JP Narayan, Ambedkar and the question of moral and social transformation

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the complex lineaments of a (possible) shared commitment among the socialists – however loosely the term is provisionally understood – and Ambedkar. This shared commitment is to the goal of social transformation. Close but distinct synonyms abound in their writings: reform, reconstruction, revolution. The paper builds on a number of recent interventions which have emphasised the significance of moral transformation for both the socialists (e.g. Kent-Carrasco 2017; Sherman 2018) and Ambedkar (e.g. Kadambi 2016; Telang and Kudupale 2022). After briefly plotting the nature of the “ambivalent” (to use the term used in the panel description) relationship between Ambedkar and socialism — which, in V. Geetha’s (2021) estimation, “remained a spectral presence” in Ambedkar’s “thought world” – I will investigate the meaning, subjects, and modalities of such transformation as these thinkers envisaged them. For now, I plan to engage specifically with the “theoretical” writings of JP Narayan and Ambedkar. The chief theoretical concern is the question of the relationship between self-transformation and social transformation (which Sherman [2018] has diagnosed as ill-theorised among the socialists). The aim is also historical: to add to our understanding of the complex interactions within the intellectual formation we may call modern Indian political thought of which socialism and Ambedkar form an integral part.