ABSTRACT
This chapter examines competing concepts of religion by Ambedkar and Radhakrishnan. Both have addressed the need for religion in the context of modernity that throws open the need for spirituality. For Radhakrishnan, the individual is compelled to explore a religious life due to the alienating consequences of capitalism and socialism. Thus, religion becomes a quest for individual perfection with seeming obliviousness to social hierarchies. Ambedkar, in contrast, roots himself in the social to articulate religion as a form of solidarity. He upholds that a critique of caste and gender hierarchy that is endemic to Hinduism is integral to the project of modern religion. Such a critique is absent in Radhakrishnan who abstracts religion from its social context. As a result of his critical approach, Ambedkar shifts to Buddhism to envisage religion as both reconstruction and choice. Further, he explores the possibility of reconstructing religion in egalitarian ways. The centrality of the critique, with both deconstructive and constructive connotations, in Ambedkar’s account of religion resonates with Kant’s critical approach to religion. This chapter explores Ambedkar’s endeavour to balance faith, morality and reason as especially relevant in the contemporary context of the rising religious identities and conflict.
