Education for Liberation: Ambedkar’s Thought and Dalit Women’s Perspectives

Abstract

Despite the phenomenal impact that it has had in transforming the lives of dalits and its continuing contemporary relevance, Ambedkar’s social and educational thought remains surprisingly neglected in Indian educational discourse. Education was assigned a revolutionary role in Ambedkar’s conception of social progress and in his vision of a just and equal society. It was identified as a key instrument of liberation from oppressive structures of Hindu caste-patriarchy as well as of reconstruction of a new social order. Women were integral to this visionary egalitarianism and were consciously mobilised as political actors in the dalit liberation movement led by Ambedkar in the early decades of the twentieth century. This article explores the interface between Ambedkar’s ideologies of liberation and education, on the one hand, and dalit women’s thoughts and perspectives, on the other hand. It seeks to incorporate gender in the understanding of the historical processes of social change. It argues that an emancipatory discourse on gender was an important component of Ambedkar’s philosophy of social democratic liberalism and permitted women an authentic identification with its underlying principles with a view to achieving a full and enlightened citizenship. The article shows how the imbibing of Ambedkar’s thought and participation in his movement constituted the bedrock of dalit women’s political education. The arena of formal education was a significant focus of women’s political involvement, and they played foundational roles as political educators and educational activists. Dalit women redefined ideals of both womanhood and educational purpose in terms of counter-hegemonic reconstructions of nation, society and community, and articulated new subject positions grounded in them.