Abstract
Dr. Ambedkar carried out radical shift in Dalit subject where Dalit struggle was identified with self-respect. By breaking passive mode of pleas and payers he emboldened Dalit movement to take up ‘direct action’ against the oppression and exploitation of caste and untouchability. The radical turn which Ambedkar envisaged arose from his anti-caste critical stance. He employed available methods of social sciences for studying caste and untouchability and relentlessly searched for the new methodological possibilities for understanding and fighting caste. To unravel conceptual intricacies of caste and untouchability he deployed several analytical models and conceptual categories.
He juxtaposed sociological categories like class, clan, tribe with caste. The most recurrent category which he used for comparison was slavery. On one hand he unraveled the forms and processes of patriarchal/caste slavery by using slavery as epistemological category. And on the other hand he carried comparison with other forms of historical slavery to establish the uniqueness of caste slavery. This lecture will be a broad inquiry in to Dr. Ambedkar’s theorisation of caste and untouchability where he metaphorically used category of slavery and has unraveled material, cultural, social and psychological contours of caste slavery.
Bio note
Umesh Bagade is a professor of History at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad. He has research and teaching interests in the history of anti-caste movements, intellectual and social history of modern Maharashtra, historiography, studies of caste economy and history of caste gender consciousness.