Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India

“This is intellectual history at its best from one of India’s foremost feminist historians. V. Geetha pursues a recursive method as she maps the coordinates of Ambedkar’s vision of time and the ethical across his theorization of caste, colonial rule, labor, social reproduction and religion. In the context of several interlocutors and historical moments, with sparklingly clear prose, she shows how socialism was a ‘spectral presence’ in his thought as he worked to create forms of epistemic, ontological and socio-political rupture with the order of caste and untouchability.”

—Smriti Srinivas, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, USA

This book offers a reading of Bhimrao Ambedkar’s engagement with the idea and practice of socialism in India by linking it to his lifelong political and philosophical concerns: the annihilation of the caste system, untouchability and the moral and philosophical systems that justify either. Rather than view his ideas through a socialist lens, the author suggests that it is important to measure the validity of socialist thought and practice in the Indian context, through his critique of the social totality. The book argues its case by presenting a broad and connected overview of his thought world and the global and local influences that shaped it. The themes that are taken up for discussion include: his understanding of the colonial rule and the colonial state; history and progress; nationalism and the questions he posed the socialists; his radical critique of the caste system and Brahmancal philosophies, and his unusual interpretation of Buddhism.

V. Geetha is an independent scholar based in Chennai, India.