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Intro -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- photos -- List of Illustrations -- Ambedkarite Organisations in Britain since the 1960s -- Foreword: Suraj Milind Yengde -- Introduction: Santosh Dass and William Gould -- Part One -- 1. Ambedkar the Activist Research Scholar in 1920s London: William Gould -- 2. A Student in London: Ambedkar at the London School of Economics and Political Science: Sue Donnelly and Daniel Payne -- 3. Ambedkar as Lawyer: From London to India in the 1920s: Steven Gasztowicz KC -- 4. Ambedkar, London and the First Round Table Conference: Jesús F. Cháirez-Garza -- 5. Dr Ambedkar in the 1920s: The Transitional Decade: Christophe Jaffrelot -- Part Two -- Part Two: Introduction: Santosh Dass and William Gould -- 6. The Ambedkarite Movement in Britain: Santosh Dass and Arun Kumar -- 7. The Ambedkar Museum, London: Santosh Dass and Jamie Sullivan -- 8. The Campaign to Outlaw Caste Discrimination in Britain: Santosh Dass -- 9. Ambedkar in London and the African-American Community: Kevin Brown -- Conclusion: William Gould -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index -- Back cover.

My purpose in this paper is to present an ethnography of a specific untouchable conversion movement in such a way that it clarifies theoretical issues relevant to understanding this kind of phenomenon more widely. It is therefore a contribution, however small, both to research on Buddhism in Maharashtra and also to the wider issues of untouchability and politics in India. There are many cases of untouchable castes converting to Islam or Christianity, and the Mahar conversion to Buddhism may in some respects belong to that wider group. What makes it of special interest, however, is firstly that it was Buddhism that was chosen to express the social, political and soteriological aspirations of this group; and secondly that it was Dr. B.R. Ambedkar himself who directly led this movement. Throughout his political career from the 1920s up to his death in 1956 he offered the scheduled castes the most incisive alternative to Gandhian high-caste paternalism, and his social and political thinking has been inherited most directly by the Buddhists, and by the Dalit movement with which the Buddhists have had a strong association. My ethnography suggests that egalitarian rhetoric involves a reconceptualisation of the relation between ritual status and power. It may well have been true that untouchables have traditionally internalised, conformed to, and even reproduced, the value of hierarchical ritual status defined by relative purity, but increasingly status is seen by untouchables as itself an idiom of power which can be challenged politically. In this sense the Buddhists, and Ambedkar himself as their articulate spokesman, provide important insights into the changed relationship between status and power in India.

This anthology brings together Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar's works on the theme of Democracy. The editors of this volume have assembled Ambedkar's original writings including his memorandums, speeches, lectures, and talks from 1919-1956 to understand his contribution to Indian political thought and history. An introductory chapter binds the anthology together by helping put in context Ambedkar's arguments and perceptions within contemporary debates on Democracy. It captures Ambedkar's political trajectory and addresses how his idea of Democracy is deeply embedded in both the colonial and the post-colonial context. The editors argue that Democracy is not merely a procedural and substantive idea, but relational as well and in Ambedkar it is deeply caught with ideas ofstate, power, nationalism, constitutionalism, equality, and liberty, thus emphasizing its societal and as well as political dimensions. The anthology therefore helps readers think through contemporary political debates in the country within the context of a critical overview of Ambedkar's thoughts on Democracy