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Book No. – 8 (Political Science)
Book Name – Indian Political Thought (Himanshu Roy/ M.P. Singh)
What’s Inside the Chapter? (After Subscription)
1. Background: Political Mobilization
1.1. Constituent Assembly Entrée
1.2. Work in Various Preparatory Committees
1.3. Piloting the Draft Constitution
2. On Safeguards for Scheduled Castes
3. On Linguistic States
4. Conclusion
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Ambedkar: Constitutionalism and State Structure
Chapter – 28
Table of Contents
Background: Political Mobilization
- The 1980s marked a phase in Indian electoral democracy with two key developments: federalisation of the parliamentary regime and the political arrival of dalit citizens.
- These developments were not entirely new but reached new levels of efficacy in the 1980s and later.
- Ambedkar is seen as a posthumous high priest (purodha) of dalit political assertion.
- Two models of political mobilization and participation for the dalit and other marginalized Hindu groups: the Harijan model and the dalit model.
- The Harijan model, represented by Jagjivan Ram, was associated with Congress politics since the 1930s.
- The dalit model was led by Ambedkar, starting in the late 1920s with the Bahujan-dalit identity formation.
- Both Ambedkar and Jagjivan Ram initially conformed to the sanskritization-cum-Westernization model of social change and political participation.
- Jagjivan Ram was initially a liberal and Gandhian Congressman, believing in a secular and modern Hindu identity.
- Ambedkar also began with a secular and modern Hindu identity but later shifted towards a more radical dalit political identity and embraced Buddhism in 1956.
- Ambedkar believed that social reform focusing on the emancipation of untouchables must precede political independence.
- He actively participated in radical Hindu social reform movements and supported separate electorates for untouchables, similar to those for Muslims in the 1920s and 1931 Round Table Conference.
- Ambedkar’s stance on separate electorates changed after Gandhi’s fast unto death, leading to an agreement for reservation in the general electorate for Hindus.
- Ambedkar wrote extensively on the structure of Hindu society and the Indian state, with many studies on his contributions to dalit studies.
- This paper discusses Ambedkar’s contributions to the making of the Indian Constitution and the praxis of the Indian state.