NET - Ambedkar
1. His writings in ascending order - 'Annihilation of Caste', 'Who were the Shudras?', 'The
Untouchables', 'The Buddha and his Dharma'.
2. Being an untouchable himself, he fought against the massive social structure that created
social disabilities by sheer courage and never say die attitude, and went on to become a
constitutional list, a parliamentarian, scholar and jurist.
3. He reinvented the entire notion of anti-untouchability and social reform movement throughout
India. And he carried out his movements on long-term basis, unlike his predecessors.
4. He was an innovator; he included in the movements critical aspects of empowerment that
were previously unaddressed. Before, emancipation of untouchables remained confined to
social a d religious reforms. Ambedkar wanted to include the idea of appropriate representation
of untouchables in the political bodies as well as govt. services.
5. His thought process was a direct product of his first-hand experience being an untouchable
himself. Unlike Gandhi, he battled for the socio-political rights of the untouchables.
6. In 1919 he was called upon to depose before the Southborough Committee set up to suggest
amendments in qualification criteria for voting rights. Here he tried to secure separate electorate
and reserved seats for the untouchables.
7. Started weekly paper 'Mooknayak' to propagate interests of depressed classes. He tried to
establish himself as a lawyer but failed, partly due to his untouchable status.
8. Set up the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha in 1924 ans started the paper Bahiskrit Bharat in 1927.
9. Organised the Mahad Satyagraha in 1927 emphasising the rights of the untouchables.
Clashes with caste Hindus led him to publicly burn the Manusmriti .
10. Founded the Samaj Samata Sangh and Samata Sainik Dal in 1927. appointed as member
of Bombay legislative assembly.
11. In 1930s he turned his focus towards securing more separate places and positions fir
untouchables in the constitutional framework.
12. Gandhi’s epic fast unto death against the separate electorate for the untouchables led to the
signing of the Poona Pact, the core of which was to have a joint electorate with reservation of
seats for the depressed classes. This seemingly compulsive Pact did not appear to have
satisfied Ambedkar.
13. He no more remained sure of the potentiality of the Hindu religion to reform itself and afford
the respectful place to the untouchables within its fold.
14. He noted that at the outset, the Hindu society composed of classes which from the earliest
times existed in the form of the Brahmans (the priestly class), the Kshatriya (the warrior class),
the Vaishayas (the trading class) and the Shudras (the artisans or the menial class). The
fundamental characteristic of this system was the scope for graduation of an individual from one
particular class to the other, provided he earned the essential qualities of that class. Such a
subdivision of the society appeared natural given the diversity in the innate responsibilities to be
shouldered by different sets of people. Gradually, however, these subdivisions started losing
their open-door character of the class system and became self-closed units called castes.
15. Trying to understand the Vedic justification for the caste system in his ‘Who were the
Shudras?’ Ambedkar precisely analysed the Rig Veda and found a typical explanation of the
origin of the caste system in the Purusha Shukta.
