Danish Hamid

ABSTRACT This interpretive and genealogical essay argues that B. R. Ambedkar deploys Dewey’s concept of “associated life” in two distinct senses: the sociological and the political. In the former, Ambedkar uses “associated life” to diagnose how caste’s graded hierarchy destroys fraternity, community, and the very conditions for meaningful participation in the public sphere, and suggests ways to transform it. In the latter, Ambedkar transforms associated life into a contractual and power-sharing framework for negotiating coexistence among unequal groups structured by caste and religious cleavages. He employs consociational means, that is, power-sharing self-determination mechanisms for communities as rights-protecting strategies to secure disadvantaged communities the capacity to co-determine the “terms of association.” I show how Ambedkar builds on these two senses to advance a realist, group-protective, and anti-majoritarian democratic theory, what may be called a normative consociationalism, in the service of Deweyan associated life. Through a close analysis of Ambedkar’s writings on franchise, the Communal Award, and the Poona Pact, the paper reconstructs his democratic thought as a historically grounded model for achieving associated life through consociational means. Ambedkar’s vision emerges as a “realism of hope”: an attempt to build the preconditions of democratic fraternity by institutionalizing power-sharing in deeply divided and unequal societies.

This paper examines the philosophical coherence of B.R. Ambedkar’s reconstruction of his (Navayāna) Buddhism in relation to John Dewey’s pragmatism. Building on Scott Stroud’s reading of Ambedkar as a Deweyan Pragmatist (2017, 2023), it argues that Dewey’s evolutionary naturalism, his conception of growth, and pragmatic redefinition of concepts provide Ambedkar with the methodological tools for a naturalistic and socially reconstructive reinterpretation of Buddhist doctrines such as anicca (impermanence), dhamma (Buddha’s teaching), nirvāṇa (enlightenment), karuna (compassion), etc. Ambedkar transforms impermanence from a metaphysics of flux into an ethics of progressive growth, and recasts dhamma as a social morality grounded in fraternity and equality rather than individual salvation from the cycle of saṃsāra (rebirths). Yet Ambedkar’s emergentist account of consciousness departs from Dewey’s organic model, inclining more toward ancient Indian materialism and resonating with early twentieth-century emergentist views. By integrating Deweyan pragmatism with a materialist ontology, Ambedkar creates a uniquely modern, emancipatory Buddhism that reconciles spiritual ideals with social democracy and places the experience of the oppressed at the center of philosophical inquiry.

This paper examines the philosophical coherence of B.R. Ambedkar’s reconstruction of his (Navayāna) Buddhism in relation to John Dewey’s pragmatism. Building on Scott Stroud’s reading of Ambedkar as a Deweyan Pragmatist (2017, 2023), it argues that Dewey’s evolutionary naturalism, his conception of growth, and pragmatic redefinition of concepts provide Ambedkar with the methodological tools for a naturalistic and socially reconstructive reinterpretation of Buddhist doctrines such as anicca (impermanence), dhamma (Buddha’s teaching), nirvāṇa (enlightenment), karuna (compassion), etc. Ambedkar transforms impermanence from a metaphysics of flux into an ethics of progressive growth, and recasts dhamma as a social morality grounded in fraternity and equality rather than individual salvation from the cycle of saṃsāra (rebirths). Yet Ambedkar’s emergentist account of consciousness departs from Dewey’s organic model, inclining more toward ancient Indian materialism and resonating with early twentieth-century emergentist views. By integrating Deweyan pragmatism with a materialist ontology, Ambedkar creates a uniquely modern, emancipatory Buddhism that reconciles spiritual ideals with social democracy and places the experience of the oppressed at the center of philosophical inquiry.