Author: Gail Omvedt
Publisher: Bhashya Prakshan
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 156
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788192110707
Description
Ambedkar had his predecessors. The "great" among them he recognized and named as his "teacher": Buddha, Kabir and Phule. The lesser known he also honoured, attending their programmes.
Among these lesser known, uneducated but wise in the needs of his people, was a man who he named as "Dadasaheb," was to be known as his older compatriot, the "elderly" (vayovruddh) Sambhaji Tukaram Gaidwad. Sambhaji was one of the main organizers of what what Ambedkar himself was to describe and try to memorialize as the "liberation movement" of the Dalits, the Mahad satyagraha of of 1927.
For those who were later to call themselves Dalits and Buddhists, the event was a landmark in their struggle, December 25, the burning of the Manusmriti, is today celebrated in Maharashtra as "Indian Women's Liberation Day" and has become, for many throughout India, "Manavmukti Din."
COMMENTS:
This book is rare blend of Scholarship and hard work. It will give the Dalit Movement a much-needed perspective and insight on a forgotten leader Dadasaheb Sambhaji Tukaram Gaikwad who played a signification role in the building of the Ambedkarite Movement. A Must read for theoreticians and practitioners of popular movements, in general, and the Dalit Movement, in particular.
--- Prof. Vivek Kumar, Centre for the Social Systems/School Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
“This engaging book brings alive the life and struggle of Sambhaji Tukaram Gaikwad, a stalwart of Dr Ambedkar’s Liberation struggle. In the Process, it recounts the movement of Mahad and beyond, laying bare the complicated story of how the (Dalit) steel was tempered in Maharashtra in the first half of the 20th Century.”
--- Braj Ranjan Mani , Author of Debrahmanising History
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
One – The Kokan and its Mahars
Two – Sambhaji Tukaram Gaikwad
Three – The Mahad Satyagraha
Four – Mahad and Beyond – Fighting Manuwadi
Five – Fights in & Around the Legislative Council the Starte Committee and Bhikaji Gaikwad
Six – Fights in & Around the Legislative Council – Land & Labour
Seven – Personal Life and Final Days
Eight – Gopal Baba Walangkar
Nine – Madke Buwa – Working Class Organizing in Mumbai
Ten – Ramchandra BabaJi More – Another working class leader
Eleven – Bhaiyasaheb – Son of a legend Yashwantrao Ambedkar
Appendix I – 1894 Petition of Gopalbaba Walangkar
Appendix II – Poem by Pandit Kondiram
Appendix III – Resolutions of the Mahad Satyagraqha Parishad
Appendix IV – Source Material