“If justice is indivisible, then Ambedkar cannot walk alone—his path demands a collective march against caste, class, and communal power.”
Before he became the principal architect of India’s Constitution, before he emerged as the most formidable critic of caste, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was a child who learned, very early, what it meant to be denied dignity.
One story stands out – not because it is unique, but because it is painfully ordinary in the India he was born into.
A young Bhim, along with his siblings, was travelling to meet his father. They had money. They had tickets. But they did not have caste privilege. No cart driver would take them. No one would touch them. No one would offer them water. Hours passed in the scorching sun before a reluctant driver agreed to transport them – but only on the condition that the children themselves would hold the reins, so that he would not be “polluted” by contact.
In school, the humiliation continued. Bhim was not allowed to sit with other students. He carried a gunny sack from home to sit on. Water could not be handed to him; it had to be poured from a height, if at all. Sometimes, no one came to pour it.
Imagine that thirst – not just for water, but for recognition as human. This was not an isolated cruelty. It was a system at work.
And it is here – in these small, brutal denials—that we begin to understand the making of Ambedkar. He did not grow into a reformer who sought kindness. He became a revolutionary who demanded justice.
Ambedkar put it best when he stated plainly: “Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path.”
From Humiliation to a Theory of Liberation
What distinguishes Ambedkar is not only that he suffered oppression, but that he refused to normalise it. Where others might have internalised shame, he cultivated defiance. Where society offered silence, he pursued knowledge. His journey through institutions such as Columbia University and the London School of Economics did not distance him from his people—it sharpened his tools of resistance.
Ambedkar came to see caste not merely as a social injustice, but as a system of graded inequality, sustained by religion, reinforced by custom, and protected by power. This understanding led him to a radical conclusion: caste could not be reformed—it had to be annihilated. The child who was denied water would go on to challenge the very civilisation that denied it.
A Legacy Under Contest
Today, Ambedkar is everywhere – and yet, his ideas are often nowhere.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar is invoked by governments, quoted in speeches, and memorialised in statues. But this widespread recognition masks a deeper contradiction: the more he is celebrated, the more his radical edge is blunted.
Contemporary Ambedkarism exists in a space of tension. For marginalised communities, he remains a source of strength and clarity. For dominant political forces, he is increasingly recast as a safe constitutional figure—detached from his fierce critique of caste and hierarchy. To reclaim Ambedkar is to resist this dilution.
Ambedkarism Today: Between Assertion and Appropriation
Ambedkarism is not static – it is alive, contested, and evolving.
Across India, Dalit assertion has gained visibility and voice. Students, writers, and activists are reclaiming Ambedkar as a thinker of resistance. His writings are being revisited, his speeches reinterpreted, and his politics renewed in contemporary struggles.
At the same time, there is a concerted effort to domesticate Ambedkar – to celebrate him without confronting what he stood against. His role in drafting the Constitution is highlighted, but his critique of Brahmanism is muted. His commitment to equality is acknowledged, but his demand for structural change is ignored. This selective appropriation empties Ambedkarism of its power. But Ambedkar was never meant to be comfortable. He was meant to disturb.
Democracy Without Equality: A Warning Realised
Ambedkar warned that political democracy cannot survive without social democracy. That warning resonates powerfully today. India continues to function as an electoral democracy, but its social fabric remains deeply unequal. Majoritarianism shapes public discourse. Institutions show signs of strain. Dissent is increasingly constrained.
More significantly, inequality today is not merely tolerated—it is reorganised. Caste does not disappear under modernity; it adapts. It is woven into new political narratives, often subsumed within a larger project of communal nationalism that seeks to unify on the basis of religion while leaving deeper hierarchies intact.
In such a moment, Ambedkar’s idea of constitutional morality offers not just a framework, but a form of resistance. Democracy, he argued, must be sustained not just by procedure, but by values—liberty, equality, and fraternity. Without these, democracy becomes form without substance.
The Continuing Relevance of His Core Ideas
Ambedkar’s thought retains a striking immediacy because the conditions he fought against have not disappeared—they have merely adapted. Caste discrimination, though less visible in its overt forms, continues to structure everyday life. It shapes who gets access to education, employment, land, and dignity. It operates quietly through institutions that claim neutrality while reproducing exclusion. In this context, Ambedkar’s insistence that social justice must be structural—not symbolic—becomes politically urgent.
His emphasis on education as a tool of liberation is equally significant today. At a time when access to quality education is increasingly unequal, the question is not simply about schooling, but about empowerment—who gets to think critically, who gets to question authority, and who is allowed to lead. Ambedkar’s call to “educate, agitate, organize” remains a strategy for building political consciousness. In an environment where dissent is often discouraged, this triad acquires renewed importance as a framework for democratic resistance.
Ambedkar also understood that political democracy without economic justice would remain fragile. This insight resonates deeply in a period marked by widening inequality, insecure employment, and the erosion of labour protections. Economic growth, when detached from questions of equity, risks reinforcing existing hierarchies. Ambedkar’s economic thought challenges us to rethink development – not as accumulation, but as redistribution and dignity.
It is here that a deeper political convergence becomes visible. Ambedkar’s critique of caste as a system of graded inequality finds a natural, though historically uneasy, parallel in the Left’s critique of class exploitation. Both traditions, at their most incisive, expose structures rather than symptoms. Both insist that injustice is systemic, not incidental. And both recognise that dignity cannot be achieved without transforming the material conditions of life.
Yet this convergence has often remained partial. Sections of the Left have treated caste as secondary, while sections of Ambedkarite politics have remained cautious of class frameworks that risk subsuming caste realities. These tensions have limited the possibility of a broader emancipatory politics. In the present moment, however, such separation carries a cost.
Communal politics thrives on fragmentation. It divides the oppressed along religious and caste lines, redirecting attention away from structural inequalities. It mobilises identity not for justice, but for consolidation of power. In doing so, it weakens every movement that seeks to challenge hierarchy.
Against this, a dialogue – indeed, a solidarity – between Ambedkarite and Left traditions becomes not only desirable, but necessary. Such a coming together would not erase differences; it would deepen them into a more comprehensive politics – one that recognises caste and class as intertwined realities, and addresses both with equal seriousness. More importantly, it offers a way to reclaim democracy itself—not as a ritual of elections, but as a continuous struggle for equality.
Ambedkar’s Buddhism: Ethics as Politics
Ambedkar’s embrace of Buddhism was a deeply political act. Rejecting a social order that sanctified inequality, he turned to a philosophy rooted in equality, reason, and compassion. His interpretation of Buddhism was not concerned with ritual, but with ethics and social transformation. In today’s climate of polarisation, this vision offers an alternative—one that centres dignity over dominance and community over exclusion.
A Political Way Forward: Reclaiming Ambedkarism
If Ambedkarism is to remain meaningful, it must move beyond remembrance to action. Reclaiming Ambedkar today requires re-centring social justice in policy, defending constitutional morality, and building solidarities across movements. It demands an education system that empowers rather than excludes, and a political culture that values courage over conformity.
It also demands the courage to build alliances where history has hesitated. The challenges of our time – deepening inequality, institutional erosion, and the rise of communal politics—cannot be confronted in isolation. They require a politics that is at once anti-caste, anti-capitalist, and deeply democratic.
Ambedkarism, in conversation with progressive Left traditions, can offer precisely such a framework—if both are willing to listen, to learn, and to act together. Ambedkarism is not a legacy to be preserved – it is a political project to be advanced.
Conclusion: The Thirst That Remains
The child who was denied water did not simply grow up – he changed the course of a nation. But the thirst he experienced has not fully disappeared. It lingers in the inequalities that persist, in the indignities that continue, in the silences that remain unbroken. To honour B. R. Ambedkar is to recognise that his struggle is not over. It lives on – in every demand for dignity, every act of resistance, every effort to build a more equal India. And it raises, with renewed urgency, a question for our times:
Why, in the face of deepening inequality and aggressive communalism, do the forces that speak for justice still remain divided? Why can Ambedkarite movements and Left politics not come together—not in rhetoric, but in struggle—to confront the many faces of authoritarianism that threaten the republic? The question is not whether Ambedkar is relevant. The question is whether we are ready to act on what he demands of us.
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Ranjan Solomon is a writer, researcher and activist based in Goa. He has worked in social movements since he was 19 years of age. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at ranjan.solomon@gmail.com
