Ambedkar cartoon

The issue created tensions across the country; a number of people raised their voices against the Congress Government, demanding the resignation of the Minister of HRD, Kapil Sibal. A group from Maharashtra went to Pune University and destroyed the office of Dr. Palshikar.^[9] Many political leaders of the country, including Ramadoss (PMK), D.Raja (CPI), Mayawati (BSP), Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP) and Sushma Swaraj (BJP) condemned the ruling UPA coalition. Dr. Satyanarayan condemned the left liberal intellectuals.^[10] Dr. Yadav and Dr. Palshikar also resigned as advisors of NCERT text book council in the wake of the controversy.^[9][11] A civil court also ordered a probe against Dr. Palishkar, Dr. Vasudevan and Dr. Yadav for their role in the controversy^[12]

The issue also gained widespread popularity in the Internet, where people condemned the politicians for focusing on less important issues like cartoons instead of more pertinent issues.^[1][13][14] The controversial cartoon itself was drawn in 1949, over six decades ago.^[15]

The Human Resource Minister constituted a committee (headed by Prof. Thorat, former Chairman of the University Grants Commission and belonging to Scheduled Castes) to review the matter, recommended removal of the cartoon among several others.^[16] The manner of functioning of this committee drew criticism from its members ^[17][18] and the recommendations were only accepted partially, after a storm of criticism from academics and historians. The actions of the political leaders and of the removal of the cartoon itself was considered populist, an affront to Freedom of expression and to Ambedkar himself by other historians, as well as Dalit groups.^[19][20] Not only was the cartoon neither insulting to Nehru nor Ambedkar (attempting only to criticize the sluggish pace of the constitution-writing), it was thought provoking and "these over-enthusiastic members seem to have overlooked that the cartoon was employed as a pedagogic device"^[20]