Idols, Ideals
By Kartik Lokhande Last week, the nation celebrated the ‘Samvidhan Din’ to mark adoption of the Constitution of India, whose drafting was overseen by Dr B R Ambedkar, on November 26. Within a couple of days, the nation also paid tributes to a champion of the cause of downtrodden – Mahatma Jyotiba Phule. Some time ago, the nation also remembered Dr Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The last month, the nation paid tributes to Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi. Unfortunately, these and other titans have been reduced only to the status of ‘idols’ mostly in physical terms, with the ideals that they upheld throughout their life forgotten long ago. The people who claim to be the followers of Mahatma Gandhi, Mahatma Phule, Dr Ambedkar, Maulana Azad or any great person have dwarfed these titans by proclaiming to be belonging to a particular caste or religion. In the process, all the great personalities and social reformers who fought against the social evils have been turned into o...