B R Ambedkar: The Quest for Justice

The five volumes of papers exploring the major themes of research surrounding the capacious oeuvre of Dr B.R. Ambedkar provide a summary evaluation of the state of Ambedkar studies internationally, highlight research trends both about and inspired by Ambedkar, and open up lines of future enquiry.

Volume 1 focuses specifically on the theme of political justice, including explorations in political theory inspired by Ambedkarite thought. Volume 2 examines key issues in social justice, especially in terms of Indian democracy, and provides a wide range of perspectives all anchored in Ambedkar's work and writings. Volume 3 covers legal and economic justice. The first part explores literature on the Constitution of India and its institutions, the idea of constitutional morality, rights and the rule of law, and Ambedkarite jurisprudence. The second part turns to a variety of issues in economic justice anchored in Ambedkar's economic philosophy. Volume 4 focuses on gender justice and racial justice. The first part explores Ambedkar's impact on efforts to achieve gender justice in India, and effects various readings of Ambedkar as a feminist. The second part turns to comparisons of race and caste and explores the ways in which the movements for racial justice and caste equality can learn from one another and seek strategies of synergy. Volume 5 treats of religious justice and cultural justice. It covers topics such as conversion, Navayana Buddhism, and liberation theology. The second part explores timely issues in cultural justice inspired by Ambedkar's own activism and struggles.

Aakash Singh, Rathore, Professor, JNU

Aakash Singh Rathore is author of Ambedkar's Preamble: A Secret History of the Constitution of India (Penguin, 2020), and regular contributor to The Indian Express and Outlook magazine. Rathore has taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Universities of Delhi, Rutgers, Pennsylvania, Toronto, Humboldt Berlin, LUISS-Rome, and Jindal Global University.
His twenty previous books range from political philosophy, law, and religion to literature, sports, and wine. These include Hegel's India: A Reinterpretation, with Texts (Oxford University Press, 2017), and B.R. Ambedkar's The Buddha and His Dhamma: A Critical Edition (Oxford University Press, 2010). He is also author of the forthcoming book, B.R. Ambedkar: A Definitive Biography.

Vol 1: Preface Aakash Singh Rathore
Acknowledgements S. Japhet
Foreword Shashi Tharoor
Introduction Aakash Singh Rathore
1. Bhikhu Parekh The Intellectual and Political Legacy of B.R. Ambedkar
2. Cosimo Zene B.R. Ambedkar and Antonio Gramsci: Justice for the Excluded,
Education for Democracy
3. Anand Teltumbde Ambedkar and Democracy: Critical Reflections
4. Neera Chandhoke Repairing Complex Historical Injustice
5. Pradeep Gokhale Dr. Ambedkar and the Trio of Principles: Liberty, Equality, and
Fraternity
6. Vidhu Verma An 'Exceptionalist' Reading of B.R. Ambedkar
7. Scott Stroud Communication, Justice, and Reconstruction: Ambedkar as an
Indian Pragmatist
8. J. Daniel Elam Of Castes and Crowds: B.R. Ambedkar's Anticolonial Endosmosis
9. Pushparaj Deshpande A Constellation of Ideas: Revisiting Ambedkar and Gandhi
10. Shaunna Rodrigues Self-Respect as a Primary Political Ideal: Ambedkar's Challenge
to Political Theory
Vol 2 Martin Fuchs Ambedkar's Theory of the Social: The Universal Condition of Recognition
2. James Manor B.R. Ambedkar: Visionary and Realist
3. Gobinda C. Pal Caste-Class Matrix in Delivery of Social Justice: Revisiting Ambedkar
4. Meena Dhanda 'Made to think and forced to feel': The power of counter-ritual
5. David Gellner, Krishna P. Adhikari, Arjun Bahadur B.K.
Dalits in Search of Inclusion: Comparing Nepal with India
6. Navyug Gill Horizons of Hierarchy: Ambedkar, Labor and Dalit Conversion in Colonial Panjab
7. Shailaja Menon The Fractured Society of the Republic
8. Khalid Khan Unequal Access to Higher Education among Social Groups in Karnataka
9. Sangita Yadav Ambedkar's Idea of Social Justice: Scheduled Tribes in Uttar Pradesh
10. Jagannatham Begari Reclaiming Social Justice and Deepening Democracy
11. Suraj Yengde Ambedkar's Internationalization of Social Justice
12. Karthik Raja The Poona Pact in Indian Historiography: A Blind Spot?
13. Ajay Verma Ambedkar and the Metaphysics of Social Justice
Vol 3: Upendra Baxi Lawless Law, Living Death, and the Insurgent Reason of Babasaheb Ambedkar
2. R. Sudarshan B.R. Ambedkar's Exemplary Adherence to Constitutional Morality
3. Arvind Narrain Radical Constitutionalism: Towards an Ambedkarite jurisprudence
4. Antje Linkenbach B.R. Ambedkar's Imaginations of Justice
5. Umakant The Significance of Rights and Rule of Law under the Indian Constitutional Framework
6. Anupama Rao B. R. Ambedkar and Indian Democracy
7. Karen Gabriel & Prem Kumar Vijayan 'Whose State is it Anyway? Reservation, Representation, Caste, and Power'
Part Two: Economic Justice
1. Vijay Gudavarthy Development through Informalization and Circulation of Labour;
The Emerging Anatomy of an Uncivil Society
2. Joseph Tharamangalam India's Paradox of "hunger amidst plenty" has a Name: Caste-based Discrimination and Exclusion
. Aseem Prakash Dalits Enter the Indian Markets as Owners of Capital: Adverse Inclusion, Social Networks, and Civil Society
4. Pritam Singh Ambedkar's Economic Methodology for Social Justice: the Centrality of Dalits
5. Jawed Alam Khan Economic Justice: Policy and Public Investment for Pasmanda Muslims
Vol 4
Shailaja Paik Education, Self-Respect, and the Rise of the New Dalit Woman
2. Sanghmitra S. Acharya Double Disadvantage of Sanitation Workers and Government Responses
3. Mushtaq Ahmad Malla The Shame of India: Stigma and Shame Among Dalit Women in Rural Agricultural Relations
4. Rajesh Raushan Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment: Ambedkar in Contemporary Context
5. Sunaina Arya Ambedkar as a Feminist Philosopher
6. Mala Mukherjee Ambedkar on Women's Empowerment and the Status of Dalit Women in Karnataka
7. Sukumar Narayan and Komal Rajak Constructing a New Female Subjectivity: Ambedkar's Perspective
8. Moses Seenarine Organic Resistance: the Relevance of Ambedkar, Du Bois and Garvey to Diaspora, Caste, Race and Women's Liberation
Part Two: Racial Justice
1. GoolamVahed and Ashwin Desai Racelessness and Ambedkar's Idea of Annihilation: Post-Apartheid South Africa
2. Kevin Brown and Lalit Khandare Common Struggles?: Why there has not been more Cooperation between African-Americans and Dalits
3. Ronald Hall Ambedkar and King: Caste-Color-Race-Color Oppression vis-?-vis Freedom, Justice, and Equality
4. GoolamVahed Can Ambedkar speak to Africa? Colour, caste and class struggles in contemporary South Africa
Vol 5
. Laurence Simon Searching for a Theology of Liberation in India
2. Sanjeev Kumar Ambedkar on Two Concepts of Conversion: Ending 'Social Isolation' and Achieving 'Self-Worth'
3. Kanchana Mahadevan Ambedkar's Critical Hermeneutics of Religion
4. Debora Spini Civil Religion, Uncivil Society: Ambedkar's conception of a 'Religion for Civil Society'
5. Priyanka Jha The Gaze on Justice: a Genealogy from Anagarika Dharmapala to B.R. Ambedkar
6. Bansidhar Deep B.R. Ambedkar's Philosophy of Religion
Part Two: Cultural Justice
1. Pramod K. Nayar Marginality, Suffering, Justice: Questions of Dalit Dignity in Cultural Texts
2. Y. Srinivasa Rao Asura: Myth into Cultural Reality
3. John Clammer Cultural Rights in the Context of Ambedkarite Social Justice
4. Raju Sakthivel Education in a Hierarchical Culture
5. Jadumani Mahanand Ambedkar in/and Academic Space