Excerpt from Ramachandra Guha’s Arguments with Gandhi
This excerpt from Ramachandra Guha discusses the historical tension between B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi regarding the representation of Dalits. It examines Gandhi's moral approach to caste versus the Marxist focus on class, providing context for modern debates on Indian social justice.
Why it matters
It provides essential historical context for understanding the ongoing discourse surrounding caste, social justice, and political representation in India.
When meeting Gandhi in jail in 1932, Ambedkar told him: ‘Let there be no repetition of the old method when the reformer claimed to know more of the requirements of his victims than the victims themselves.’ Reading this warning now, almost a century later, one can see it as prescient. There had to come a time when Dalits would be represented by one of their own, rather than spoken for by a reformer from the upper-castes, however well-meaning he might be.
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