BR Ambedkar: Social Justice

Political Science

HIMACHAL PRADESH NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

SUBMITTED BY: SUBMITTED TO:

AYUSH THAKUR DR. VED PRAKASH
1020202137 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

2st SEMESTER OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

BA LLB
 Acknowledgements

I wish to take this opportunity to offer my sincere gratitude to my

academic supervisor, Dr Ved Prakash Sharma, Assistant Professor
(Political Science), Himachal Pradesh National Law University,
Shimla. Without his kind direction and proper guidance, this study
would have never come to fruition.

I am also greatly indebted to Himachal Pradesh National Law

University’s e-library resources for providing me with the necessary
online subscriptions in order to conduct this research which helped
me in making this assignment, especially in these trying times when
the physical resources of the library are inaccessible.

Last but not the least; I would want to thank everyone who guided me
throughout the process of making this study a successful venture.
 Index

1) Introduction

2) What is Social Justice

3) BR Ambedkar:- Social Justice

• Understanding Justice
• Constitutional aspect
• Further views

4) Summing up Arguments

5) Conclusion
 Introduction

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956), also

known as Babasaheb Ambedkar, was an Indian jurist, economist,
politician and social reformer, who inspired the Dalit Buddhist
movement and campaigned against social discrimination towards the
untouchables (Dalits). He was British India's Minister of Labour in
Viceroy's Executive Council, Chairman of the Constituent Drafting
committee, independent India's first Minister of Law and Justice, and
considered the chief architect of the Constitution of India.
B.R Ambedkar acquired profound knowledge in each and every scope
of human activity to become a creator of his own independent
ideology. He was also skilled as a social scientist.

What is Social Justice?

Social Justice as an idea arose withinside the early nineteenth century

during the Industrial Revolution and next civil revolutions throughout
Europe, which aimed to create greater egalitarian societies and
remedy capitalistic exploitation of human labour. Because of the stark
stratifications among the rich and the poor during this time, early
social justice advocates centred generally on capital, property, and the
distribution of wealth.
The term social justice was essentially a foreign to India particularly
drawn from United States of America. Ambedkar was very much
swayed by the Americans during his time at Columbia university.
By the mid-twentieth century, social justice had multiplied from being
generally concerned with economics to encompass different spheres
of social life to encompass the environment, race, gender, and other
causes and manifestations of inequality. Concurrently, the degree of
social justice elevated from being measured and enacted most
effective via way of means of the nation-state (or government) to
encompass a widespread human dimension. For example,
governments nowadays measure income inequality through only
evaluating people within the same nation. But social justice also can
be applied on a broader scale at the extent of humanity as a whole. As
the United Nations states: “Slaves, exploited people and oppressed
ladies are in particular victimized people whose area subjects much
less than their circumstances.”
Social justice endorses fairness and equity across many aspects of
society. For example, it encourages equal economic, educational and
workplace opportunities. It’s also imperative to the safety and security
of individuals and communities.
The absence of social justice results in social oppression. The NEA
notes this could be in the form of “racism, sexism, ageism, classism,
ableism, and heterosexism.” It also recommends the following
strategies for encouraging social justice:
• Concentrate on diversity
• Challenge the implications of oppression
• Learn and address the attitudes and behaviours that sustain
oppression
• Adopt an comprehensive mindset
Social workers apply the above points to advance growth and change
among susceptible groups, such the senior, LGBTQ, homeless,
veteran and refugee communities.
The foregoing observations express the diverse facets of Justice.
Among its multiple elements, the social one is very significant to all
of us, because every kind of justice supplements the demand of social
justice. The demand for social justice is not as modern as some people
think of it. It has been in people's mind since the known history of
mankind, because justice emanates from the nature of society, its
mechanism and various regulations. Both ancient and medieval
societies envisaged justice in their own ways. Let us, therefore, look
into the age-long concepts of social justice as were predominant in
India and elsewhere.

BR Ambedkar:- Social Justice

The contribution of Dr B.R. Ambedkar in Indian Democracy is not to

be forgotten. As a Chairman of the Constitutional Committee, he gave
a shape to our country of a complete Sovereign Democratic Republic
based on an adult franchise. Our Constitution is secular and socialist.
With the provision of adult franchise many sections to eradicate
unreliability have been added to the constitution. In the Constitution
of free India all the citizens have been guaranteed social, political and
economic equalities. Our leaders began to ponder about it from the
time of struggle for freedom of the country.
Baba Saheb B.R Ambedkar's name has been written in golden
glittering letters in the history of India as a creator of social justice.
He was not only the man of age and creator of the Constitution but
also the creator of social justice and messiah of the down-trodden. If
Mahatma Gandhi gave us the direction and lesson of morality then
Baba Saheb gave shape to social aspect without exploitation. In true
sense of the word, he had democratic and anti-caste aim. He spent his
whole life for the advancement of the poor, exploited untouchables
and troubled classes.
It has been a gloomy historic fact of Indian society that lower castes
have been exploited and subjugated upon by the upper castes and for
that reason the lower castes have mostly also been the lower classes
economically and vice versa. Until the British period there had never
really been many revolts or movements on behalf of the lower castes
and untouchables to seek social justice. But during the freedom
movement there were many leaders and movements throughout India.
The most protruding voice of and for the lower castes bad emerged in
the person of B.R. Ambedkar who came from the untouchable Mahar
caste in what is today Maharashtra. Even today Ambedkar is a hugely
influential symbol who is followed by many political forces
throughout the length and breadth of India. Ambedkar's aim in his
own words was to get justice for the 'last, the lost and the least and he
emerged as a sort of revolutionary leader of India's Hindu
untouchable and other castes. His intention was to fight for their
equality and seek better-quality living conditions for them and reach
education among them and get suitable representation for them in
elected bodies and in government services.
During the freedom struggle. Ambedkar's emphasis on issues related
to social justice forced the leaders of the national movement to take
these up as part of the agenda associated with the main demand for
unshackling the country from the chains of colonialism. Ambedkar
was a highly educated person with great academic accomplishments
and a lawyer by training. His views on social justice are to be found in
his books and speeches.
His most important works are Annihilation of Caste (1936). Who
were the Shudras (1946) and The Untouchables (1948). Also, his
writings like What Congress and Gandhi have done to the
Untouchables. He put forward vivid well researched attacks on the
exploitative Hindu caste system chiefly with respect to how
untouchables were treated and struggled all his life to secure legal and
constitutional safeguards for their rights. It is stimulating in spite of
the fact that he had attacked Gandhi's Congress Party's views and
attitudes on the caste system quite harshly and in a scathing manner in
his writings, Gandhiji suggested Ambedkar's name to head the
committee to draft the Constitution.
In his own personal life and career Ambedkar had to face caste
discrimination and harassment of the most severe kind and was foiled
in his career again and again. Even though he was highly educated
and had advanced degrees from the world-famous Columbia
University of New York and the University of London where he did
his D.Sc. by job that he took up back home in India he could not
continue with because upper caste subordinates refused to work with
him or otherwise frustrated him. For instance, when he took up
employment in the government of the princely state of Baroda, his
upper caste subordinates humiliated him and ultimately forced him to
resign. Even at the Bombay University he was treated badly by upper
caste colleagues and he was ultimately forced to resign. 1924 onwards
Ambedkar was fully in a political movement and the national
struggle.
Ambedkar in his work “Who Were the Shudras?” questioned the
whole Hindu social order and tried to create a theory that the
Shudras were not a separate varna or caste but were originally
Kshatriyas who in a struggle with Brahmins were manipulated out
of the kshatriya caste by the Brahmins and were deprived of the
sacred thread. As a consequence, they lost their social position due
to this move of the brahmins and became backward and degraded.
Similarly, he attacked the Hindu theory on untouchables and used
anthropometric and ethnographic evidence to try to prove that there
had been no racial, ethnic or occupational basis for the origin of
untouchables.
He proposed a hypothesis that the untouchables were originally
disciples of Buddha and were Buddhists but the Hindus led by the
Brahmins to try to undermine Buddhist influence and stop its
spread put the untouchables in a corner and started branding them
untouchables. He believed the root of all lack of social justice in
India was the caste system that created the environment for
exploitation of man by man- of the Shudras and untouchables by
the brahmins and other higher castes. He believed that democracy
cannot be achieved in India without first establishing social justice
through the annihilation of the caste. Hence, he took a position that
contradicted both the position of Congress and Gandhiji, who first
wanted political reform and independence from the British colonial
government, and the socialists and Marxists who wanted economic
equality also established themselves first.

Understanding Justice
Every society from time immemorial has been making its best efforts
to ensure happiness and each to its members by guaranteeing
fulfilment of their needs, alleviating their sorrows and sufferings and
protecting them from abuse and exploitation, by doing justice. Before
making any attempt to apprehend social justice, it will become critical
to make clear the idea of justice per se. "The idea of social justice is
best understood as forming one a part of the wider idea of justice in
general. To recognize it properly, we ought to start via way of means
of searching at justice as a whole, after which try and mark off that
department of justice which we name social justice.
The term justice has a very vast canvass and it is very difficult to give
a very precise but comprehensive definition. Social justice takes
within its compass millions of people living a life of want and it
destroys inequalities of race, sex, power, position, wealth and brings
about equal distribution of social, political and material resources of
the community. Simply defined, social justice is a balance between
social rights and social control.' Dr Ambedkar's concept of social
justice stands for the liberty, equality and fraternity of all human
beings. He stood for a social system which is based on right relations
between man and man in all spheres of life. For the proper grasp of Dr
Ambedkar's concept of social justice, one has to go through his views
about religion, particularly.
In 1918 when the Southborough commission for franchise came to
India to get witness from depressed class people Ambedkar also was
inter viewed by the commission. He expressed, idem end separate
electorates and reserved seats for the depressed class in proportion
to the population. “I emphasize the social equality and social justice
before the demand the home rule was much the birth right of the
Mahars as a Brahmin. I stress the need for a marked change in the
attitude of caste Hindus to implement social justice to all,
particularly the depressed class peoples.”

Constitutional Aspect—Equality and Social Justice

In the constitution of democratic India, all citizens are guaranteed
political and social equality. At the same time the freedom of
expression of thoughts, beliefs and religion. The builders of the
constitution placed more emphasis on social justice than on economic
and political justice. Much emphasis was also placed on equal
opportunities and individual freedom. Under Section 340 of the
Constitution, the Kaka-Kalelkar Commission was formed on January
29, 1953. In our constitution, the part that holds the government
accountable for parliamentary affairs is borrowed from the British
constitution.

Further views
“A Constitution if it is out of touch with the people’s life aims and
aspirations, became rather empty if it falls below those aims, it drags
the people down, it should be same thing higher to keep people’s eye
and minds up to a certain high mark”- Jawaharlal Nehru.
the article insisted the scholarship of Ambedkar, that since. India
union constitution different type of state, deferent culture and
different languages, the demands and expectation of the development
constitution people might have been also very different, in this
context therefore he has given more powers to the states under the
state autonomy and any proposal of scheduled caste by the state must
be taken under the directive principles and cannot be questioned in a
court of law. Further for the joint sphere of activities, Ambedkar also
included in the concurrent list, so the social justice of Ambedkar is
insisting justice to all and he had seen the Buddha drama as a religion
of social justice in which he was successful.
“There will be outcast as long as there are caste Hindus nothing can
emancipate out caste except, the destruction of caste system. Quest
for social justice” he observed. A philosophy of constitutionalism
revolved around Social Justice and changes through perfects
constitution means. He desired to create an equalitarian society
through the process of constitution making. He dreamt of an India
where there would be no discrimination between man and man no
exploitation no unsociability an no degradation his initial strategy as
long as the British were three, lay in demanding constitution tights
and safeguards, including the controversial separate electorate for the
depressed classed on communal lines. But with the advent of
independence, B.R Ambedkar approached the problem from the wider
perspective of nationalism democracy, humanity and justice.
Therefore, the present dissertation is a humble attempt to present what
social justice was meant according to Ambedkar? What were the
perspectives of the social in justice prevalent in the Indian society? it
would be better to know any other scholarly work have been dome on
this or a similar them, so that the present attempt may be improved in
the light of those study.
 CONCLUSION

In conclusion it can be said Ambedkar arrived at the following

position vis-à-vis social injustice that the caste system caused:
1. Untouchables and lower castes must break their chains of bondage
by refusing the traditional untouchable's work and acquire pride and
self-respect.
2. Education must be acquired by untouchables at all costs because it
is only through education that untouchables can have their status
raised.
3. Untouchables can only be represented by themselves and not by the
Hindus (he regarded untouchables like him and Shudras as non-
Hindus) and should be treated as a minority by the government
4. The government should provide special welfare measures to those
who are traditionally been barred from educational and other
opportunities.
5. Finally social justice will only be ultimately established when caste
itself is abolished. He argued the function of Brahmin priests can be
performed by trained persons any caste under state supervision. He
attacked Gandhiji and the Congress for accepting and compromising
with the four varna system of Hinduism.

References

1) M Sampathkumar, BR Ambedkar and Social Justice a Study,

Historical Research Letter, 2014, Vol.13.
2) Dr Mohan Singh Saggu, BR Ambedkar’s vision of Social Justice,
Historical Research Letter, 2018, Vol.2 Issue X, Pages 190-194.
3) D.R Jatava, Dr B.R. Ambedkar study in Society and Politicals,
(Jaipur, National Publications, 2001), p.100
4) Social Justice, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice

Plagiarism Report

AVERAGE PLAGIARISM- 17.5%