One response to ““The Indian Pragmatist””

1. Ruchira Paul

   July 31, 2023 at 3:07 pm

   Ambedkar, a towering mind among India's post-independence thinkers, could not really break the barrier between his own social status (Dalit) and those of the high caste Hindu leaders who held the reins of India's future in their hands. He resented that until the end of his life.
   Even though Gandhi and Nehru, the two most important Indian leaders, recognized Ambedkar's stupendous intellect and he was assigned the task of forming independent India's Constitution, I think his philosophy of individual rights as well as social justice did not really penetrate their consciousness at a fundamental level. Both Nehru and Gandhi were visionaries and had their own ideas of what modern India should look like. Neither really understood what Ambedkar meant by the importance of dismantling the Hindu caste system perhaps because it didn't affect them. Nehru was a westernized, technocratic, progressive liberal and a good man (much less complex than Gandhi) but he too could not shed the elitist nature of his privileged upbringing. Gandhi spoke up against caste based discrimination but didn’t want to interfere with long held Hindu beliefs. Unfortunately, India's ugly caste system shows no sign of disappearing.
   Here is a simplistic flow chart of how the visions of the three giants of newly independent India differed from each other – what democracy and freedom meant to each.

   https://www.epw.in/engage/article/gandhi-nehru-and-ambedkar-three-formulations-real

   —–
   KEYWORDS:
   Primary Blog

   Loading…

   Reply