Liberal theories of justice offer strong normative frameworks; they often struggle to fully engage with the lived social hierarchies—such as those embedded in caste structures—that shape the experience of respect and recognition in a democratic society. Using the lens of Rawls’s original position, this article critically interprets the concept of respect for persons in an Indian democratic society. This work deciphers Rawls’s imagination through Ambedkar’s concepts of constitutional morality, graded inequality and the ethics of active citizenship to construct a more socially grounded understanding of social respect. Combining conceptual analysis with illustrative empirical reference as methodology, it theorizes that social respect constitutes a foundational condition of human freedom, transforming formal justice into lived equality. Engaging with contemporary Dalit scholarship and Sen’s capability approach, it conceptualizes social respect as a participatory conversion capability—a moral and social resource enabling and expressing an individual’s standing as free and equal participant in a society.
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