ABSTRACT
From the perspective of Indian political theory: Dalit svaraj is the mark, measure, and metric of svaraj as such. This holds true not simply for svaraj in its straightforward political sense as 'home rule', but equally for its more nuanced moral and ontological denotations. Mahatma Gandhi, in his own idiosyncratic way, was himself emphatic about this now and again. In Young India in 1920, Gandhi wrote: 'Non-cooperation against the government means cooperation among the governed, and if Hindus do not remove the sin of untouchability, there will be no Swaraj in one year or one hundred years'. Dalit svaraj, or free, equal, and agent-centred participation in the political sovereignty of a free and sovereign nation works Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and the Dalits out of that double-bind that they had found themselves ensnared in for so long. At any rate, one of the strangle-holds – British rule, external domination – had already dissolved itself.
