ABSTRACT:
Silence is the condition or state in which one acquires paralyzing feeling of one’s own insignificance. Overcoming silence is to act or speak. Failure to act on silence may lead the latter to degenerate itself into an ontological wound. Embodiment of silence into an ontological wound may constitute the ‘paralysed self’ through the passage of memory. To put differently, silence is pushed into memory and this memory in turn creates silent images. Silent images of dalit indicate some kind of a disconnect between social consciousness and material existence of dalits. Ambedkar does not allow silence to produce images that make memory as an ontological wound. History for Ambedkar becomes an important pedagogical means that he discursively employs to break silence not among the dalits but also among tormentors as well. Ambedkar’s conception of silence, thus involves an attempt to make necessary and enduring connection between material existence of dalits and their social consciousness. Gandhi on the other hand, does not succeed in breaking this connection as he does not link dalit with their social existence. His language of Harijan in Gandhi proves the point adequately. Gandhi breaking up silence depends on the silence of Ambedkar. To put differently the silence of untouchable breaks the silence of Gandhi. But this breaking requires the principle of responsibility. Ambedkar does not fix negative responsibility on Gandhi. That is to say, Ambedkar would not keep quiet and this would positively fix moral responsibility of Gandhi, compelling the latter to speak. Or if I speak in a bad voice it is not my responsibility but yours. Ambedkar takes on the positive responsibility to speak for himself. Archaeology of silence, I would argue, is related to the reduction of the dalit to dumb. Ambedkar’s itinerary of silence elevates the dumb to dalit.
Gopal Guru teaches at Centre for Political Studies , at JNU. He has published Cracked Mirror: Indian Debate on Theory and Experience, with Sundar Sarukkai,OUP, 2012. His other Book is Humiliation : Claims and Context, OUP, 2009.