Academic literature on the topic 'Conflict between Ambedkar and Gandhi'

This chapter examines the historical emergence of secularism through movements, debates, and legal formulations to explain specific features that the concept has acquired in the context of India. The first part examines the tensions between the theoretical narratives of Indian constitutionalism and the practices of politics that led to the acceptance of certain essential conditions of secularism. The approach towards secularism found in writings of Nehru, Gandhi and Ambedkar are then discussed. The third part focuses on the ill-defined meaning of secularism that does not accurately reflect the

This chapter shows how the fragmentation of political authority precipitated a crisis of legitimacy of the old order. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative data, it first shows how Indira Gandhi attempted to restore central control through intervention in India’s states. Failing to reestablish control over India’s fragmented patronage network, she then made a populist turn, mobilizing the masses across India through the media and mass rallies in her conflict with her opponents. This chapter argues that this strategy was a consequence of the breakdown of the Congress system, rather than i

Abstract Are there laws connecting natural and moral phenomena? What is the ontology of the social such laws demand? Both Gandhi and Ambedkar held ontologically thin conceptions of social reality, including that of caste. Gandhi refrained from referring to caste in his account of untouchability as he thought such deep descriptions would delay the urgent task of self-purification. Ambedkar rejected the intentional and structural accounts of the origin of caste that could obstruct the annihilation of caste by granting it even a minimal justification. Gandhi claimed that the Bihar earthquake in 1934 was a punishment for us practising untouchability. I shall examine the hard connection he affirmed between natural phenomena and evil in the light of recent developments in philosophy of science and Indian metaphysics. Ambedkar, while rejecting the sociological theories about the origin of caste, admiringly refers to the law of imitation proposed by Gabriel Tarde, who rejected the dichotomy between the natural and social sciences and demanded an ontologically thin conception of social phenomenon like capitalism. Ambedkar used Tarde’s concept of the law to trace the origin of caste to the running amok of the means deployed for securing endogamy.

This chapter is organized around a contrast between two views relating to religious diversity and toleration and the differing logics implicit in them. The first is that of M. K. Gandhi, in which religious diversity and toleration was taken to be a given feature of the fluid historical, social, and normative texture of India. It therefore did not take toleration as requiring a special intervention. In contrast, the second takes diversity as given, which necessarily tends toward conflict, and hence toward anarchy and ultimately death. The first takes religious identities and diversity as given; the second is reliant on the functioning of the state, because it has to mediate between the contending claims of identity.

Abstract This chapter examines the ways in which Christianity has interacted with entrenched social structures in India. Evangelical missionaries encountered caste hierarchies and untouchability in India at the very time when other Evangelicals were engaged in antislavery agitation in England, the islands of the Caribbean, and the American colonies. Comparisons between the two contexts shed light on how Evangelicals understood their mandate and how emancipatory their impact really was. Both Gandhi and Ambedkar championed their own notions of social and political liberation, but it was Ambedkar’s ideas, as we shall see, that won the hearts of both Dalits and Dalit converts to Christianity. Aspects of Ambedkar’s legacy shaped key tropes of Dalit Christian theology, which resisted the oppressive structures of their day and incorporated Dalit experiences into their readings of the New Testament.

In Mumbai, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park is besieged by a sprawling urban agglomeration of 20 million inhabitants. The first part of this paper documents the dangerous and sometimes deadly presence of leopards in and around the park. In the second section, it is argued that leopards in Mumbai are not only a matter of human-nonhuman conflict: the panther attacks reveal conflicts of other kinds, between human stakeholders, and in particular highlight graduated levels of citizenship. Lastly, the leopards also reveal (or generate) spatial tensions – though they are also efficient go-betweens to help solve these conflicts.

This Part holds letters between father and son exchanged during the last decade of Gandhi’s life. This is the decade that starts under the clouds of World War II when India is also seeing battles of its own, between different forces, parties, people and what the Raj likes to see and categorise as India’s discordant sections and interests.Of these the pan-Indian, cross-community aggregation of the Indian National Congress is the major player, followed by the Muslim League which views itself as the voice of India’s biggest and beleaguered religious minority. The 1940s are therefore, a decade mired in conflict, political, sectarian and civilisational. The section ends with Kasturba’s death and finally, the death of Gandhi.

Abstract The birth of satyagraha as developed by Mohandas Gandhi during the Indian passive resistance campaign of 1906-7 opens this chapter. Also considered is the 1907 conflict between white miners and mine-owners, as the former sought to protect their racial privileges against the latter's cost-cutting measures. The white workers won a major victory when Louis Botha, the prime minister of the Transvaal, decreed the repatriation of the Chinese miners. Botha's premiership owed to a British decision to grant self-government to the former Boer republics. The chapter discusses the next stages of this reconciliation process, as the Transvaal and the Orange Free State joined the colonies of the Cape and Natal in advancing towards "Closer Union". The process culminated with the creation of the Union of South Africa in May 1910. White unity encouraged parallel efforts among the black population, leading to the January 1912 formation of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), the forerunner of the African National Congress.

Abstract People committed to a militant struggle against colonial or racist domination during the middle decades of the twentieth century had one clear alternative to the Marxist-Leninist path of violent revolution. It was the method of resistance pioneered by Mohandas K. Gandhi in South Africa and India that has been variously called “passive resistance,” “nonviolent direct action,” and “militant nonviolence.” During the 1940s and ‘50s in South Africa-and for a few years longer in the United States-advocates of nonviolence tried to demonstrate the superiority and efficacy of their method of protest. They argued for it, tried it out on a small scale, threatened mass action, and in a few notable instances led thousands of demonstrators in direct action against oppressive laws or policies. The term nonviolence is difficult to define with precision, but there seems little question that it refers to a range of protest or resistance activities that fall between the straightforward use of physical force and the men! expression of dissatisfaction in conventional, legally authorized ways within officially constituted bodies or channels. Boycotts, strikes, mass marches or demonstrations, and planned civil disobedience are all forms of nonviolent resistance. Nonviolent actions do not necessarily signify a nonviolent ideology. Movements that are not committed to nonviolence as a philosophy or moral imperative often make use of such methods. Furthermore, there is a natural tendency for people whose grievances are not being addressed through conventional politics and legalistic appeals to engage in nonviolent action out of frustration, or the pragmatic need to try something else, rather than out of the conviction that it represents a morally superior form of struggle. The practical function of nonviolent doctrine or ideology-as set forth by a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, Jr might be to increase the morale and motivation of nonviolent protesters and prevent or inhibit their normal tendency to escalate the conflict to the level of violent resistance when nonviolent campaigns do not bring the results that are hoped for. It would be wrong, however, to assume that only committed pacifists can lead effective nonviolent movements. It is quite possible to regard violence as self-defeating within a particular historical context-and to act consistently on that conviction-without rejecting the use of force or violence in all conceivable circumstances.

We are living in dangerous times. We can anticipate further polarisation between Islam and the West as the official line becomes more focused on achieving military solutions to what are essentially political and cultural issues. Fethullah Gülen is unusual in adding a distinctly Islamic voice to the calls for a non-violent approach to conflict resolution. The notion of peace through peace has a rich Western tradi- tion from Tolstoy to Martin Luther King. In the East, all of those active in peace movements today acknowledge a debt to Mahatma Gandhi. These writers continue to influence peace acti