Exploring egalitarian potentials of anticasteism: Articulating an Ambedkarite theory
of democracy
Mr Prateek Khobragade
MPhil Scholar, School of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Abstract:
The pervasive phenomenon of caste in South Asia despite its evolution and
persistence has historically been countered and resisted by movements that have
sought to endorse egalitarian ideals. These movements, collectively termed as anti-
caste movements can be characterized by their revolutionary zeal to dismantle the
Brahminical order of Hindu religion, particularly the caste-ordained sociopolitical
hierarchy, untouchability and patriarchal legacies derived from the caste system. One
of the most epoch-making modern political articulation of this nature came with the
work and movement of Ambedkar who analyzed and theorized the caste system,
simultaneously espousing the political project of annihilation of caste. With a
pronounced transition in Indian politics and society post the Cold war, subsequent
economic reforms, and sociopolitical movements, particularly the Mandal movement,
while there came an undeniable shift in Indian politics from centre-left hegemony to
right-wing hegemony, there also comes the emergence of an autonomous
Ambedkarite public informed with anti-caste consciousness that continue the legacy
of Ambedkar decades after his demise. With burgeoning Ambedkarite discourses in
India and across the world, Ambedkar is now increasingly recognized as a global
thinker of some of the most universal ideas such as equality, democracy, minority
rights representation and so on. Recent scholarship on Ambedkar (Omvedt,
Rodrigues, Thorat and Kumar, Jaffrelot, Choudhury, Kumar, Rathore, Bhaskar and
many others), have renewed academic interests in Ambedkar’s original axiomatic
thought and praxis. A systematic theorization of Ambedkar’s ideology or
Ambedkarism however is yet impending. The scope of this project although huge, this
paper seeks to outline the contours of such a project of defining Ambedkarism in
relation to theorising anticasteism in the contemporary context of dynamic
sociopolitical changes in South Asia. In defining and theorizing Ambedkarism, the
paper seeks to underscore the egalitarian potentials of anticasteism and
Ambedkarism’s radical commitment towards republican constitutionalism, liberty,
equality, fraternity, public education, minority rights and the conceptual category and
politics of representation. The paper ultimately seeks to espouse an Ambedkarite
theory of democracy contributing to the contermporary debates on theories of
democracy, particularly the agonistic and radical theories of democracy that have de-
stigmatised identity politics from liberal hegemony by reestablishing it as
fundamentally a compossibility of representation politics. Drwaing from foundation
articulations of anticaste consciousness, the paper employs critical analysis and
discourse analyses to propound a robust and consistent theory of Ambedkarism that
would inform the contemporary scholarship on caste and anticasteism as well as
global scholarship on egalitarianism and democracy.
Keywords: Anticasteism, Ambedkarism, Egalitarianism, Democracy, Representation