ABSTRACT
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is usually known for his well-articulated opinion on social justice; equally important were his views on how to constitutionalize India. While discharging his historical role in the context of India's nationalist movement, he upheld the values of British Enlightenment privileging social virtues, such as benevolence, compassion and tolerance. For Ambedkar, British colonialism was preferable since liberalism on which it drew its ideological sustenance never approved of discrimination on account of the accident of birth. Born as an untouchable, he suffered at every stage of his life because of a particular mindset of caste Hindus defending an age-old system of exploitation in the name of religion. In view of the social torture that Ambedkar had confronted, liberalism appeared to him to be a libertarian ideology because of its apparent egalitarian spirit. Ambedkar is usually projected as Dalits' messiah, underplaying, if not undermining, his significant contribution to constitutionalizing India immediately after decolonization in 1947.
