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| Dalit Movement after Ambedkar in India — A representative image. |
File Information
| Document Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Title | Dalit Movement after Dr. Babasaheb Amebedkar in India: Pitfalls, Challenges & Way Ahead |
| Article Credit | Buddhist Voice, Issue: 3, Year: 2013, (Pubd in: Academia.edu) |
| Author | Goldy M George |
| Subject | This article examines the post-Ambedkar Dalit movement in India, focusing on its historical background, political trajectories, and strategic limitations. It also discusses caste hierarchy, reservation, land rights, Hindutva, globalisation, and the need for a renewed anti-caste politics. |
| Category | Article |
| Main Topics | Post-Ambedkar Dalit movement, Caste system and untouchability, Reservation policy, Dalit political organisations, Land rights and agrarian power, Hindutva and communal fascism, Globalisation and economic reforms, Ambedkarite counter-culture |
| Number of Pages | 9 |
| Language | English |
| File Type | |
| File Size | 373.2 KB |
Summary Note of this Document
Dalit Movement after Dr. Babasaheb Amebedkar in India: Pitfalls, Challenges & Way Ahead
This article analyses the Dalit movement in India after Dr Ambedkar, tracing its shift from anti-caste struggle to fragmented political mobilisation. It argues that the movement gained visibility through reservation, political parties, and regional assertions, but often neglected land rights, class alliances, and the deeper annihilation of caste. The essay situates Dalit politics within the long history of Brahminism, untouchability, and social oppression, while also linking it to figures and currents such as Phule, Ayyankali, the Republican Party, Dalit Panthers, BAMCEF, BSP, and Dalit struggles in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. A major concern is the failure of the movement to confront Hindutva, communal fascism, and the effects of globalisation and economic reforms on education, employment, and social security. The author repeatedly returns to Ambedkar's critique of caste, imperialism, and religious domination, presenting him as the central thinker for a secular, democratic, and anti-caste counter-culture. The concluding emphasis is on recovering Ambedkar's broader emancipatory project rather than reducing it to identity politics or symbolic hero worship.
Core Themes
- Annihilation of caste
- Limits of post-Ambedkar Dalit politics
- Reservation and social mobility
- Land question and rural power relations
- Hindutva, communalism, and fascism
Keywords
About Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born in 1891 as the fourteenth and youngest child of an army Subedar in Mhow. Born into the Mahar caste, which was considered untouchable, Bhimrao faced many hardships at school. He had to sit on a gunny sack that he brought from home. He was not allowed to touch the water vessel or cup, so he could drink water only when the school peon was present to pour it for him. He later described this experience with the words, “No peon, no water.” His mother died when he was very young, and he had a difficult childhood. However, he was the only one of his siblings to pass his examinations and continue to high school, becoming the first person from his community to attend Elphinstone College. With a scholarship from the Maharaja of Baroda, he went on to study at Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He earned doctorates in economics and trained as a barrister at Gray’s Inn. According to the account supplied for this biography, his books were lost when his ship was torpedoed during the First World War.
Despite his education, Ambedkar continued to face prejudice. When he returned to India, he was required to work in Baroda but had to leave the position because of discrimination. His business providing investment consultancy failed when clients learned that he belonged to a community considered untouchable. While working as a professor in Mumbai, his colleagues objected to the idea of him sharing a water jug with his students. These experiences helped spur his activism. He established newspapers to give a voice to marginalized people. He led the Mahad Satyagraha, asserting Dalits’ right to collect water from a public tank, and publicly burned the Manusmriti in 1927. In 1932, he negotiated the Poona Pact with Mahatma Gandhi. Although it involved a difficult compromise, the pact provided reserved seats in legislatures for the Depressed Classes. Ambedkar was outspoken in public life but private by nature. His wife Ramabai died in 1935, and he filled his home in Bombay with a large personal library reported to contain more than 50,000 books. He declared, “I am born a Hindu, but I will not die as one.”
During the period of Indian independence, Jawaharlal Nehru invited Ambedkar to become India’s first Law Minister. Ambedkar chaired the Drafting Committee that prepared the Constitution of India, which abolished the practice of untouchability and established civil liberties and constitutional safeguards, including reservations for historically oppressed communities. He acknowledged the contribution of other constitutional experts, including B. N. Rau, who had prepared an earlier draft. Because of his poor health, including diabetes, Ambedkar married Savita, a doctor who cared for him. In October 1956, he converted to Buddhism in Nagpur along with a vast gathering of followers, commonly estimated at around half a million. He died in his sleep just weeks later, shortly after completing his final major work, The Buddha and His Dhamma. He was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1990. His message, “Educate, agitate, organise,” continues to inspire people seeking equality and social justice.
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