“All Human Beings are of Equal Status Since Birth”: Caste,Inequality and B.R. Ambedkar’s Universal Claim for Human Equality

Introduction

The importance of human dignity, equal worth and equal status for all has been a consistent feature of international discourse since 1940. Notably, they have been universalised by Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). The universal declaration declared and asserted that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. In essence, it was an attempt to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights for men and women and of nations large and small”. Further, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has also emphasised the importance of human dignity in their charters. Such ideas can be seen as the institutionalisation of several philosophical concepts which have been articulated in human societies ever since the European enlightenment.

Apart from the ideas of philosophers, concepts such as equality and human dignity have been enormously influenced by social and civil rights movements in Western societies; chiefly, in Europe and North America. Such movements have been very effective mechanisms in claiming equal status for those who have been historically denied their legitimate rights. This process has been very well documented in studies such as Morris and Mueller (1992), Young (2002, 2011), Haslanger (2012, 2017), Medina (2013) and Anderson (2014). These studies are however rooted in the context of Western social life, and as such have not focused on egalitarian movements in non-Western societies. This is not because non-Western societies were not capable of producing social and civil rights movements of their own. Indeed, the first known civil rights movements in the twentieth century occurred in a non-Western society; in India in 1927. The name of this movement is popularly known as the Mahad Satyagraha. ¹ The word Mahad is a reference to the location of the movement; a territory that is today known as Maharashtra.

Spearheaded by the political thinker and social activist, B.R. Ambedkar, the Mahad movement collectively declared its unanimous resolution on human equality, stating that “All human beings are of equal status since birth and they are of equal status until they die” (Teltumbde, 2016, p. 349). Such an insight is nothing short of extraordinary since it appeared nearly two decades before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Mahad, in essence, rejected the authority of the caste system. By doing so, it broke all the ties with this dominant but unequal Indian social institution. According to Ambedkar and his fellow protestors, the caste system was an illegitimate social entity since it relied on the reading of Hindu religious scripture than a straight forward assessment of human beings and their inherent worth. According to this discursive schema, an individual’s identity was entirely defined by his/her caste rather than personal preferences. By themselves, individuals had no identity of their own. All cases of the discrimination were thus due to the collective caste actions of particular community rather than an individual’s own point of view/bias. Caste oppression was unjustly legitimised by the supposed social status of an individual. So, according to Ambedkar, the key problem was that a higher social status could only be acquired by those who belonged to the higher castes; and those who belonged to a lower caste were unfortunately vulnerable to discrimination. Caste allotment was solely done on the basis of the religious injunctions of Hindu scriptures.

Ambedkar rejected the authority of Hindu religious scripture and its morality. He has argued that “The socio-religious disabilities have dehumanized the untouchables and their interests at stake are therefore the interests of humanity” (Ambedkar, 1979b, p. 256). Indeed, the Mahad movement can be seen as a response to a particular social and religious context for it challenged the dehumanisation of the Dalits. At the time Dalits were known as “Untouchables”. “Untouchable” is a term used for a group, historically out-casted from the conceptual category of “human” in Hindu society. An untouchable was not only excluded from the Hindu social fold but also “bound by the reproduction of the existing order, along with its category of the low and despised” (Rodrigues, 2019, p. 11). To address the desolate condition of untouchables, the Mahad movement conceptualised a distinct approach for their liberation.

Ambedkar called for a “moral revolution”, a radical critique of the given “social situation” and “instituted knowledge”—everyday forms of understanding society. Revealingly, he articulated a set of egalitarian demands which confronted contemporary social injustice head-on. He argued for a new basis of society, one that would not deny the moral worth and dignity of a human being. Unfortunately, the insights of Ambedkar and his fellow colleagues at Mahad has been completely ignored by mainstream human rights movement studies (Berg, 2018, p. 7).

Scholars such as Omvedt (1994), Zelliot (1996, 2013), Jaffrelot (2005), Rao (2009) and Teltumbde (2016) have emphasised that the Mahad movement stressed on the vital importance of civil rights and equal access to public space as its key objectives. Out of the many scholars who have referred to Mahad in their work; the detailed research of Teltumbde stands out for its exhaustive history of the Mahad movement. Teltumbde underscores the uniqueness of Mahad in its organisation and leadership. He demonstrates the ways in which Mahad had been Mohandas Gandhi’s strategies of protest (as enshrined in his Satyagraha movements).

Ambedkar’s action at Mahad was motivated by a deep moral concern for the condition of Dalits. This can be seen as evidence of moral philosophy at work. However, the importance of Ambedkar’s moral philosophy at Mahad has been inadequately emphasised in current scholarship. We argue that Mahad can be seen from an interpretative thematic that is broader and beyond the conceptual scope of a mere political strategy. Instead, Mahad was nothing sort of an attempt at an all-encompassing “moral revolution”. Such an argument recalibrates scholarly discussions on Mahad from strategy to philosophical concerns on human equality and dignity. Critical to this process of recalibration is a new understanding of what Ambedkar meant by “moral”.

Ambedkar’s knowledge of “moral” was an inherent discursive product of his lived experiences. “Moral” referred to the transformation, organisation and consolidation of personal experiences into a well-articulated collective action. In Ambedkar’s hands, “moral” was nothing short of a “collective force”, which designed to challenge the norms and beliefs of Hindu society. In this sense, an appeal to a moral collective force challenged the current social hierarchies in Hinduism. What was lacking was a firm and dedicated commitment to social ethics. And so, Ambedkar challenged unfair hierarchies with an assertive claim for human equality as the essential moral principle.

At Mahad, Ambedkar’s actions were structured around two precise ethical demands: first, that all human beings have equal human dignity; and second that no social institution can legitimately dominate or repress an individual or a group. This article explores the philosophical implications of Ambedkar’s actions in some detail. It is divided into three sections. The first emphasises the critical importance of Ambedkar’s lived experiences of humiliation and its subsequent development into a programme of moral action at Mahad. The second illustrates the distinct place that Mahad occupies in attempting to inaugurate a sweeping moral revolution by accounting for the “epistemic gap” in the discourse of human dignity on the one hand and the quest for social justice on the other. The third explains the uniqueness of Ambedkar’s notion of human equality. The article concludes by summarising Ambedkar’s ethics at Mahad.

Experiences of Untouchability: Shaping the Personal into a Programme of Collective Action

Ambedkar had a long and dismal series of personal experiences in the decades preceding Mahad. It is our contention that these would go on to have a defining impact on Ambedkar’s later thought. Experiences of untouchability had “left an indelible impression” on him (Ambedkar, 1993, p. 670). Our argument that Ambedkar’s thought was influenced by his life owes an intellectual debt to the work of Gopal Guru (2009b). Guru’s consistent emphasis on the relationship between humiliation and political action has inspired this article’s autobiographical approach.

Ambedkar confronted untouchability, and its implied humiliation and discrimination, in childhood. His autobiographical writings recall several experiences on the subject. As a 9-year-old child, he was denied drinking water in the scorching heat of the summer of 1901 on the grounds of his caste-status—an “Untouchable”. The episode left an imprint on his memory. Similar experiences occurred later during his teens and at school. Once again, Ambedkar was denied drinking water from the tap. While the children of the “touchable classes” were free to use the tap, he could not, “unless it was opened for it by a touchable person, it was not possible for me to quench my thirst” (1993, pp. 670–671). The discrimination continued throughout his adult life while working as a village Patwari (Revenue official) in Kheda district of Gujarat since he could not “touch the cans for my touch would pollute the water”. Consequently, he wrote “I had to go without water and the days on which I had no water to drink were by no means few” (1993, pp. 689–690). Similarly, upon his return from Columbia University (after completing his PhD), he had no access to water in his office despite being the Military Secretary to the Maharaja (King) of Baroda (Keer, 1971, p. 34).

The above incidents should not be treated as anecdotal. Rather, they can be clearly seen as the evidence on which our arguments concerning the relationship between experience and action rest, for they directly lead to the eventual development of Ambedkar’s idea of moral knowledge. The lived-experiences of untouchability, the moral wrongs and injustice would prove to be the intellectual backbone of his moral ire at Mahad. What Ambedkar was motivated, was the removal of injustice. In doing this, he was drawing on a very specific line of thought; an examination of that which is to be removed rather than an articulation of that which is present and visible. Ambedkar’s moral theory, therefore, was an exposition against injustice. This, however, does not mean that his moral theory was incomplete or inadequate. As Sally Haslanger has argued, “It is not necessary to know what justice is, or have a complete moral theory, to engage in critique. It may be sufficient to know that this particular practice, or structure is unjust” (Haslanger, 2017, p. 166). A moral knowledge can also be developed through participation in social practices which are unjust. In Haslanger’s terms, a “first-person moral knowledge” is possible through lived experiences alone (Haslanger, 2017, p. 167). Haslanger herself has drawn on the arguments of Balkin (1998) and Sen (2006) to make her points. Similarly, Sliwa has also argued that first-hand experiences can translate into moral knowledge (Sliwa, 2017). There is therefore a well-established discourse community of scholars whose works place Ambedkar’s writings on his experiences of injustice in their proper philosophical perspective. We realise that experience of oppression can also serve as powerful tools by which a thinker can cultivate a moral force to resist injustices. As such it develops into a knowledge system of moral philosophy. At Mahad, Ambedkar drew on a moral philosophy to construct and lead a mass resistance against the oppression of the caste system.

Mahad Movement: Towards Dalit Liberation

The Mahad movement occurred within a very specific socio-political environment. One simply cannot delve into Mahad while ignoring the context in which it was forged. It is imperative that we examine this in some detail.

Ambedkar was interested in putting forward a one-point agenda. He demanded that there should not henceforth be any difference between the “untouchable” and “touchable”. He was referring to a peculiar form of bodily discrimination, which was then in existence. The “touchables” consisted of the high castes of Indian society. Their bodies were deemed biologically superior and ritually pure. This provided them with an extraordinary amount of power and authority over the lives and bodies of the lower castes. Under this schema, the Dalits were deemed “untouchable”. Dalit bodies were unfairly categorised as polluted, inferior and unworthy. If the “touchable” classes constructed a language of rights for themselves, they also authored a discourse of denial for the Dalits. Critically for Ambedkar, the Dalits were denied basic human rights in everyday life and he was aghast that the basis of this denial was an irrational and unethical view of the supposed purity of Dalit bodies. For instance, a Dalit’s touch, shadow and sound were deemed as impure. They were thus dehumanised on the basis of everyday practices of untouchability.

Ambedkar himself was agitated with the presence and practice of untouchability. He wrote that untouchability led to “social segregation, social humiliation, social discrimination, and social injustice” (Ambedkar, 1989b, pp. 415–416). He argued that it was even legalised, noting that it was “an offence for the Untouchables to break or evade the rules of segregation” (Ambedkar, 1989c, p. 21). There was a political dimension to Ambedkar’s dissatisfaction and anger. In the current circumstances, the Dalits systematically excluded all forms of social and political participation. As he pointed out, the Hindu higher caste would not even have considered the Dalits to be “citizens” of their society (Ambedkar, 1979b, p. 256). This forms the backdrop of the Mahad movement.

The Mahad movement occurred in a political environment where the discourses around national politics were focused on self-rule, freedom from the British rule and issues of caste-based inequalities were not deemed important. Although its scope encompassed the social and political worlds of human equality, it, however, received only marginal support from the ongoing national movement for political independence. Most nationalist leaders had an orthodox view of the caste system, and it was only after 1917 that the Congress party even acknowledged the existence of caste-based issues such as untouchability. However, the party chose to remain silent on the question of caste-based social inequality and injustice. Put differently, national movement’s demand for freedom, a fundamental element of a person’s autonomy, was not extended to Dalit’s freedom from “untouchability” (Ambedkar, 1991). In this context, Guru has rightly pointed to the vital role played by leaders from Atishudra (untouchable) and Shudra (labour caste) communities in accounting for the “epistemic gap” in the discourse of social justice at that time (Guru, 2009a, pp. 233–235).

Guru’s observations are particularly relevant when one considers them with respect to the views of Mohandas Gandhi, who led the Indian anti-colonial movement. Gandhi was a moderate thinker but unaccountably rigid when it came to assessments of the caste system. In 1916, Gandhi stated that, “The caste system is a perfectly natural institution” and was opposed to any movement against caste (Gandhi, 1964, p. 301). Four years later, in 1920, he continued to uphold (and indeed celebrate) the caste system. Gandhi refused to see the caste system as “a harmful institution” and instead referred to it as a custom which promoted “national well-being” (Gandhi, 1965, p. 44). We note that Gandhi’s views on caste were based on his high caste status, for unlike Ambedkar, he had no personal experience of untouchability. He could not therefore know—what it meant to be an “Untouchable”.

In sharp contrast to Gandhi, Ambedkar was putting forward the matter of caste-based inequality and injustices as the central discourse in Indian society. In this way, he took the radical step of calling for a break in the mechanism of historical injustices committed against the Dalits and thereby laid the foundation for an argument concerning the historically absent principle of human equality.

On 20 March 1927 Ambedkar led thousands of Dalits to exercise their “civil rights” at the Chavadar public water-tank in Mahad. This tank was accessible to all humans and cattle but not to the Dalits. Denying water was a form of humiliation; designed to control and fix Dalit’s social and cultural space. To add insult to injury, the Dalits were not only denied access to water but also forced to live far away from the tank (due to alleged ritual pollution). Against this backdrop, Ambedkar took a firm stance opposing the restrictive norms and rules of Hindu society which denied human equality to Dalits. “We are not going to […] merely drink its water,” he declared triumphantly, “we are going to […] assert that we too are human beings like others. It must be clear that this meeting has been called to set up the norm of equality” (Ḍāṅgaḷe, 1992, pp. 223–233). Thus, he symbolically drank the water from the tank to emphasise his point. We argue that Ambedkar’s action was an ethical assertion to challenge the existing social order of Hindu society and instead formulate a new social order which would recognise the “moral worth” of every human. Guru has noted that Ambedkar’s actions had philosophical implications. In his words Ambedkar was calling for:

the emergence of an ethically/morally stable social order; a social order that would be permeated by a collective moral good […] for him [Ambedkar], grasping the truth through action is more important than approaching it through theoretical operation. (Guru, 2017, p. 98)

Following Guru, we are of the opinion that Ambedkar’s actions had two critical implications. First, his claim that “we too are human beings” emphasised a critical “truth”: that untouchables are human beings but have never had any experience of this in contemporary reality. In this way, “truth” existed in a social reality which was different from everyday existence. Ambedkar’s actions subverted the constructed social relations of “truth” and “power” in Indian society. Ambedkar used water as a symbol of “moral truth” and by touching it; he broke the historical barriers imposed by an oppressive caste system. He did exactly what water does, treat everyone equally.

Secondly, Ambedkar’s emphasis on the “norms of equality” was not to explain what exactly equality is, per se. Instead, he focused on “establishing equality by abolishing untouchability” (Ambedkar, 1928 as cited in Teltumbde, 2016, p. 213). Ambedkar’s approach shows that we cannot establish equality without abolishing current social “inequalities”. His concern for equality began from a negative judgment on the twin concepts of “inequality” and “injustice”. In a social system where the Dalits were placed in an unequal social position and systematically excluded from being recognised as equal members of society and legitimate claimants of an equal social life, Ambedkar put forward his case for recognising them as equals at Mahad.

We argue that Ambedkar’s struggle for equality effectively amounts to an organic interpretation of human society. The Mahad movement was not about the mere denial of water but also a protest against the historical domination of higher caste and their unethical practices; which had been conveniently cloaked as socio-religious norms and rules. As the leader of the movement, Ambedkar took it upon himself to now critique social practices by making their unethical stance all too visible.

However, Ambedkar did not limit the scope of his actions at Mahad to only a blistering social critique. As he argued, “constitutional provisions are not adequate to remove the sources of prejudices; it will remove Untouchability in the outer world, but not from inside the house” (Jadhav, 2013, p. 97). His argument was more concerned with the social and cultural condition in which caste discrimination has become normalised and even posed as a code of status, morality and society. Consequently, the Mahad movement was fundamentally about highlighting “inequalities” and “injustices”, which forbid equal human recognition and interaction, dignity and self-respect, interpersonal human associations.

Ambedkar called for the critical need to erase those social and religious norms which insisted that untouchables had been “born impure” (Teltumbde, 2016, p. 345). And this was where the question of equal access to water became important. “Why should they [caste Hindus] prohibit only us [untouchables] from taking the water?”, he exclaimed and then continued:

Hindus, according to their scriptures have four varnas [social orders] and according to their customs, five Varnas-brahman, kshatriya, vaishya, and shudra and atisudra. Varna order depicts the first rule in the set of the rules Hinduism prescribes. The second rule of this religion is that these Varnas are unequal. One is lesser than the other in descending order. These rules have not only established the hierarchical status of each varna, but they have also fixed the boundaries of each varna in order to distinguish them. (Ambedkar, 1928 as cited in Teltumbde, 2016, p. 206)

Ambedkar primarily perceived the caste system in terms of a case where every day conduct had become religiously inscribed (Dhanda, 2020, p. 74). For example, higher caste Hindus did not recognise that the “untouchables” as equals because they claimed that the latter had already been “established as inferior” in ancient Hindu scriptures such as the Dharmashastra (Ambedkar, 1928 as cited in Teltumbde, 2016, p. 206).

The Dharmashastras were ancient books on jurisprudence which also sanctioned rules, penalties and social codes designed to deny an equal “moral status” for lower castes and women. The caste system was effectively formalised in Dharmashastric literature. Unsurprisingly the Dharmashastras were singled out for criticism in his work. At Mahad, he even burned the most well-known and authoritative Dharmashastra of all—the Manudharmashastra. He argued that the caste system had been institutionalised, rationalised and legitimated by the Manudharmashastra. It had even become a part of the social psyche of contemporary Indian where caste was henceforth considered an unquestionable divine creation whereas it was in-fact a man-made system which thrived on discrimination and hierarchy (Ambedkar, 1987a, pp. 7–8).

For Ambedkar, burning the Manudharmashastra was an essential activity because it sent out a message—following Mahad, the Dalits would no longer accept the validity of any text which contained caste embedded “morals” and knowledge (Ambedkar, 1989a, 2003). The Dalits were now in a position to reject their permanent social status as “untouchable”. He was emphatic that untouchability was not the result of divine law in operation but rather a product of an imposed Hindu social order which was governed by rituals rather than any rational backing. From this view, there was in fact no reasonable ground on which the caste system could be justifiably followed.

Ambedkar’s interventions at Mahad were geared towards creating a set of conditions by which his moral philosophy could then be practised. Critical to this concern was the difficult task of being able to convert the intellectual gains from a theoretical critique of the caste system into the viable backdrop by which egalitarianism could then be practised by all. He trained his philosophical gaze towards the future, for his actions at Mahad essentially reinterpreted the past in the context of the present so that a more equal society could then emerge in the future. It was in pursuit of this future goal that he “touched” the water and “burned” the Manudharmashastra in the present so as to highlight the historical “injustice” against Dalits in the past, in order to emphasise his case that no human being should be treated as “Untouchable” in the future. His actions at Mahad brought the lived experience of the Dalits into the full light of history. But Ambedkar was not acting alone. His resistance was a part of a large collective movement. In that sense it was a collective resistance.

At Mahad, Ambedkar demonstrated the various ways in which the caste system excluded lower caste people from all spheres: knowledge, power, wealth and social life. His actions aimed to create an epistemic space where a historically wronged group could now claim equality. Beneath the actions lay a very deep sense of hope—for a just and equal society; the eradication of structural discriminations and the creation of an equal citizen.

Ultimately, this movement set a strong precedent for how a moment of equality can be actualised and lead to structural change at both ontological and epistemological levels, where an alternative moral “truth” and “progress” could bring about a new value system; with a more egalitarian system of ethics in operation to everyday life. Mahad had now emerged as the site of a radical revolution on human equality.

Foregrounding Human Equality

Ambedkar’s priority lay in a deep concern with the causes of human inequality. He focused particularly on Indian society. His aim was to uproot all sources of inequality in the country. According to him the main cause of inequality was the caste system with its emphasis on discrimination and a seemingly abiding commitment to the violent othering of the Dalits. For Ambedkar, it was clear that the caste system was required to be abolished. But he was not just making an argument in a demonstration in Mahad. Rather, he was spelling out a sophisticated programme of thought against inequality. It is a programme that would continue into the future and ultimately find its expression in the Constitution of India. In later years, Ambedkar would serve as the chairman of the Constituent Assembly and be responsible for institutionalising this idea into mainstream Indian political discourse. Today, article 17 of the constitution unequivocally declares that abolition of the untouchability. Mahad in other words was just the beginning.

However, it would be a mistake to assume that Ambedkar’s concern with the removal of inequality only extended to legal safeguard. He argued that equality can only be ushered in with a renewed focus on the immorality of inequality; specifically, of untouchability. Ambedkar was foregrounding human equality in moral philosophy. He hoped to bring about a moral revolution in social ethics and belief and thereby lay the epistemic foundations on which a new discourse on human equality could be constructed.

Ambedkar’s idea of a moral revolution was based on a critique of the concept of fixed duty in Hindu society. The caste system delineated the duties of all members of Hindu society. Under this schema, the Dalits were also delegated specific duties. However, their duties were very different from all others. They alone would have to perform duties which were demeaning and the dehumanising in their scope, purpose and intent. The critical question was that of fairness and justice. Is it fair and just to deliberately force a group of people to perform actions which dehumanised them while calling it a duty? How can such a concept of duty be justified? And further, if the caste system sanctions, validates and insists on the performance of such duties then is it not morally justifiable to call for the immediate end of the caste system? It was in this context that Ambedkar would argue for a new language of rights for the Dalits, a language that was foregrounded in human equality and expressed in the language of universal human rights.

For Ambedkar, it was vital to reassess the worth and value of a human being in contemporary India. He rejected the caste system’s view that the value of an individual was determined by her circumstances at birth (Rodrigues, 2017, p. 103). Instead, he asserted that all human beings were of equal worth, from a moral point of view. In his words, all individuals “possess in degree and kind, fundamental characteristics that are common to humanity” (Ambedkar, 1979c, p. 97). Once seen from this perspective, all human beings would henceforth be considered equal and the philosophical foundations for an egalitarian society could then be established.

Ambedkar’s methods—his focus on social problems of Dalits and the discriminatory nature of the caste system would find a conceptual reflection in the works of political philosophers today; particularly of Iris Marion Young. According to Young, in order to build an egalitarian society, we must first identify and address the injustices faced by oppressed social groups. Young suggests that this can be done by closely studying the specific social situations, institutions and practices (Young, 2011). In the same vein, Sen has also suggested that the political theorists should focus on “advance justice” by “removing existing injustices” rather than “aiming only at the characterization of perfectly just societies” (Sen, 2009, p. ix). This does not mean that Sen and Ambedkar have made the same argument (Rodrigues, 2011). At the heart of Sen’s ideas, is a very firm belief that individuals need to be empowered to realise their full potential. Ambedkar, on the other hand, presents a very different view. He argues that if social systems are aggressively discriminatory and institutionally hostile towards any form of social mobility; no amount of empowerment strategies will allow the individual to be equal. It is not the individual who requires to be empowered rather it is the contemporary social system (caste system) that requires to be abolished and replaced with a social institution which is geared toward the active promotion of equality. This entails equal social recognition, equal access to social space and inter-personal associations among the members of that community.

Ambedkar was not an institutional philosopher. By this, we mean that he was not based at any university or even a site of higher education. Consequently, his philosophy was non-doctrinal in approach. For this point of view, we must approach the difficult question of the philosophical implication of his actions at Mahad. In the final analysis, Ambedkar is a moral philosopher who has delved deep into his own past in order to produce the intellectual critique required for his present purpose of demanding human equality at Mahad. He was agitating for a change but the core of his agitation lay not in his actions but his moral philosophy of egalitarianism.

Conclusion

Evidence of Ambedkar’s moral philosophy can be found in his actions at Mahad. He cared deeply about securing equal moral rights for Dalits and made his arguments by throwing light on the unjust and unethical nature of the caste system which had effectively dehumanised Dalits. It is our contention that Ambedkar was not only concerned with Dalits but also with all people who had been discriminated against in human societies. His actions at Mahad were directed towards the swift and immediate removal of all practices which resulted in creating “inhumane conditions” for any given individual, group, or community. By “inhumane condition”, Ambedkar was referring to those social processes and behaviours which led to the gradual dehumanisation of people by those who were in the position of social privilege. His argument was an ethical critique of the violent power of privilege. If only a small group of people could oppress a large majority by actively discriminating against them, then how could such a society be deemed ethical? he asked. With regard to the caste system, he noted that it had effectively institutionalised discrimination and dehumanised Dalits by condemning them to untouchability. In response, Ambedkar called for a moral programme by which a new social system could be constructed—one that would not discriminate against anyone but rather actively promote equality. Such a social system would be held together by egalitarian beliefs amongst the various members of society. Everyone would then be in a social position to recognise their own intrinsic human identity. In this sense, Ambedkar’s actions at Mahad have philosophical implications for the question, what it fundamentally means to be a human, and what are the social processes that lead to the coming of more humane perspectives in everyday life. He insisted that all human beings are fundamentally ethical. Further, he asserted that ethics is a critical philosophical ingredient in the making of a human person. This constitutes a certain typology of knowledge; one that is essentially moral in nature. We refer to this here as “moral knowledge”.

In the current scholarship, scholars have largely ignored the role of Ambedkar’s moral knowledge in Mahad. But, a focus on moral knowledge points to a larger philosophical context: one where an ethical understanding of human life is epistemically indispensable to his political thought. Ambedkar developed his ideas from lived experiences of humiliation and discrimination. This also shows the critical relationship between memory, thought and action in his moral philosophy. Ambedkar’s idea of ethics is foregrounded in a belief in the vital importance of collective social action. For him, living a moral life is not only about what we think and feel about injustices but what we do to remove such injustices. Ethics has a social purpose. It is a powerful force which can challenge and even dismantle an unjust social structure. It was from this philosophical standpoint that he formulated ethics of everyday life.

At its core was a rejection of all Hindu social practices associated with the caste system. Ambedkar’s call for moral revolutions did not end with Mahad. Rather, he continued to develop his thought. In 1936, eight years after Mahad, he even suggested that one consider the possibility of converting into a religion which placed the “moral worth” of a human being at its centre and promoted human equality. Two decades later, in 1956, he formally converted into Buddhism because of its doctrinal emphasis on human dignity and equality and explicit rejection of the caste system. Mahad, therefore, was but the first of many moral revolutions to come.