The Tightened Noose: Ambedkar’s “Waiting for a Visa”

Abstract

We are becoming accustomed to the deluge of instances of prejudice against individuals and groups of individuals. The prejudice has innumerable roots, among them race, ethnicity, religion, nationalism, gender, and class.  In several places—like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, and South Africa under apartheid—prejudice has been constitutionally entrenched. Almost all prejudice and the misery that befalls us as a consequence spring from a sense of exclusivity and superiority. This sense, coupled with greed, led to the deracination of entire peoples, like the First Nations of the Caribbean; to the enslavement of millions of Africans; to the still-prevailing indentureship system; to the wholesale murder of Jews during WWII, to list a few of the horrors.