T’puram: Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar on Tuesday said that B R Ambedkar placed the nation above everything else and that his “nation first” ideology was the need of the hour.Speaking while presiding over a lecture titled ‘Re-reading Dr Ambedkar’ at Lok Bhavan, the governor said that Ambedkar, as the principal architect of the Constitution, rose above the circumstances of his birth and made contributions to the nation as a whole. He described Ambedkar as a man of resolve and convictions.He further said that Ambedkar’s contributions stood above partisan and sectarian interests and added that his greatness should not be confined within the frames of a particular caste or region, as he worked for the entire nation.Kerala high court judge Devan Ramachandran delivered the lecture as part of an event organised at Lok Bhavan in connection with the 135th Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations for an invited audience.In his address, Ramachandran said that Ambedkar placed emphasis on education and used knowledge as a powerful tool to fight the menace of caste-based discrimination and the structural flaws that perpetuate such discrimination in society. He referred to the precept ‘knowledge dismantles denial of dignity’ while explaining Ambedkar’s approach.Ramachandran said that this principle led Ambedkar to champion the cause of socio-economic equality to precede political equality in a free state. The judge also said that Ambedkar’s intellectual acumen has not been properly understood and that many of his prophecies were later proved right. MSID:: 130261002 413 |
