Cosmopolitan Insights from BR Ambedkar, India’s Anti-Caste Campaigner and Constitutional Architect

What is it about?

While the domestic political and legal thought of BR Ambedkar—champion of India’s Dalits, shaper of its constitution and frequent critic of Mohandas Gandhi—has gained increasing notoriety, the international dimensions of his work have received relatively little attention. Ambedkar, in fact, staked out a distinctively universalistic approach to democratic citizenship and legitimacy which has important connections to and can inform current cosmopolitan dialogue. He rejected uncritical loyalty to the state, and he criticized presumptions of unity within states, arguing that foreigners’ support for the self-determination of an “Indian people” would merely perpetuate caste oppression within the country. The latter argument provides a significant challenge to some recent nationalist and moderate cosmopolitan accounts, which reject some comprehensive universal rights claims, or political structures to support them beyond the state, in the name of respecting a state’s domestic culture. Furthermore, Ambedkar’s thought on promoting democratic unity across diverse political units, as well as on pursuing domestic rights protections through regional and global institutions, offer valuable insights for the development of participation and accountability practices beyond the state.

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Why is it important?

Shows how the thought of India's constitutional architect Ambedkar, still a relatively neglected political thinker in global terms, can offer important insights for current dialogues on universalism and the development of political institutions beyond the state to support rights protections within states.

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