Ambedkar's Political Philosophy

In the midst of the plethora of literature available on Ambedkar, the volume offers a distinct insight into Ambedkar's oeuvre which, as the author meticulously argues, represents Ambedkar's emancipatory endeavours to address multilayered contradictions and resolve them by producing a higher unity of normative concepts. The author gives a comprehensive, coherent, and hence, convincing account of such unity. The volume lucidly but rigorously establishes the constitutive relationship between the political principles of Ambedkar's philosophy and its conceptual structure. * Gopal Guru, Former Professor, University of Pune, Delhi University, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Editor, Economic and Political Weekly (2018-2023) *
Valerian Rodrigues's splendid account of Ambedkar's political thought moves beyond the conventional image of a constitutionalist who sought state power to transform Indian society. Instead, he focusses on Ambedkar's conceptualization of humanity as a crucial category of social life, and one to whose intellectual and political recovery his career was dedicated. * Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History, University of Oxford *
Elegantly written and nuanced in its understanding of the systematic aspects of Dr Ambedkar's thought world, this book examines the great man's enduring concern with what it means to be human in a society that refuses humanity to a vast number of its members. With quiet brilliance, Rodrigues annotates this civilizational endeavour that set out to annihilate the caste-untouchability-patriarchy complex and establish a society sustained by equality and social fellowship. * V. Geetha, independent researcher, feminist, educationist, and civil rights activist, and Editorial Director, Tara Publishing, Chennai *
A landmark study of Ambedkar's vision of politics, of the core moral and epistemic positions on human capacity and understanding that framed his politics. Rodrigues deftly guides us through the multiple contexts and lineages of Ambedkar's breathtaking oeuvre to propose nuanced, authoritative analyses of the central concepts informing it, from sociality and association to equality, power, and democracy. Moving beyond Ambedkar the critic, Rodrigues foregrounds Ambedkar the democratic theorist, whose poignant ideal of public life was built for and from the aspirations, sensibilities, and needs of oppressed communities. * Karuna Mantena, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University *
This outstanding study of Ambedkar's political philosophy connects nodal points of the debates on the principles of India's future democratic political system to the axioms and analytics that guided Ambedkar's thought. Rodrigues admirably exposes Ambedkar's comprehensive moral vision, based on the idea of a socially embedded integral human self, as he explores Ambedkar's reflexive approach to social reconstruction. * Prof. Dr. Martin Fuchs, Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany *
This ambitious study is a deep foray into Ambedkar's large oeuvre, and as you proceed, you tend to grasp Ambedkar's -ism. It is a slow-read text of poise and poignance. A powerful defence of Ambedkar's ideas and his choices, Valerian Rodrigues succeeds in capturing Ambedkar's innovative ideas partially explored hitherto. It makes for a thoughtful read. * Suraj Yengde, St. Antony's College, Oxford University *
Valerian Rodrigues' new work is one of the most comprehensive presentations of Ambedkar's political philosophy. Instead of treating him as a thinker focused narrowly on the question of untouchability, Rodrigues starts with Ambedkar's fundamental philosophical anthropology from which he derives, in a line of rigorous exposition, his thinking about nationalism, democracy, constitutionalism, and eventually, the meaning of being human. * Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor, Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University *