Budh Sharan Hans: ‘Had OBC leaders stood with Ambedkar, India would be different today’
Budh Sharan Hans is counted among the leading Dalitbahujan thinkers. He tells Arun Narayan that it was the OBC leaders’ indifference to Ambedkar adopting Buddhism that turned their communities into the biggest advocates of Brahmanism
Born in Tilora village in the Wazirganj area of Gaya district of Bihar on 8 April 1942, Budh Sharan Hans belongs to the rare breed of writers who practise what they preach. He has used his short stories, poems, biographies, autobiography and his skills as an editor and publisher to telling effect for spreading the ideology of Phule and Ambedkar. He has so far published four collections of short stories, five volumes of his autobiography, an anthology of poems and dozens of booklets targeting religious status quoism. He has been publishing a magazine titled Ambedkar Mission for years and also runs a publishing house of the same name. From 1969 to 2000, he was a Bihar State Administrative Service officer. He has been conferred with the Ambedkar Rashtriya Puraskar by Bharatiya Dalit Academy, Delhi. In 2002, the Bihar government honoured him with Bhimrao Ambedkar Puraskar. Here are edited excerpts of his long conversation with Arun Narayan, a young critic from Bihar.