by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
By Mohit Dubey,
Lucknow : Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, who is at the centre of a storm over the state government decreeing that the name of B.R. Ambedkar, considered the architect of the Indian Constitution, be officially expanded to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, is unfazed by the controversy it has created, but says he is “deeply pained” at the insinuations made by political parties.
He dismisses all accusations of political motivation behind his efforts in renaming Ambedkar, saying the Dalit icon was his hero from his younger days.
He said he found that Ambedkar had himself signed his name as “Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar” in the original copy of the Constitution where all the other members of the Constituent assembly, including its Chairman, Rajendra Prasad, who later became President of India, and Jawaharlal Nehru had put their signatures.
He shared this information with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and a request was made to remove this “major inaccuracy” in Ambedkar’s name.
“This needed an amendment in the Act, but Yogi Adityanath assured me that once the session of the UP Assembly was underway the course correction shall be done,” he said.
Naik expressed surprise that when the Bill on the new name was unanimously passed in the UP house on December 29 last year “how can Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) question it now?”
Naik said soon after that he wrote to BSP supremo Mayawati and even Ambedkar’s grandson, seeking their help in dissemination of information that the corrected full name of the Dalit legend was Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.
“I have been an admirer of the Dalit leader since the 1950s, when I went to Mumbai in search of a job. I have heard him speak at various public rallies,” Naik told IANS.
“My admiration, and that of even the Jana Sangh, for Baba Saheb, has always been there and it is sad that people find political motives in things which have nothing to do with it.
“Like Mahatma Gandhi, even Ambedkar was above politics and cannot be owned by any group, political party or an individual,” he said.
He recalled that in 1989, he had raised a question in the Lok Sabha to the then Telecom Minister, K.P. Unnikrishnan, on whether the government planned to release a postal stamp to commemorate the birth anniversary of the Dalit icon.
“I was informed that the Union government had no such plans.”
Naik, a five-time MP and a former Union minister, said that the minister then responded by saying that 15 paisa and 20 paisa stamps on Ambedkar were released in the past on April 14, 1966, and April 14, 1973.
Later, then Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar not only formed a committee to look into this aspect but it also ensured that, in 1991, a postal stamp was released on the Dalit stalwart. This stamp too, he pointed out, carried his real and full name.
Asked how, all of a sudden, the effort of getting Ambedkar’s name changed got rolling, the Governor said the move stemmed from an invitation he received from the Vice Chancellor of the Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Agra for its convocation ceremony.
“I said it was the wrong way to write Ambedkarji’s name, to which he responded by saying, ‘Saab, yahaan aisa hi chalta hai (Sir, this is how things happen here),” Naik said, adding that he then pored over several government documents and went through the original copy of the constitution.
“Everything that needs change cannot be held on belief and should have legal backing to have constitutional validation,” he said.
Questioning the political sparring his move has now triggered in the state, with the BSP alleging that he had connived with the ruling BJP, specially with his roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the governor said possibly these people and parties do not know how he had launched a “satyagraha” and served six days in prison to get the name of Ambedkar to the Marathwada University in Maharashtra.
Listing his “zara hatke” (somewhat different) moves as a legislator and then as an MP, including pitching in for double-storied toilets in Mumbai’s slums, infrastructure facilities for people at Gorai, Manori island, and the start of the MPLAD funds for lawmakers, the governor said he had done what he thought was correct and right.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Ram Naik
By Mohit Dubey
LUCKNOW: When the octagenarian Ram Naik walked into the sprawling 40-acre Raj Bhawan complex in the heart of this Uttar Pradesh capital last July, most people in the corridors of power took the new governor as another “tired and retired veteran” who had been eased out in the ‘Modi-fied’ BJP and parked in a constitutional job.
The agile and active Naik, a year down, however, has proved the political epitaph writers wrong and is, in fact, scripting one of the most eventful tenures in the gubernatorial history of Uttar Pradesh. And he has firmly stood his ground on issues he considers worthwhile.
In the process, while he has endeared himself to the teeming thousands who have benefitted from his humility and interventions, he has come in the firing line of the Samajwadi Party (SP) government. Having twice rejected recommendations by the ruling party for nomination to the legislative council and then turning down the name of a retired judge for Lokayukta, Naik has earned the wrath of the likes of SP stalwarts Mohd Azam Khan, Ram Gopal Yadav and Shivpal Singh Yadav.
Having earned sobriquets like “unfit to be addressed as mahamahim” (his excellency), “BJP stooge” and many others, Naik, however, is undeterred by the criticism. Talking to IANS on a busy week day, the former union petroleum minister said he would not react to such comments and barbs.
“People attacking me have their political agenda while I am wedded to the constitution of India,” he said while recalling how the book gifted to him by President Pranab Mukherjee a day before he came here for the oath of office is his guiding force.
Time and the people will judge his actions, he said, adding that he enjoys “cordial personal relations with (Chief Minister) Akhilesh Yadav”.
Naik, however, said that he believes in speaking his mind out and has been doing so. He further stated that he will continue to be a bridge between the state and the union government – like when he brought union Minister of State for Power Piyush Goel and Akhilesh Yadav to the table in wake of the power crisis in the state.
The fact that he has openly castigated the state government on law and order and the power crisis, is for the betterment of the state and in the right spirit of expecting improvement, he said. Asked if the constitutional post bars him from a lot of things, he chuckled and countered: “On the contrary it has given me the joy of doing much more than what the constitution bestows on me.”
Having arranged a musical ‘bhajan sandhya’ by lepers in the Raj Bhawan after reading a newspaper article about their marginalization and humiliation, Naik said he finds immense satisfaction in such small gestures.
Choking while narrating the happiness he noticed on the faces of the lepers, the veteran was asked what forms this formidable conviction to do things and pat came the reply: “I owe it to my father and my formative years at Pune with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).” Both, he pointed out, taught him discipline and humility.
As the chancellor of 25 state varsities, Naik is credited with having brought the academic sessions on track. By taking up issues facing the masses, he is fast emerging as a “people’s governor”.
With his rich parliamentary experience behind him – three-time legislator in Maharashtra and five-time Lok Sabha MP – the governor seems to hit just the right chords with the people of the country’s most populous state.
While he is extensively travelling in the state, his doors are open for all and sundry and the visitors are pleasantly surprised by his “grassroot level-like approach.
“I cannot fathom that he is so down to earth and so pro-active. I had come to him with a problem that the education institution I run was facing and within no time, he got the officials working,” said a retired army officer.
Naik’s chief security officer, Inderjeet Singh Rawat, vouched for his humility.
Only recently had a class four employee retired and when Naik came to know of the farewell do, he not only called the retiree but also bade him a respectable farewell.
Talk to him of all these path-breaking changes that he is ushering in and his face lights up as he credits all this to his father, a school teacher, and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which, he said, was responsible for the discipline and the plain, simple lifestyle he leads.
“When I went to do my B.Com at Pune, I came in touch with a lot of RSS ideologues and their sense of commitment and conviction got into my personality development DNA,” he mused, while suggesting that the new generation should simply follow a four-tier mantra – smile, appreciate, do not belittle others and always find a better way of doing things!
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
