Waiting For A Visa: Autobiographical notes by B.R. Ambedkar

Waiting For A Visa: Autobiographical notes Reviews

• 
  Petra has forgotten what being in love feels like

  This book is about two things: the utmost in discrimination and racism made holy, and how no matter what the challenges are, if you have 'it' you can rise to the pinnacle of achievement. Ambedkar was 'the father of India's constitution', a brilliant man. He was also an untouchable and these are the stories of the absolute meanness, inhumanity and sheer nastiness he went through in the name of religion.
  
  Gandhi, who everyone elevates to god-like status for his pacifist stance to gaining independence was very much a man with feet of clay. In his years in South Africa, he said black people "are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals.", and "We could understand not being classed with the whites, but to be placed on the same level with the Natives seemed too much to put up with". There are many
  racist quotes from Gandhi, so it is perhaps no surprise that he also thought the caste system was a good thing.
  
  He thought caste was an integral part of Hinduism and was necessary for the harmonious social and economic good of society. He did want all castes to be seen as equal but not that they should have equal opportunity in careers - their paths in life being laid out for them by their caste, or lack of it - and fought for the upliftment and discrimination against to be removed. This upliftment of the oppressed did not extend to women, "However, while a woman may not wish to marry a certain man because of reasons of temperament, she may not neglect the duty of serving him".
  
  Gandhi who had many Jewish friends in South Africa, changed with WWII and was a supporter of both Mussolini and Hitler, writing to Hitler "Dear Friend, We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents." and “Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcb-cher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany.... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.” June 1946. His
  debates with Ambdekar are famous. Gandhi wanted to reform the caste system and Ambdekar, wanted to abolish it. The indignities he faced daily no one with any humanity would want to heap on anyone, except, as usual, in all religions, those who are convinced that maltreatment of others is holy and demanded by God(s).
  
  What is the position now of the 200 million people of the untouchable class, the Dalits Read the CNN
  report on the impact of Coronavirus on the Dalits. What is the position of Dalits that have moved to the US - there are problems in
  Silicon Valley and in
  tech in general.
  
  This book has made me very much more aware of caste, and how great Ambedkar, the late Justice Minister of India was. Also a good writer. You might think why do I care so much? Well, in addition to my immediate family being Black and White, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist and Jewish, my first cousin, an Orthodox Jew, married an Indian Hindu woman. So she and their children are my family too and we are all the same. Any differences are invented, they don't exist outside of people's heads they are passed on as religion and culture and politics in every country, and it is evil.
  
  Very powerful and brief account about how it is possible to reach the higher echelons under the British, but not be allowed to sit with, get water from a communal tap or visit ones 'liberal' friends in their own homes for dinner or date and marry them, if you are an untouchable.
• 
  Sushil Nair

  This book is still used as a text book in Columbia University and it's a shame that people in our country don't know much about this man who is also known as the architect of our constitution.
  The coolest thing I learnt about this prodigy when I was casually researching about him is when the doctors told him about his eyes were going bad ...he cried because he would not be able to read his favourite books...that explains his fat soda glasses !
  Ambedkar was not his real name but it was his teachers name who bestowed it on his favourite pupil
  Respect Sir ...I wish you were the first prime minister of India ... this country would see better days
  I would recommend this book to all
  Thanks
• 
  Aamil Syed

  On this constitution day, I decided to read an autobiographical work of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the father of India's constitution.
  
  This is a collection of real life incidents from the life of Babasaheb Ambedkar and a few others that are quite illustrative of the prevalence of the inhuman practice of untouchability, wherein Babasaheb asserts that a Savarna (upper caste Hindu) would rather be inhuman than touch an untouchable.
  
  The stories are vivid and quite heart-rending and they have been delivered in a most direct fashion without euphemism. A good introduction to someone who isn't aware of the stratified state of Indian society and how even the Parsis, Muslims and perhaps Christians participated and even practiced untouchability.
  
  Eye opening short read recommended to all. Easily available for free at any library run by an Ambedkarite organization or on any website dedicated to publishing Babasaheb's writings. You can also read it on the
  website of the Columbia University.
• 
  Sumirti Singaravelu

  India has a caste problem. Caste ( a fixed, graded inequality, which is a very aspect of Hinduism as a religion. It's not based on one's occupation (although it's made to be so), or one's food, the color of skin, or race. Rather, it's entirely based on where one is born in the religio-social hierarchal system. It's a system that does not allow someone born in the lower or untouchable caste to rise to the upper caste, or let the upper caste drop down to the lower ones, irrespective of someone's education, skills, etiquettes, genius, and moral upstanding). In India, caste is pervasive and affects every mundane activity of life. Simple, innocent aspects of life including what one can wear, what one can eat, whom one can love/marry, where one can live, the food or tradition or language, or the access to every day's markets, access to public goods, etc. depends on the workings and rules of caste. To put it simply, life in India, every aspect of it, is a function of caste.
  
  Ambedkar, although widely recognized as the First Law Minister of India and the Chief Architect of the Indian constitution, is a fighter and leader who dedicated his entire life to abolishing caste and for the upliftment of the much afflicted Dalits (the marginalized community at the last end of the caste pyramid, formerly addressed as 'Untouchables'). His fighting against Hinduism sanctioned casteism (In his own words, "There is no casteism without Hinduism. There's no Hinduism without casteism.") not only involved activism but rather an intellectual deconstruction of the working of the casteism in the Hindu religion, which continues to inspire generations of scholars to understand, decode, de-legitimize the caste and manifestations in society. Much more, he gave the blueprint on the caste and its close working mechanism with the economic and cultural concentration of power within a few ruling castes. He is a genius, and many of his writings on caste and its manifestations stand a source of power and scholarship one can draw from, to understand, re-negotiate, and question the morality of casteism in India, thereby providing hope and voice to the worst afflicted marginal communities in India.
  
  In this short 20 pages book, B.R.Ambedkar describes the untouchability and casteism he faced in India, in his everyday life. An accomplished scholar with a Master degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from London School of Economics, he recounts how he has forgotten about his 'untouchability' status while he was away from India. But, upon the return to his homeland, he was greeted with abuse and humiliation, and instances where his very life was threatened, just because of the caste he was born into.
  
  In all the five different scenarios which Ambedkar describes here from his personal life, what is horrible (I howled internally) is that his entire existence, skills, intelligence, identity is reduced to being an 'Untouchable'. An irreconcilable and non-negotiable identity that warrants a higher caste person* to dehumanize and humiliate (even kill) the other person, and what's worse it draws the sanction for the same from the Hindu religion and the caste order it has prescribed in detail. To humiliate, threaten, dehumanize, scorn, discriminate, lynch, kill an 'untouchable' is very much sanctioned by the religion. To be a caste Hindu (aka a religious Hindu) means, one can be casteist, racist, and treat 'untouchables' not even worth as a human. By the standards of humanity, a casteist or a racist may not be a human at all. But, under the Hindu religion, this person would be a 'pious Hindu' following the sacred scriptures prescribing the caste codes.
  
  The other lesson that Ambedkar makes clear here is the fact how religions such as Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, which have no caste within them, actually have borrowed and assimilated caste practices from Hinduism within them. This explains very much why Ambedkar eventually chose and converted to Buddhism, a religion that had its origins in India and opposed casteist practices.
  
  The other experience of him that made me shook (although I have read about these a lot) is the fact how casteism doesn't spare the treatment one bestows on a child. An 'untouchable' child is not a child but rather an 'untouchable'. Any ill-treatment, abuse against an 'untouchable' child is warranted by the casteism.
  
  Lastly, I found myself shook to the core, when I realized that the entire 'untouchability' of casteism was working that prevented the 'untouchables' from having access to the innocuous, lovely gift of nature and the utmost necessity for life, Water. The brief recounts by Ambedkar of how he cannot open a tap to quench his thrust at his school; the experience of a young Dalit working at a government job was forced to spend days without water; or the stirring of the mob towards Ambedkar and his colleagues because they drank water from a public tap gave a shrill in my spine.
  
  Although, this book was written years before when India was still without Independence, many of these injustices in the name of caste are very much alive in India today. There's a long fight ahead of every single person who wants to abolish caste in India, and no matter who begins this fight, they shall be doing the same under the torch and light ignited by B.R.Ambedkar.
  
  This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the caste and its manifestations in India. Highly recommended.
  
  ---------
  * For an 'untouchable', who is at the lowest end of the caste pyramid, every single caste above is an 'upper caste'. And everyone does oppress them.
  
  ** Casteism is a graded inequality that places one caste above another. Like a million steps in a ladder. There are too many lower castes, and these castes are not even the same all over India. But, irrespective of the divisions at the lower level of the caste pyramid, the upper castes are the same all over India. And the lowest castes, 'untouchables' are the same all over India.
  
  In other words, an upper-caste Brahmin from the South of India might find similarities and brotherhood in another upper-caste Brahmin from the North of India. But, the lower caste (with different names, identities, traditions, food habits, occupations etc) may not find solidarity or similar identities with the lower castes or groups beyond their region. Bertrand Russell once said that had the English found religion in India, they could have remained and ruled in India for a longer time. It's true!
• 
  Ravi Prakash

  Untouchability is unconstitutional, but still practised. Not every Hindu is equal by birth in Hindu religion. This is the ground reality of Hindu society. Inter-cast marriage aren't considered good, honor killing happens now and then in cities and villages. Social justice is still not fully implemented.
  .
  This autobiographical work of B. R. Ambedkar gives you a glimpse of 1930s India and its caste-discrimination when a lower untouchable couldn't drink water from a public tap or well,can't lodge in a public house or any upper caste person's home. This discrimination is still prevalent and practised when you go to a landlord asking for a room.
  
  This book is taught in Columbia University. Any Non-indian who wanna know about the caste-discrimination in India should read this. It's a blot and stigma on Hinduism and Indian society.
• 
  Arunmozhi Ganesan

  Short and hard hitting. I am sure everyone from the oppressed society has similar stories to tell even today. This is for all the boomers who think money is all that matters and not caste.
• 
  Shruti Badole

  A short, but powerful prose that gives an insight into the lives of Dalits during Babasaheb Ambedkar's life. This is not a full autobiography but a collection of a few memories that stayed with Babasaheb for a long, long time.
• 
  Bhumika

  Short and impactful. The evils of untouchability shown through six different autobiographical incidents. It tells that untouchability is not a result of illiteracy but a stigma, a poison of Hindu's pride and self superiority. And it doesn't end with one religion, an untouchable to a Hindu is an untouchable to a Parsi, a Muslim, and converted Christians too.
• 
  Ravishankar Ayyakkannu

  A must read short book. Clearly illustrates how caste based discrimination doesn't go away even when you are educated and have a good profession. Helps you understand why enforcing Creamy Layer in reservation is wrong.
• 
  Aritra Dasgupta

  This is not meant to be read as a story or a series of anecdotal incidents. It's not meant to amuse you. This was a clear logical mind making a list of facts to showcase the world the plight of the untouchables.
  But I went into this blind and read it expecting an autobiographical journey through discrimination. Which is why when I went from intensely personal accounts to the letter of a doctor letting a pregnant woman die, the narrative momentum fell kinda flat for me. This is not disrespect. You have to acknowledge it as a smart diplomatic move to show you that Ambedkar wasn't the only one suffering so much.
  (YES I HAD NO SEGUE HERE LOL)
  This has the Parsi Inn incident which i just have to recommend people to read, just the image of young B.R. sitting in a park with all his luggage is so powerful. To go from that to two letters by people who don't have the eloquent educated style of Ambedkar you can feel the difference and even though you realise the importance, I just I want more Ambedkar, which I'm gonna try to get. I make this sound like torture porn but Ambedkar and his balls of steel and amazing diction, I do want to hear more from this man. Yes. Amazing read but I can't help being this cringey cliche but it was too short and I wanted more of the author.
• 
  MoNika

  In this short book, Ambedkar very lucidly talks about the challenges an untouchable faced during this growing up years. He writes in this book, about the heart wrenching episodes of how being a untouchable was a sin equally amongst hindus, musalmans, parsis, non educated and educated. Even after coming from a modest family, having studied in USA and London, he was treated no different from any other uneducated and poor harijan.
• 
  Boni Aditya

  The India that people revere and worship as the birth place of humanity, religion and spirituality.
  The Land of the Sanatana Dharma, The Vedic Literature, The Itihasas, The puranas, Karmic Philosophy and yet this land can't hide its shame, its sin, its ignorance, its social evils.
  
  This one book enough to understand how disgusting Indian Social Fabric is, Caste is in the DNA of Indians, they take it with them wherever they go. They go to USA and practice it there, when Mahatma Gandhi was jailed in South Africa, he wrote a letter to the authorities asking him to be segregated from low castes, refusing to share the same blankets, which was published in the front page of a daily!
  
  An average Indian is narrow minded by definition, an average Indian is evil by societal construct, he is born with bias, he is taught discrimination right from his childhood. Indians will be infected with diseases of caste, language, religion and many other evils before they could realize anything.
  
  Waiting for a VISA is an apt title to this book, I assume that he desperately wanted to leave the country that treated his to all kinds of evils. I don't understand why he hasn't left the country that refused to provide a glass of water to him and his brothers! Why he had to serve this country and write its constitution is beyond the scope of my understanding. His desperate attempts to save the dalits, only seem to have made it worse! The Cobra Effect, but nobody could have foreseen the future.
  
  But the books is extremely well written, with case studies starting from his childhood, to a untouchable forced to resign his job, or being threatened to vacate the lodge by goons who were attempting to lynch him. India is a breeding ground for fanaticism, ignorance and foolishness adds fuels to the fire and riots ensure. The social order is evil and designed to exploit a sect of people for many generations by making them slaves to the society!
• 
  Dinesh

  A short but fierce notes on how badly a person had been treated in name of caste in a century before would really made those (who call them as upper class) feel shameful. He not only attacked Hindus blindly but also the parsis, Muslims and whoever depress one because of one's communal background. All his views are only based on his personal experience.
• 
  A. M. Faisal

  A very conscious take on the reality of the caste system of the British India-not necessarily implied by them, rather the mechanism was at play for hundreds of years. The writer expresses a few instances of his own life and a few from other's experience to illustrate the plight of the untouchables. They were so abhorred that not only the caste Hindus but also converted Christians, even classless Parsis & Muslims looked down upon them.
  They were denied access to water, seat in a public place, a common mode of transportation and a place to stay even for a night. They had to go untreated, unheard and uneducated in the most cases.
  The deplorable condition has been addressed by Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar in a subtle sarcastic tone but with a sense of deep empathy. Being an untouchable himself, his writings give us the greater insight. Rightly said by Babasaheb,
  

  
  "It was then I learnt that a Hindu tongawalla, no better than a menial, has a dignity by which he can look upon himself as a person who is superior to any untouchable, even though he may be a Barrister-at-law."
  
  "The Hindu would prefer to be inhuman rather than touch an Untouchable"
• 
  Mohammad Sabbir Shaikh

  Waiting for a Visa is a short autobiography of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. He tells us six incidents (in six chapters) of his life when he was ill treated because of his caste. This book is used as a textbook in the Columbia University. If you're considering reading this book, visit their website and try to read it today itself. It's his 129th Birth Anniversary today.
• 
  Roselyn

  I felt that I was in a dungeon and I longed for the company of some human being to talk to. But there was none. In the absence of the company of human beings I sought the company of books and read and read. Absorbed in reading I forgot my lonely condition.
• 
  Saravanakumar S K

  Just in twenty pages, Babasaheb Ambedkar put a quick autobiography or more precisely a few pages of his life in this book. Most disheartening incidents of it come in the lines "If you are untouchable to a Hindu then you are untouchable to Parsi, Muslim and etc."
• 
  Prabhat sharma

  Waiting for Visa- Bhimrao Ambedkar-Autobiographical notes by B R Ambedkar- 1901 to 1938. The Book has description of the childhood and initial years of author working in India. In the book, he has described the difficulties faced by him because of being a member of the Schedule Caste and thus an untouchable. First incident, His father worked in the Army at Koregaon which was a few miles away from the residence at Dupoli, Ratnagiri. His father invited the children to meet him. For this, he gave them money for expenses of the journey. The children had informed father by letter that they will arrive by train on such date and an attendant with transport – bullock cart should be arranged for them at the Railway Station. When the children arrived, transport and the attendant were not available. They waited but on finding no solution, they hired a bullock cart, crossed a river and reached their father. On enquiry, it was found that the letter written by the children to their father was received but not delivered to him. Second, Ambedkar joined as a Probationer to the Accountant General under Maharaja of Baroda. He applied for lodging but the Administration took time. He enquired about lodges and found was informed that a Parsi lodge was there. He informed that enquired the Parsi lodge owner that he was a Hindu and wanted a room on rent. The Parsi said that he owned a Parsi hotel and only Parsi’s could board. He suggested that Ambedkar could enter a Parsi name in the register of the hotel and stay. After some days it was discovered that he was not a Parsi and an untouchable. A group of Parsis came and asked him to vacate the lodge. He went to the Railway Station and left for Bombay. Third, Tonga accident at Chalisgaon. The Government appointed Ambedkar as a member of a commission to investigate the grievances of untouchables. He informed about his visit to people of Chalisgaon. On reaching the railway station, he was received by the local residents. He was taken in a Tonga to the City. During the journey he found that the Tonga driver was not able to drive the Tonga well and on culvert on a river with a sharp turn. The Tonga could not take the turn and turned and Ambedkar fell on the ground and was hurt. He went to the place of rest and enquired about the facts. He was informed that the local Tonga drivers refused to drive an untouchable on their Tonga. So, the local untouchables hired a Tonga and drove the Tonga. As they were not trained in driving a Tonga, they met with an accident. Fourth, Polluting the water at the fort in Daulatabad- With a group of untouchables, Ambedkar visited Verul (Ajanta) Caves near Aurangabad. This place is Muslim dominated and under the territory of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Here they washed their hands and feet with water. Later, the Muslims came to know that they were untouchables. They raised a commotion. They were allowed to visit the caves but were not allowed to use the water tanks in the area. Fifth, A doctor refuse to give care to an untouchable young woman at Kathiawar and she dies of illness. Sixth, a young clerk is abused and threatened until he gives his job- A young man was appointed as a Talathi in the office of Mamlatdar in Borsad Taluka in Kheda district. As he was an untouchable, he was threatened. The headman asked him to leave the job and go back. Ultimately, he left the job. The above six incidents from 1901 to 1938 show that untouchability was practiced in India. Now, after the Constitution of India has been adopted, people are more tolerant and such mentality has much reduced.
• 
  Preeti

  This 20 page autobiography divided in six short chapters is an easy read but gives so many insights about the structure of Indian society primarily based on caste structure. The small anecdotes that are being narrated in the book written during the period of 1935-36, holds equal relevance in the 21st century and hence direct our attention to the fact that caste structure is rigid in its composition. Quoting directly from these chapters that narrates the experiences of dalits in day-to-day life:
  1. “Person who is untouchable to a Hindu is also untouchable to a Parsi.”
  2. “A Hindu tongawalla, no better than a menial, has a dignity by which he can look upon himself as a person who is superior to any untouchable, even though he may be a Barrister-at-law.”
  3. “A person who is untouchable to a Hindu is also an untouchable to a Mohammedan.”
  4. “The Hindu would prefer to be inhuman rather than untouchable”--From chapter A doctor refuses to give proper care, and a young woman dies because she was untouchable.
  5. “A young clerk is abused and threatened until he gives up his job because he was untouchable.”
• 
  Shyamala Rajasekar

  Ambedkar is a master storyteller.
  
  An important book to show that not much has changed in the caste terrain since 1930s. This book is in the curriculum of University of Columbia. It fails me why a book that is a collection of discrimination stories of the Dalits hasn't found a place in our academic curriculums. We all grew up learning about the discrimination that Mahatma Gandhi faced in South Africa during the British rule. Discrimination in both cases of Gandhi and Ambedkar is pretty much the same. In case of Gandhi it was at the hands of Britishers while in case of Ambedkar and his brethen, it was at the hands of his own countrymen. Ambedkar continues to entrall me with his simple yet intelligent writing. He is a master of words. Not applauding his work is a great injustice to literature and human intelligence as a whole.
• 
  Lauky

  Collection of True Accounts of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar's life, reflecting the mindsets of contemporary Indians.
• 
  Kaniraj Shenbaga

  A total of 27 pages in short C size (5.3" x 8.3") pages; that's all the book is. But, neither judge a book by its cover nor by its size.

  The book is not an exhaustive autobiography of Ambedkar. In six short chapters, rather essays, describing different incidents experienced between 1901, as a nine year old school student, and 1938, as a well-qualified barrister, Ambedkar gives one a powerful insight into the untold stories and unwritten biographies of the multitudes of untouchables in India. An hour of reading would make a lifelong impact. That's what at least I would like to believe despite not discerning even a shade of remorse or repentance among the Indian society.

  In her Caste, Isabel Wilkerson clubs together, rather simplistically, the US and Indian discriminating social systems as one and the same caste system, both founded on the eight pillars of: Divinity, Heritability, Endogamy, Purity versus pollution, Occupational hierarchy, Dehumanization and stigma, Terror and cruelty, and Inherent superiority and inferiority. A single sentence in Waiting for a Visa would make Wilkerson rethink her hypothesis, rewrite Caste giving the Indian caste system its truly exalted position in the revised editions.

  In modern times, the period 1877-1954 during which Jim Crow Law reigned supreme is supposedly the time of worst black-white social discrimination and segregation in USA. Ambedkar lived in USA between 1913 and 1917 studying at Columbia University in New York. Then he spent one year in London studying at the University of London before returning to India. And this is what he writes in the book:

  My five years of staying in Europe and America had completely wiped out of my mind of any consciousness that I was an untouchable, and that an untouchable wherever he went in India was a problem to himself and to others.

  So much for Wilkerson's 21st century caste in USA!

  
  by
  
  Isabel Wilkerson
• 
  Akash Amat

  A 20-page collection of six episodes related to untouchability, drawn from Ambedkar's experiences.
  
  I kind of randomly picked it actually and it ended up being quite an enriching read.
  The motivation which Ambedkar describes in the foreword is to acquaint non-Indians with the practical realities of untouchability, and he does so in a concise and focused way. I read his detailed Wikipedia article as well, and I'm inspired to know more about the life of this great man.
  
  Of course, within 20 pages, an in-depth discussion of the history and an multi-faceted analysis of the practice is not to be expected, though some more insights from the author would have been great. Regarding the writing quality, I felt it to be slightly off.
  
  The Kindle edition I read strangely lacked publishing info - not even its own ASIN is mentioned. Though, the contents are authentic.
  Here's a more authoritative source:
  http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pr...
• 
  Thribhuvan Tejaswi

  “Waiting for a Visa” is a short autobiographical account by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. He recalls the terrible experiences of his childhood.
  *As he travelled to meet his father who was in a koregaon.
  *Ambedkar discovers that he is particularly unwelcomed by the Hindu hotels and not allowed accommodation anywhere when he returns to serve the State of Baroda.
  *In the third instance, he met with a dangerous accident in chalisgaon, much due to the nescient nature of the Untouchables.
  * By refusing to share water from their tank, Muslims also prove that they subscribe to caste norms established by Hindus, After the incident of fort of dautalabad Ambedkar quotes "A person who is untouchable to a Hindu is also an untouchable to all other religions".
  *Ambedkar introduces the story published in Mahatma Gandhi’s journal, named “Young India". Ambedkar's Fascinating style of narration evokes the true emotions and hardships behind these experiences.
• 
  Kerem Abuc

  Today, I read the parts about the cast system in "Narrow Corridor" and extend my research with this book. I am thrilled to learn how the cast system is still active in the 20th century and how it affected the people in the lower casts.
  Ambedkar gave 6 staggering examples from his life. He tremendously showed how life of a Dalit is grueling. I was also expecting to see how he had fought with this and start a change so gave this book 4 stars.
  Additionally, it's also surprising that although there is an effort to eliminate it, the caste system is still life-ruining. Besides, there are many Indian Executive Vice Presidents in high tech firms and I was expecting them to be open-minded and passionate about this subject to have a tremendous fight against these behaviors which are totally opposed to human rights.