Resonance of Ambedkar’s Vision of Social Democracy in Bama’s Karukku : Empowerment of Dalits Through Education

Abstract

Social democracy demands existence of freedom, equality, justice and solidarity among masses. Doyens like John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx decrypted the social inequalities that deprived people of human rights. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, being the most influential figure vis-à-vis social democracy in Indian context, voiced the deprived status of Dalits. Inspired by John Dewey’s idea of social endosmosis, he concluded that education can help to dissolve the rigid boundaries of caste. He also vociferously advocated education for Dalits to erase the status quo of being a society’s underbelly and overcome the quotidian humiliations. Discourses on Dalits since then have converged to an infectious expansive debate on the concomitant subjugated status of Dalits in the Indian social structure. Many Dalits have procured agency through education and have been vociferously voicing the subjugated position of Dalits in the cultural apparatus of caste. Bama is one such educated Dalit woman who has laid bare through her writings the complexities existing in a Dalit’s life. Her autobiography invocates Dalits to empower themselves through education and transgress the rigid boundaries of caste. The article examines her vision of Dalits’ emancipation vis-à-vis Ambedkar’s notion of social democracy.