After several decades, the scholarship of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar is getting global attention. In the last four years, four biographies by different scholars and four scholarly books, excluding a set of five volumes on Dr. Ambedkar’s life and philosophy, have been written.
Still, scholars from different disciplines or through interdisciplinary approaches are reluctant to teach or research Ambedkar’s thoughts.
In this context, it is interesting to see the scholarship of Scott R. Stroud explore the intellectual relationship between John Dewey and B. R. Ambedkar. His last book, The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction, demonstrated the scholarship of Ambedkar and Dewey within pragmatist thought. Initially, Stroud, as a Deweyan scholar, explored the Deweyan influence on Ambedkar’s political philosophy to develop the theory of Ambedkar’s navayana pragmatism.
His latest article which appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly titled “B. R Ambedkar and the Evolution of Pragmatism in India”, responded to some of his critiques, and defended his Deweyan argument. This essay critically engages with Stroud’s article in EPW.
Cannot be reduced to pragmatism
Stroud’s scholarship attempts to interpret Ambedkar’s political philosophy in the global pragmatist tradition. Pragmatism is a progressive philosophy; and therefore, thinkers like Ambedkar become important figures in the global pluralist pragmatist philosophical tradition, Stroud argues. However, the range of scholarship on Ambedkar over the years demonstrates that he goes beyond pragmatism — the pragmatist–Deweyan interpretation articulates only one aspect of Ambedkar’s thought. Stroud provides only a Deweyan reading of Ambedkar. Making a Deweyan interpretation of Ambedkar’s multifaceted activities and intellectual engagement only gives us a partial understanding of him and reduces Ambedkar’s versatile radical philosophy.
In his recent book, Ambedkar’s Political Philosophy: A Grammer of Public Life from the Social Margin, Valerian Rodrigues explicates the wide-ranging nature of Ambedkar’s scholarship of political philosophy. Rodrigues argues that John Dewey is only one of his teachers. Therefore, merely interpreting Ambedkar’s thought through Dewey and pragmatism will give only one philosophical underpinning.
For example, one of the claims Stroud developed is that Ambedkar passionately learned from Dewey’s teachings, which remained with Ambedkar for a long time, whether it was the French Revolution or a lecture on psychology. Further, Stroud created a speculative story through a book written by Nima Adlerblum, assuming it was Ambedkar who would attend each lecture of Dewey and reproduce Dewey’s words and language. Further, Stroud focuses on Ambedkar’s western education, in which Dewey’s influence was central.
By doing so, Stroud wishes to portray Dewey as a permanent thinker who shapes Ambedkar’s philosophy. This however seems to omit the fact that Ambedkar was a versatile reader who explored different philosophies and utilised social experiences and scholarship in his activism.
Stroud rather forcefully argues that most of the concepts and terminologies Ambedkar used in his activism and intellectual formulation accorded with Dewey. But this obsession with Dewey’s impact and pragmatism on Ambedkar creates a limited kind of scholarship.
Pragmatism falls short
Stroud defines pragmatism as “flexible, adaptive and diverse”. Arguably, Ambedkar did adopt a kind of pragmatic approach engaging with the modern state in articulating democracy. Unfortunately, Stroud is not interested to interpret this through Dewey’s The Public and Its Problem — probably because he could not connect the arguments in the book with Ambedkar’s experience; the way he engages with the state with a pragmatic approach such as negotiating with Gandhi, other Indian leaders, and the later Constituent Assembly debates. Although, Stroud equates pragmatism and social democracy, it is important to see Ambedkar’s original emphasis of social democracy, and not within the pragmatist tradition.
Pragmatism is important, but inadequate to annihilate caste in a Brahmanical society. Ambedkar cited Dewey in Annihilation of Caste, but it is not a pragmatic text.
Stroud claims that Ambedkar learned the “psychology of habit and custom” from Dewey in thinking about the psychology of caste. But how could Stroud overlook the untouchability encountered by Ambedkar throughout his life — whether it is physical or psychological?
Stroud’s articulations are lofty; it also implicitly indicates that Ambedkar’s originality lies in Dewey, that Ambedkar’s scholarship and experience of caste count for little, and that his reading of several texts on caste seem secondary.
Stroud argues that Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism was a pragmatic approach. But Buddhism was a life-long philosophy that Ambedkar cultivated from his childhood; giving credit or echo to Dewey is a misinterpretation. For example, Ambedkar’s family were part of the Kabir Panth, which teaches the importance of ethics and morality. Further, Ambedkar read the Budhha Charitra in his early age which remained his sole inspiration. Ambedkar also wrote a letter to Sharada stating, that “the only person to whom I owe all my being is Gautama Buddha.”
Very importantly, Rodrigues shows in his recent book, a wide-ranging scholarship on the “epistemic location of Ambedkar” that includes Kabir’s legacy, Dewey’s influence, Phule’s presence in Ambedkar, the social and political discourse of Bombay and India, Fabian socialism, social democracy and so on. In the Columbia alumni newspaper, where Ambedkar expresses admiration for his “great professors, John Dewey, James Shotwell, Edwin Seligman, and James Hervey Robinson”, Stroud only picks John Dewey for his project of pragmatism. Similarly, one should also explore Ambedkar’s time in London (LSE). How can Ambedkar’s western education only focus on Dewey?
The Annihilation of Caste was a lifelong project for Ambedkar’s emancipatory politics and philosophy. The annihilation of caste, the declaration of renouncing Hinduism and the conversion to Buddhism were revolutionary acts, not merely accorded to pragmatism. They were part of his praxis because Ambedkar could see the limitations of the modern state and constitutional democracy.
He found Buddhism to be an ultimate path. His 22 vows discard the authority of Hindu gods and goddess — it is not a reformist act either, not even restructuring Hindu society. Too much reading of pragmatism into Ambedkar suggests an American project — the same American project yet to adequately address the structural and perpetual racial discrimination faced by people of colour. Ambedkar was equally aware of the limitations of pragmatism and the modern state and hence caste annihilation was his project of emancipation.
Jadumani Mahanand is Assistant Professor at O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat.
Published – February 19, 2025 08:30 am IST