Western scholars began paying attention to Mahatma Gandhi because he appeared to offer a non-violent way of opposing Communism while pushing through Civil Rights. However, part of his appeal was that he appeared to have some super-power. How else did 300 million Indians manage get rid of 30,000 Englishmen whose Prime Minister wanted the British Raj to end? Such an outcome could only have been the outcome of Gandhi spinning cotton or going on hunger strike.
One question one might ask is how India became a democracy. The answer comes in two parts
1) some Princes were deciding to turn themselves into Constitutional Monarachs. One or two introduced universal suffrage and even a degree of affirmative action. The Gaekwad, the patron of Dr. Ambedkar, was one such Prince.
2) the directly ruled British Provinces too were moving towards elections of a widening franchise and first 'dyarchy' and then full provincial autonomy culminating in full independence.
Prior to full universal suffrage which Ceylon got in 1931 and India implemented in 1951, some advocates of special interest groups had a degree of salience. At a later point, one or two such figures became the centre of a cult for particular, caste based, political parties. But this did not mean they were 'theorists' or 'philosophers' any more than Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Gaddaffi or Nehru were great intellectuals.
Dr. Ambedkar, whose thought is generally pellucid and easy to follow- though often irascible and crudely polemical- has now attracted the attention of an American Professor- Scott Stroud who writes in Aeon.
The intersections of Ambedkar’s political activism and his philosophical acumen were vividly displayed earlier in his life.
This is false. Ambedkar wasn't very good at politics. He wasn't able to save his job with the Gaekwad- perhaps he didn't want to, but fighting back would have given him more power and authority. His failure in this respect is the reason both the Brits and the High Castes thought it worthwhile to pump and dump him. They assumed he was bright but naive. Perhaps that is the truth of the matter. His big mistake was allying with the League but it was his pal Mandal who had to run away from Pakistan.
The 1930s was a period marred by Ambedkar’s conflict with the powerful symbol of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi.
Not really. Gandhi was faced with the 'Rajah-Moonje' pact between the Mahasabha and an important, ex-Justice Party, Dalit leader from Madras. Thus, he gave Ambedkar a favorable deal so as to stay in the game. After all, Gujarati Banias benefited from an alliance with Maharashtrian Mahars. The problem with the deal was that it only helped the Congress party in Madras, not Bombay. In Bengal, Mandal was foolish enough to ally with the League.
Having lost faith in the Hindu tradition as amenable to social reform, Ambedkar grew so disillusioned that, by 1935, he proclaimed in a speech that, although he was born a Hindu, ‘I solemnly assure you that I will not die a Hindu.’
Christianity would have been the best alternative but Westminster had barred Christian Dalits from affirmative action in 1935. Islam too was a non-starter because the Muslims didn't treat their own Dalits well. The Sikhs weren't particularly keen on expanding out of the Punjab. The Mahasabha had signaled that they had no objection to Dalits becoming Buddhists or converting to any other Indic faith.
The other consideration was the high percentage of Dalits in Punjab. Ambedkar's mistake was not to play up Saintly figures from that region rather than adopting an atheistic and irascible tone. The young students from Lahore and Peshawar may have had very advanced views, but Punjab is agricultural and spiritual.
By 1936, he was very loudly criticising Hinduism and its holy texts,
in practice, this only targeted Brahmins. The Buddhists don't deny the Vedas, they just say there are interpolations. The other point was that many thought the Brits had fixed things so Congress would lose the 1937 elections. What if 'worker and peasant' parties swept the poll?
and imploring his fellow Dalits to convert away from Hinduism to escape their oppressive status as ‘untouchables’. In an infamous speech – undelivered because
the Punjabis who had invited Ambedkar were expecting a statesmanlike speech peppered with quotations from great Sikh Gurus, Sufi and Bhakti Saints as well as condign praise for Punjab's soldiers, farmers and Schools and Colleges. Also, Ambedkar should have played up his connection with Lala Lajpat in America.
of its explosive criticisms of sacred Hindu shastras (holy texts) – Ambedkar argues that the caste system is harmful not only because it is oppressive, but most importantly because it destroys the unity and respect among members that are essential to democracy.
Most people thought that democracy wasn't working. America had had the Great Depression. Hitler and Stalin, it was believed, had restored full employment and were presiding over a booming economy.
Ambedkar’s activism on the specific issue of caste oppression was underwritten by a full-throated philosophy of democracy.
No. Ambedkar, like other smart people during the inter-war period, was maddened by the crazy shit that was going down all over the place. By 1937, it was obvious that Hindu majority areas would be ruled by high caste Hindus. The Brits might accommodate Ambedkar at the Centre but he would have no real power or influence. Nehru may have made Ambedkar his Law Minister, but Jinnah did the same to Ambedkar's pal Mandal who soon had to run away to India. Both inherited the wilderness while Congress 'Harijans' rose and rose. But this was on the basis of their merit.
Where did Ambedkar find the inspiration for the image of democracy he was going to construct – and then employ – in his fight for social justice in India?
In India. He went to School and College there. His first degree was in Economics and Political Science. Like every other College graduate in India, Ambedkar knew about Parliamentary Government and the separation of powers and the arguments for and against giving women the vote etc, etc. The fact is Poli Sci isn't exactly high IQ. Ambedkar's mistake was not to swot up on Math & Stats.
Ambedkar was one of the most well-read Indians of his period, possessing a personal library of around 50,000 books at the time of his death.
No. He was one of the best educated and most well-read Law Ministers in any country of that or any other time. His mistake was not keep up with Cowles Commission type Econ. Also, he doesn't seem to have learnt about Hohfeldian incidents.
But he was also one of the most highly educated Indian leaders of his day,
Which American leader was better educated than Ambedkar? None at all.
with academic and legal credentials from institutions such as Columbia University,
PhD Fiscal Policy
the London School of Economics,
PhD Monetary Theory. Admittedly, his thesis wasn't very good.
and Gray’s Inn. One of the most intriguing things about Ambedkar is that he pursued much of his Western education in the US,
Because he was sent there by an Indian Prince who wanted him to return and work for him. West India preferred American Universities to British ones for a reason the great Alfred Marshall himself gave.
and not just in the well-known universities so many of his Indian (and upper-caste) compatriots frequented.
Tilak had gotten Maharashtrians to look to America. The first Indian to attend MIT did so in the 1880s. He was from Pune.
Ambedkar went to Columbia in 1913-16
New York was way ahead of any city in Europe and Columbia was its premier Academic Institution.
and was exposed to one-of-a-kind progressive intellectuals bent on using academic research to change societies and practices for the better. At Columbia, Ambedkar would study intensively with the US economist and taxation specialist Edwin R A Seligman; the Russian-born economic historian, ornery anti-Marxist and amateur gardener Vladimir Simkhovitch;
who was important for Indians because India too had a backward peasantry and oppressive landlords.
and perhaps the most impressive philosopher of the day, John Dewey.
In his later years, Ambedkar remembered all these figures but Dewey and his pragmatism stood out.
Indian epistemology has always been pragmatics. 'Artha' means both meaning and economic activity. 'Matlab' too has means economic motivation as well as meaning. Legal and other Hermeneutics looks to the rational motivation of the action.
While Ambedkar was making his way back to Columbia in 1952 to receive an honorary degree, Dewey died of pneumonia. Distraught, Ambedkar wrote to his wife Savita
a Brahmin Doctor
from New York lamenting the fact that he missed the chance to see his beloved teacher: ‘I was looking forward to meet[ing] Prof Dewey.’ Ambedkar’s letter then revealed what Dewey had meant to him: ‘I am so sorry. I owe all my intellectual life to him. He was a wonderful man.’
He was saintly- a true 'Guru'.
The courses Ambedkar took from Dewey gave the young Indian reformer a powerful overview of pragmatism
But Indians don't need any such thing unless they are doing some type of mathematical logic.
Ambedkar had accomplished so much, both in the millions of words he wrote or spoke to intellectual or general audiences, and in the political and social activism he pursued. But what sort of intellectual debt did he owe Dewey?
None. Dewey was a nice guy. He wasn't a great thinker. The fact is, America was phasing in an academic type of High School for everybody from about 1910 to 1938. England introduced similar 'Comprehensive Schools' on a large scale in the Sixties. Previously, only a small proportion of young people would have the capacity to go on to University. America, thanks to its High Schools, was able to jump to a University attendance of thirty percent while it was still only five percent in Europe. Dewey was important because his society was moving in a very progressive direction in a manner unprecedented in history. It must also be said that the 'Land Grant' Universities of America were willing and able to introduce all sorts of highly useful courses- e.g. Marketing, Film Making, Journalism- at a time when Europe's Universities were still recognizably medieval.
While many have noted this intriguing letter, none have truly explored the historical and intellectual relationship between Dewey and Ambedkar.
There is little to explore. Ambedkar knew that America was rich and educated and getting richer and richer. India was a shithole.
This is a shame, since both are intellectual giants in their own rights, and their confluence can show us what Ambedkar saw as valuable in Dewey – and how Ambedkar’s own pragmatism extends the pluralistic tradition of pragmatism.
This is foolish. Ambedkar was narrowly focussed on his own community's welfare. That is why his stature has grown in India as his people have risen up and proven themselves in every worthwhile field.
Ambedkar was not just an activist – he was also a philosopher.
No. Radhakrishnan and Hardayal were philosophers. Tagore was regarded as a philosopher by people like Brouwer. Ambedkar had better things to do with his time.
The philosophy he advocated was a form of pragmatism fitted to the concerns of democracy amid social divisions such as those of caste.
No. He had zero interest in advocating any type of philosophy. His Buddhism was intellectually sub-par. Had he done Maths he'd have been able to follow mathematical logic and maybe taken a Piercian line- though, truth be told, hardly anybody back then paid Pierce any attention.
While taking classes at Columbia University, Ambedkar stumbled into Dewey’s classroom. He shouldn’t have been there – the young Indian had signed an agreement in 1913 with the Maharaja of Baroda, his financial supporter, that he would study only finance and sociology at Columbia.
Sociology is an elastic term. The Gaekwad knew that students he financed would study 'Harbhat Pendse', read Shyamji Krishna Verma's 'the Indian Sociologist' and become radicalized. He was cool with that. He had previously hired Aurobindo and would send Tilak to give 5000 quid to the Labour Party. The question was whether Ambedkar would be recruited by Lala Lajpat Rai. He refused.
But Dewey had a profile that would have been difficult for Ambedkar to resist in his coursework. The US pragmatist was at the top of his game in the 1910s, engaged in the philosophical work that would inform his book Democracy and Education (1916). Dewey was also hard at work creating institutions such as the American Association of University Professors in 1915 – with figures such as Ambedkar’s advisor, Seligman – dedicated to protecting academic freedom at US universities.
Ambedkar had zero interest in this. He wasn't a Liberal. He knew that both the Liberals and the 'Garam Dal' would not prioritize the plight of his people. The Brits would give him a better deal. Sadly, he and Mandal also thought they could trust the Muslim League. That didn't end well.
Dewey’s philosophy was also making its mark on the US scene. By the time he had joined Columbia’s faculty, he had already gained fame with his early writings from his time at the University of Michigan and his operation of the ‘Laboratory School’ at the University of Chicago, an example of how Dewey’s practical experiments informed his philosophical writings. By the time Ambedkar heard Dewey at Columbia, Dewey had left his older philosophically Idealist vocabulary behind and was engaged in exploring the interaction of community and experience in human life. Resisting the older emphases in much European philosophy toward the unchanging and certain, Dewey revelled in an ever-changing and uncertain world.
But Dewey's world was changing for the better. The position of Ambedkar's Mahars had worsened. They were no longer being recruited into the Army.
Dewey’s thought emphasised this important nexus of experience. It merged his two guiding lights – G W F Hegel and Charles Darwin –
why not Einstein and the Wizard of Oz?
into a vision of philosophy as doing justice to the lived qualities of experience, as well as the human capacity for reflection or enquiry.
Which is cool if you are living large on an Ivy League campus. Ambedkar, driven out of the Gaekwad's employment by casteist bigots, was organizing Mill workers in the slums.
Our powers of reason were not godly or divine, but they came from and returned to courses of experience that called for our engaged attention to reconstruct them.
A great consolation for untouchables denied access to drinking water- right?
Dewey’s philosophy dovetailed with his work on education and pedagogy,
which a country can only go in for if it is rich and getting richer.
as they both saw the human as a habit-bearing being that could bring these habits to bear on experience that offered more problems than resources. He saw the power in our ability to intelligently change the habits of self and other to become better adapted to our social and natural environments.
Sadly, under Woodrow Wilson, the position of African Americans in Federal Employment greatly worsened. It is cool to be a White Professor in wealthy America. But Ambedkar wasn't white. Indeed, Asian people of his colour wouldn't become eligible for citizenship till 1965.
Dewey’s philosophy aimed to theorise the world so as to enable us to better adjust to it or to adapt it to our needs. His thought was oriented at reconstructing ourselves and our communities, more so than simply to describe the truths of the world.
What a fucking pointless thing to do! Still, rich peeps can afford to send their kids to a posh Skool where they are welcome to waste their time in this way.
The courses that Ambedkar took from Dewey in psychological ethics and political philosophy gave the young Indian reformer a powerful overview of pragmatism.
No. Ambedkar knew that he might have to be a Professor in India and thus have to talk bien pensant bollocks.
He saw Dewey as extending and enlarging the tradition of philosophy that William James (1842-1910) and Charles S Peirce (1839-1914) had helped to shape, and that contemporary figures such as Jane Addams (1860-1935) and Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch (1867-1951) were both theorising and putting into practice in the social sphere.
Pierce was bright. James wrote well. Addams won the Nobel Peace Prize. But Ambedkar was occupied in a very different way. No doubt, he needed to relax and unwind just like other people but his work was in India.
There are many stories to be told about Ambedkar, but there is one that has yet to be fully explored. It is a story of influence, imagination and emancipation. It is the story of Ambedkar as a pragmatist.
No. There is only one story to be told about Ambedkar. It is of a guy who was solely focussed on his own people- viz. Hindu Dalits. He didn't object when Westminster barred Christian Dalits from affirmative action. He himself played a big part in stripping Muslim Dalits of affirmative action previously awarded to them. Later, first Sikh and then Buddhist, Dalits were accorded this benefit. Muslim and Christians are still barred and that's fine with most Ambedkarites.
What does it mean to consider Ambedkar as a pragmatist?
Nothing at all. Hinduism has always had a pragmatic hermeneutic.
Does it mean we are somehow capturing his essence, and excluding the other important labels often attached to him and his life story? In short, no. Just as Ambedkar can be described as a Buddhist and as a politician, he can also be described as a pragmatist.
No. He described himself as a Buddhist and a politician. He didn't describe himself as a pragmatist because it was preferable to appear a man of principle.
Each of these labels gives us a way of understanding and foregrounding certain facts and themes in his life story; no label captures everything or is the ‘final’ descriptor of who one is.
Dr. Ambedkar is the final 'rigid designator' or descriptor for that great man. You may say he was a champion of Gay Rights or Animal Welfare if that's what you yourself are into. But it isn't true.
It is in this spirit that Ambedkar can be talked about as a pragmatist, meaning that he and his thought developed to some extent in reaction to other pragmatists such as Dewey.
Pragmatism is like instrumentalism. People doing cutting edge STEM subject research may indulge in 'methodenstreit' about what is or isn't a legitimate theory. But, stuff like that is useless in the Social Sciences as the foolish debate over 'Revealed Preference' showed.
Thinking about Ambedkar as a pragmatist highlights certain themes in his approach and his thought that we may not have appreciated before. It also makes sense of the newly discovered archival evidence that I explore in my book The Evolution of Pragmatism in India (2023), indicating that Ambedkar sought to combine Dewey’s views on democracy with Buddhism as early as 1914.
Everybody was doing that back then. It was Col. Olcott who got that availability cascade off the ground. Ambedkar took over Ayothee Dasan's theory.
Ambedkar’s reception of Dewey in forming his own philosophy – his own pragmatism, as I see it – is complex. Dewey inspired Ambedkar to evolve a sort of pragmatism that targeted caste oppression,
No. His people were already doing that. Mahars were a heroic and often better educated than the dominant agricultural caste. It is foolish to think that some silly White Professor opened their eyes to the horrors of their plight.
but which built up a vision of democratic social systems that allowed individuals to matter.
But visions don't matter.
Dewey gave Ambedkar ideas, ideals and even methods to experiment with or even resist. He saw in the philosophy espoused by his American teacher a source of novelty and creativity.
No. He liked Dewey. He was a nice man. But Ambedkar was no fool. Dewey was an expression of White American confidence and success. Indians, at least Dalit Indians, would have to work with the British to gain administrative capacity.
Through his courses with Dewey, and in the many books by Dewey that he continued to purchase and annotate into the 1950s, we can see how Dewey’s pragmatism was an important touchstone or inspiration for Ambedkar.
It was a reminder of his College sojourn. Lots of people like reading stuff which reminds them of their green and salad days.
It was not something he would blindly copy or duplicate. Instead, it became a resource and a source of motivation to do certain things in certain ways once he returned to India.
No. Ambedkar tried to keep his promise to serve the Gaekwad. But the clerks feared the 'new broom' and mobilized caste prejudice to get rid of Ambedkar. But, the Princes were getting more power in any case and so became less interested in sticking it to the Viceroy. Furthermore the first general election in 1920 was a game changer. Smart young people like Ambedkar and Liaquat saw that nursing your own constituency was the key to rapid advancement.
In a methodological sense, it showed him the value of reconstruction.
For reconstruction there has to be prior construction.
Dewey had problems with the quest for certainty among philosophers ranging from Plato to Immanuel Kant to many of his contemporaries;
But the empirical Anglo-Saxon and Scottish 'Common Sense' schools had been going down an instrumental or pragmatic path for centuries. Raja Ram Mohan Roy used to gas on about this in the 1820s.
Ambedkar felt a similar constriction when it came to the claims to timelessness and divine certainty made on behalf of the sanatan (eternal) tradition stemming from the ancient Vedas.
But 'sanatani' religion was a recent innovation. It didn't really make any difference because the syncretism of the Ramakrishna Mission had triumphed and, thanks to Vivekananda, this could be just as progressive as you liked. Gandhi, it is true, was a bit retarded on this point but his job was to get the Muslims on side. Sadly, he took fright and surrendered unilaterally to the Brits. Dalit leaders, including Ambedkar, with the backing of some Princes as well as Jatav millionaires in Kanpur were able to make rapid strides.
Ambedkar saw this same tradition as underwriting the customs of caste that had divided Indian society and oppressed individuals like him for thousands of years.
His genius was to advocate the 'Broken Man' theory rather than some Racist, 'Aryan', shite. This, together with Olcott or Ayothee Dasan's 'degraded Buddhist' theory did a lot to overcome stigma.
There was nothing Ambedkar could do in this lifetime to remove the stain of untouchability in the eyes of others
He and many others did plenty. The fact is, Dalits have kept their quota because they tend to be better than average. Brahmins in Lutyen's Delhi had to admit that they would rather work under Jagjivan Ram- and, later on, Mayawati- rather than some 'dominant caste' gangster.
The pragmatist commitment to philosophy as a way not just to grasp the eternal truths of the world and hold on, but instead to purposefully change or reconstruct it, struck a chord in Ambedkar.
Why bother grasping 'eternal truths'? Why not just work hard for stuff you want or you want to see happen.
One common thread across all the disparate parts of his intellectual and practical life was the idea that he should not remain content with the world as received by him or his surrounding culture. He felt the command to change this world, and to change those that might have power over it, through his activism, his political manoeuvres, and even his impassioned speeches. The world for Ambedkar was what we could make of it, and he saw a path to reconstructing it in a more just manner that would erase the sort of hate and suffering he felt as an ‘untouchable’.
Whereas other Dalits who hadn't studied under Dewey were militantly agitating for more hate and suffering to be inflicted on them.
But reconstruction must aim for something. What did Ambedkar’s selective and creative pragmatism aim for as its goals or ends?
Ambedkar's dream was one where Dalits would have more political power than high caste Hindus. Sadly, allying with Muslims turned out to be a bad idea. But Congress 'Harijans' did extremely well, purely on the basis of ability. Ambedkar and Mandal went into the wilderness after Independence. They probably weren't very good at politics or administration.
What sort of moral ideals did it strive to realise?
None. For Hindu Dalits to monopolize the benefits of affirmative action, they had to exclude the Christian and Muslim Dalits. But Nehru was equally ruthless in marginalizing Congress Muslims.
One of the recurring themes in Ambedkar’s harsh criticisms of caste throughout his life was that this graded social system suppressed the ‘human personality’ of those in ‘lower’ castes. It limited the occupations that individuals could pursue, the clothes they could wear, and even the paths they could travel, to birth status.
This was true of all castes which is why everybody wanted to kick the thing in the crotch and then piss all over it.
It was at birth that one received one’s special mix of traits or potentialities from past lives, as Ambedkar saw the caste system play out in his life. He was an untouchable because of his birth placement, one that resided at the very bottom of the graded hierarchy of caste groups, and one that most other ‘higher castes’ saw as ritually polluting. There was nothing that Ambedkar could do, at least in this lifetime, that would remove the stain of untouchability in the eyes of others enraptured by these customs.
His second wife was a Brahmin Doctor. At the time of his birth, such a marriage would have been illegal. He himself might have been killed by an angry mob.
For Ambedkar, this was an affront to the worth of the individual.
Because nice White Dewey explained it to him very patiently.
Drawing from Dewey’s early works – especially his essay ‘The Ethics of Democracy’ (1888) – Ambedkar came back from his education in the West and argued that caste customs hurt the ‘growth of personality’ and developed only ‘the personality of the few at the cost of the many – a result scrupulously to be avoided in the interest of Democracy.’
This is foolish. Maharashtra may have been a bit behind Tamil Nadu (where the first Dalit magazine was published in 1869) but Bombay was a much more open and cosmopolitan society. The importance of Ambedkar's American sojourn was it dispelled any notion that Indian democracy wouldn't be as horrible for the Dalit as it had been for the African American.
The older view, in Lutyens' New Delhi was that Ambedkar was a stooge of the British. But Gandhi, Nehru &c hadn't really won Independence. The Brits had dictated the pace and scope of reform. Anyway, Nehru's idea of 'Brahminizing' the country turned out to mean the rule of an incompetent, economically illiterate, dynasty.
Each person was unique in their mix of impulses, drives and interests, and the best sort of society would help individuals create and recreate themselves with their social engagement.
India was concerned with avoiding starvation.
All he saw with caste was a restraining and limiting of what roles and talents an individual could develop. Ambedkar would often refer to his battle against the caste system – epitomised by his hatred for the practice of untouchability – as ‘a battle for the reclamation of human personality, which has been suppressed and mutilated by the Hindu social system.’
But America was doing that to its African Americans while Nazi Germany was going the extra mile when it came to 'non-Aryans'.
For Ambedkar, as well as for young Dewey, society worked best when it offered freedom and opportunity for each individual to develop as a valued member of a community. Democracy became the philosophy that facilitated
Jim Crow and racist restrictions on granting citizenship to people like Ambedkar even if they had a PhD from Columbia. Incidentally, Ambedkar had a British girlfriend. He could have been lynched or sent to prison if he'd had sex with a white woman in certain American States.
this evolution of each person beyond strictures of separated classes or castes.
Not starving to death helps the evolution of personality- right? Let's concentrate on that.
Ambedkar’s philosophy orbits around another recognisably pragmatist commitment – the idea that communities matter in both science and ethics.
Fuck off! Money matters. You can't do Science without money for lab equipment. A nice community of starving people aint gonna be able to invent shit.
Indeed, Ambedkar would maintain that vital senses of democracy went beyond the overtly political.
The overtly political, in a starving country, is merely a pile of shit. Dewey was important for America because it turned out America could continually get richer and richer thanks to a highly educated population and the ability to attract the smartest people from all over the world.
Democracy was a habit for Ambedkar,
No. India didn't have much of that commodity.
as well as for Dewey, and not just a formal way of decision-making among elected officials. Throughout his writings, Ambedkar was fond of echoing Dewey’s phrase from Democracy and Education, saying that:
Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen.
This is also the reason Indians laughed at him and his pal Mandal. Muslims see Dalit Hindus as infidels just like non-Dalit Hindus. There is no good reason to show respect and reverence to idol worshippers. At a later point, the 'Dalit Panthers'- modelled on the Black Panthers- gave currency to a more militant attitude. This was cool because it split the Commie vote. Also, as Dalits rose in the Civil Service, they could provide a strong base to build a radical Dalit party. Kanshi Ram and his protege Mayawati showed that Ambedkarite politics need not be confined to Professors on IIT campuses. One consequence was that Boddhisattva Ambedkar now receives Hindu worship as an Avatar of Vishnu in vast sacred complexes constructed at tax-payer expense. This is perfectly fine. Ambedkar was a great scholar. Why not pray to him so as to get success in your examinations?
Later in his life, Ambedkar would refer to democracy as a way of life.
Many Indians, back then, referred to everything as a way of life because talking bollocks was part of their job description.
All of this pointed to the central idea that social democracy was an ideal to be achieved in our everyday experience.
This is not a central idea. It is a stupid bromide.
But what can we make of social democracy as a habit or a way of life?
The same thing we can make of Neo-Liberalism or Marxist-Leninist praxis or the proper worship of the Giant Spaghetti Monster.
For Ambedkar’s pragmatism, democracy became more about how we interact with our fellow community members or citizens than about constitutions and voting exercises.
No. Ambedkar wasn't soft in the head. Democracy is about which scoundrel gets more votes. To enjoy power and influence you must be able to influence the votes of a large caste block. The question was whether more educated or economically advanced Dalit castes- e.g. Maharas, Chamars- could take a leadership role. Other parties can use 'maha-dalit' strategies successfully. That's where ideology comes in. But Ambedkar had been dead for decades because this became clear.
Political institutions and laws are important, of course, but what was of primary importance for Ambedkar – and his teacher, Dewey – were the customs and habits that animated us in our myriad interactions with our friends and foes in social experience.
No. Ambedkar knew that 'customs and habits' in rural shitholes were shitty. Get the fuck away from the idiocy of rural life.
Part of Ambedkar’s philosophical genius lies in how he reworks this idea of deep democracy into a normative framework used to critique caste.
This is foolish. Ambedkar, like other Indians at the time, knew that India could become a one party state. The Army and Police could simply kill or incarcerate anyone who started babbling about democracy. But Caste would still have to go no matter what the political regime. Why? It was shitty from the Economic point of view. You have to get the economy right so as to pay for a kick ass Army and Secret Police.
He saw caste as both a group custom and as an individual habit of how one reacts to others.
No. He was a lawyer and an economist. He wanted to change the laws through Legislative efforts and raise wages through Trade Union activity.
It was inherently and essentially divisive. Caste habits, and caste labels, told Ambedkar and his fellow community members how they should value and act toward each other.
No. Kinship and monetary and legal ties served that function. There was a separate problem of customary practices- e.g. boycott- which however had legal sanction. Thus, a White shopkeeper or a High Caste Hindu who wants to get more African American or Dalit customers may not be able to do so because of fear of boycott. If such actions are illegal, the force of competition will result in equal treatment regardless of colour or caste.
In his own case, it led others to exclude or limit contact with him. If democracy meant the formation of groups where each individual mattered, caste was, Ambedkar surmised, inherently antidemocratic.
But Ambedkar knew that some democratic countries had caste systems or extreme colour or other types of discrimination. Japan had untouchability. The Mexican caste system was partly based on miscegenation though certain indigenous groups had been granted 'hidalgo' status at the outset. Dewey may have been a half glass full type of guy but Amdedkar was dark skinned.
But on what standard ought we judge systems and communities as a whole?
Why judge shite? Had Indians been allowed to emigrate to the US, they would have. But racist restrictions were only lifted in 1965.
This was a problem for the sort of philosophy that young Ambedkar heard in Dewey’s courses. Dewey would advise that ideals and moral values came from within a historical or community context. He was reluctant to appeal to sources of transcendental certainty, like God or pure reason, to settle matters. Ambedkar appreciated this intuition, but he needed something more than an appeal to culture or a tradition. For him, the problems of India were inherently connected to a millennia-old stratification of its communities into a hierarchy of occupation and value-determining classes based upon birth. As he would put it in an early publication, Indian society under caste was a tower with many floors but no stairways upon which one could ascend.
Ambedkar knew this wasn't true. If you had money and power, you could always bring in priests who would perform rituals to declare you to be anything you liked. Moreover, whereas previously sub-castes wanted to be up-ranked, more and more wanted to be down-ranked because of new laws relating to agricultural property etc.
He criticised Russian communism for achieving equality through violent means that sacrificed the liberty of many
Fuck that! He criticized it because lots of people starved and millions were Gulaged or just killed- including some Indian Communists who had been foolish enough to stay on in Moscow after MN Roy ran away.
Ambedkar knew that much of this caste superstructure was grounded on claims to ‘timeless’ or divinely revealed matters in holy texts.
Ambedkar wasn't a fool. He knew that any type of claim was founded on force or the threat of force. The Brits weren't pretending the Druids had conquered the country.
Like Dewey, he could not appeal to moral certainties to counter other divine truths. But his pragmatic approach became speckled with constant appeals to three values – liberty, equality and fraternity.
Which is why he was ignored save when attacking Brahmins. That was cool because it made it appear that Brahmins had super-powers.
These were the values of the French Revolution that Ambedkar heard in Dewey’s course in March 1916, perhaps for the first time.
Indians were very stupid. Graduates from Elphinstone didn't know about the French Revolution. Also they thought George Washington was the Queen of Engyland.
Later in his life, Ambedkar would make overt efforts to translate these terms into Buddhist concepts.
Meaningless gibberish. Still, it was cool that Ambedkar converted to a religion which exported untouchability to Japan. Bali has Brahmins but no untouchables.
But the trichotomy remained. These terms were not tethered to one culture – including French – but instead became semi-transcendent values
Nope. The thing was bullshit. The French ended up with an Emperor.
that could be used to critique any community as to its adherence to the democratic ideal and the value of developing the personality of each individual.
Ambedkar had some political salience because
Justice was the tense balance among these three valued aspects of individual and communal experience.
No. Justice is a service industry. You get what you pay for. Ambedkar was an actual lawyer, not a Professor.
The power of these values, seen across Ambedkar’s speeches, as well as the preamble to the Indian constitution he took a heavy hand in drafting, was that they revealed the problems with caste and with potential solutions such as communism.
Ambedkar understood that India's problem was low productivity. This was also why caste was a problem. It is a sort of Trade Unionism of the lazy and retarded. Bigotry is what you get when people aint business-like.
Ambedkar would bring these values to bear to show how caste customs functioned to destroy the liberty and equality of those judged ‘untouchable’.
Why not bring those values to bear to show how chopping off a person's head destroys liberty and equality and fraternity?
He would also, later in his life, criticise the communism he saw in Russia for achieving equality through violent means that inevitably sacrificed the liberty of many and the sense of fraternity among the opposing groups in society.
No. Ambedkar knew that the Commies wanted to pump and dump the Dalits. Why be canon fodder for drooling Marxist, rather than Manuvadi, cretins?
The way to make individuals matter must focus on their equal treatment and their ability to freely direct their lives.
There is no point in focusing on stuff which you are powerless to affect. Dewey was a nice guy from a country which would become the richest and the most powerful country in the world. Ambedkar may have talked bollocks but that wasn't why he had some significance. The Brits found him useful and so he had salience for a brief period. It wasn't till there was a large white collar Dalit class that his name became something to conjure with. Also he is a good stick to beat Gandhi with. Ambedkar was smart. Gandhi was as stupid as shit.
It also must result in the creation of a community characterised by shared interests and mutual respect, a state of affairs so central to the often-overlooked value of fraternity.
Since no such community exists anywhere, it follows that individuals don't matter. One reason for this is because they all end up dropping dead sooner or later.
Ambedkar’s philosophy is an anti-caste philosophy
Cool! Ambedkarites should be clamouring to get rid of any and all caste based legislation!
but, in drawing upon the pragmatist ideal of deep democracy,
which cashes out as 'nice and cuddly democracy' not the sort of democracy in which some one I don't like gets the top job.
it became something even more encompassing – a philosophy of democracy.
Ambedkar would have preferred 'consociationalism'. The plain truth is, highly educated people like him do better as nominated, not elected, members of the Legislature. But they may have no real authority or influence though this may not be apparent at the time. Look at 'prone Minister' Manmohan. It turns out he wasn't running shit.
Talking of Ambedkar’s pragmatism is a way of highlighting a constellation of important ideas and ideals from Dewey, retasked for the Indian context. a
Come to think of it, Ambedkar didn't have any ideas other than that Dalits should rule- which only appeals to the creamy layer of Dalits. Dewey mattered to America because he was a nice guy and optimistic about its future which turned out to be fucking awesome. Ambedkar was a smart man but he should have focused on Economics. India had plenty of lawyers. With a bit of maths, Ambedkar could have been an alternative to Mahalanobis. It should be remembered that Naoroji & Gokhale had been Maths professors. Harkishenlal Gauba, who set up a lot of financial and other enterprises in the Punjab had a Maths degree from Cambridge. Ambedkar could have made a lot of money as a lawyer but he could also have made good money as an actuary who also advised the Government on fiscal and monetary policy.
It also allows us to see Ambedkar as a global philosopher,
i.e. a moron
one concerned with caste and with other problems that undo the search for democratic communities.
People search for nice places to live where they can earn good money. For a lot of Indians, that is Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Why look for democratic communities? A shithole can be very democratic which is why it is so shitty.
What results is something absolutely unique in the pragmatist tradition: an evolution of social democracy
i.e. stuff they have in Europe where nobody has heard of Dewey
that brings new insights into the problems of oppression and division,
Ambedkar had no such insights till a nice White Professor sat him down and explained to him that people who treated him like shit weren't actually trying to be nice to him.
and a creative way to reconstruct society
by waving a magic wand- right?
through a tense and ever-changing balance of freedom, equality and fellow-feeling among all those who share a common fate together.
Humanity, like every other species, shares a common fate. This has nothing to do with freedom, equality, promoting Sodomy for Senior Citizens or any other sort of shite Professors write about in Aeon.
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