Interview with Bhanwar Ji

DIscussion with Bhanwar Ji (in yellow kurta).

Whenever I discuss with Bhanwar Ji I feel fresh and get new energy and perspective to see the world in different ways. Bhanwar Ji is an energetic person, who always fight against the injustice and atrocities happening on Dalits-tribals, women, minorities and those who are in the conflict zone in society. He has multiple ways to resolve the problems of the society. He always presents for the cause without taking rest. Our discussion started on conditions of workers who are working in mining, and what options should be adopted to make the people aware and take them into the mainstream of society who are living at the bottom of the society, came to an end. Things will never end when discussion happening with Bhanwar ji. Anybody can attract the way he talks on different issues by giving examples which occurred in his private life.

Referring to Rajasthan's mines, he said that most of the mines in Rajasthan are owned by dominant /upper caste people of the society who are directly or indirectly connected with the political leaders. They treat people of lower caste just a laborer who has to work only, nothing to say or listen. We asked Bhanwar Ji that we want to talk to all the workers and want to conduct a case study on them, then Bhanwar Ji said, 'Do you think that the time that you have will be managed by workers? We said that we want to take two to three hours of laborers then after that what Bhanwar Ji said is a very serious and thoughtful subject. He said that those who discuss various aspects of the society for two to three hours either those who are interested in social service who are eating food at the time easily, workers who think about their work day and night after coming from work, they do not have enough energy that they can talk to us for two to three hours. After returning from work, as much energy is left to just eat food.All the laborers go to work in the morning and return at night to sleep after eating food.this is all about their daily routine. Bhanwar Ji told that if you ask the laborers that are you dreaming? Listening to your question, they will laugh at you and say that we can’t see dreams, they come when we sleep at night, they do not know that dreams also are those which we see with open eyes. The dreams that come to them at night also are mostly related to their wages.

Then our discussion went into Babasaheb framework which he used in the community at a different level. Bhanwar Ji talked about the experiments of Ambedkar in the context of satyagraha for the water right, temple entry movement, against Hinduism and finally, he realized that after my death community need a religion so, people can be united on common the basis of common identity. According to Bhanwar Ji ‘religion is a necessary thing to live like food, oxygen, without religion people can’t survive that’s why Babasaheb offered Buddhism to his community’. But Buddhism what Babasaheb introduced navyana is failed because people adopted it like other religion then what is the meaning of conversion? when we asked Bhanwar Ji that which element is paramount in the society, caste or religion? He replied that caste is superior to anything in the society ever because without caste religion can't survive, religion is just an idea where caste is a strategy/agency to implement it. If we see Buddhism where people get into it because they fed up with casteism but after converting still they are searching same caste Buddhist bride/groom for their daughter/son. He emphasized more on the individualistic perspective rather than communitarian perspective because he believed that we should focus on individual development which can be helpful to build an alternative for the development of the community. He rejected the historical framework which kept us in the same situation. He talked that rather than talking about history or look back into past we have to re-construct our thought process and have to talk on the distribution of resources. There is no meaning by crying on past .it’s better to focus on the present and establish a mechanism so, that upcoming generations will not face any problems that we are facing in the present. Like Bodhi sir always used to say that we should think in a linear way rather than thinking in a circular way. In a linear way, we focus on the present and try to do better than past and make future better than present but in a circular way it is totally different we do things in the same way without trying to change its nature.

A photo with Bhanwar Ji in front of his house (Ambedkar Bhawan).

Further, he talked about the alternative for the upliftment of the marginalized section of society. He said ‘ As we have lost our political battle, social battle but still we are engaging in social battle but we are not focusing on the economic battle which is more essential than anything in the society’. We must create a ‘Business Model’ that will be less discriminatory and more beneficiary to our community. It should be at three level; production, sale, consumer. Products will be produced by the Dalit or marginalized community only and for selling there will be Bahujan business center which sale every product within the community and consumer will be our community only. As we grow in this sector we can extend our business plan with other Buddhist countries. So, the Business Model will work like this and through it, we can be economically strong, our people get more work, no one will be unemployed and less dependency on others.

By- 

Neeraj Bunkar