,” said Teltumbde. “They tolerated Ambedkar right from 1948 till his time of resignation, in 1951, due to his work.”

Factions within Congress abhorred Ambedkar. This became evident when he stood up for the Hindu Code Bill. Historian Ramachandra Guha, writes in India After Gandhi: “Through 1950 and 1951, Nehru and Ambedkar made several attempts to get the Hindu Code Bill passed into a law. But the opposition was considerable, both within Parliament and outside it.”

The Hindu Code Bill among other things had also sought the right of inheritance for women. This created discomfort amongst political and religious leaders—including those in Congress.

Associate Professor Ajay Gudavarthy with Centre for Centre for Political Studies, JNU, cites the reasons for such opposition from the Congress. “Most of the Congressmen were opposed to the inheritance clause in the Hindu Code Bill,” he said. “This showed Congress’s nature — that despite believing in political democratism, it stood for social conservatism.”

Ambedkar handed over his resignation to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on September 27, 1951. This was just months before the first general election in 1952 and another chapter was added to the strained relations between Ambedkar and Congress.

In his letter, Ambedkar listed reasons which forced him to resign. The Hindu Code Bill, failure to implement laws to safeguard interests of Dalits in letter and spirit, and sidelining recommendations of Backward Classes Commission were a few of them. “I knew the Law Ministry to be administratively of no importance,” Ambedkar wrote in his resignation. “It gave no opportunity for shaping the policy of the Government of India. We used to call it an empty soap box only good for old lawyers to play with.” Professor Vivek Kumar, School of Social Sciences-JNU, says that Ambedkar was not even allowed to deliver his resignation speech in the House and that is why he was forced write this letter.

Congress shed all its pretenses in 1951, when Ambedkar decided to contest the first general elections of India from Bombay. It fielded Narayan Kajrolkar as its candidate and Jawaharlal  Nehru campaigned aggressively for him. “The prestige and hold of the Congress, and the fact that Nehru made several speeches in Bombay, carried Kajrolkar to victory,” wrote Guha in India After Gandhi. Ambedkar, an iconic figure,  lost the election to an obscure opponent.

In 1954, Ambedkar again tried his electoral luck at the Bhandara (Maharashtra) by-election. He was not only defeated by the Congress candidate, but this time he slipped to third position.

Ambedkar died on 6^th December 1956, but the political differences with him continued to haunt the Congress. Kumar pointed out, “Congress did a greater disrespect of Babasaheb by not honouring him with Bharat Ratna. In 1970, Republican Party of India had to start a movement for putting a portrait of him in [Parliament’s] Central Hall.”

Today, when the Congress finds itself in a deep political crisis and is desperately looking for a comeback, it has bowed down in reverence, to a man who they had tried to discredit in the past. This is Congress’s political opportunism. Anand Teltumbde said, “Every ruling class has constructed him in a particular manner. Due to socio-political and economic changes, BR Ambedkar has now become an important and iconic figure for every party.”