Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar's socio-political ideas were an outcome of his personal experiences of social atrocities which were justified as integral to the caste system. It delineates Babasaheb's idea of democracy which while being drawn on the fundamental precepts of constitutional liberalism also refashioned the conventional ideas of democracy. The book shows how Ambedkar developed his model of constitutional democracy in opposition to the Gandhi-conceptualized nationalist discourse. It provides a new methodological tool to decipher their conceptual roots. The book argues that Babasaheb's unique conceptualization of social justice was not just an outcome of his existential existence of being a Dalit, but an offshoot of his own understanding of liberalism as a mode of emancipating human beings from shackles of authority, power and domination.