16: Dalit Movements: Reading Ambedkar
Seminar Questions:
1. Discuss the incompatibility between Gandhi and Ambedkar’s perspectives on caste and the abolition of untouchability.
2. Discuss the significance of Ambedkar’s definition of caste as a ‘division of labourers’ rather than a ‘division of labour’.
Seminar Readings:
1. B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste : The Annotated Critical Edition (London, 2014)
Background Readings:
1. Arundhati Roy, “The Doctor And The Saint”, introduction to Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition (2014)
2. Gail Omvedt, Understanding Caste: From Buddha to Ambedkar and Beyond (Delhi, 2011), pp. 48-97
3. Vasant Moon, Growing Up Untouchable in India. A Dalit Autobiography (Oxford, 2001)
4. B.R. Ambedkar, What Congress And Gandhi Have Done To The Untouchables (1945)